Those keys do suck. Unfortunately I really don't think they're going away in the business world, ever. They're just too well-established. The older ones are indeed useless for anything but a flat LAN, or Terminal Services.
We have a few of them for various apps, the worst offender is a parallel port HASP key that's there to protect (drumroll please) some shitty FoxPro time & attendance app that doesn't understand UNC names and is a huge PITA to maintain because of it. Steal it? I think I'd rather pay them to learn how to code for operating systems newer than NT4.
Well, it's a little different in that case...throwing out your CD cases isn't part of the copy protection:D
Put another (probably harsher) way...you admittedly put the unlock keys for thousands of dollars of software on a thumb drive, which you lost track of, and sheets of paper, which you also lost track of. I'm not a fan of DRM, but I can't really see how this relates at all.
But I feel for you, since I do that sort of crap all the time.
I wouldn't call that trolling...if someone is willing to go without something, then they can tell me it was overpriced and I'd respect them for that. I don't believe the RIAA's statistics, and can give you lots of reasons why they're both wrong and suited to a specific agenda.
But to say that nobody buys music because there isn't any good music out there? I don't think any sane, rational person could honestly believe that. So it really does go back to the whole question of, why would somebody take something (in violation of ethics and law) while sneering at it? Usually people take things because they *really* want them, and can't see any other way. What we have going on here is a bunch of cognitive-dissonance-fueled whining. Integrity is all about standing behind what you say. To say one thing and do another...we have another word for that.
Gotta be pedantic here: virtualization and emulation are very different technologies. Strict virtualization will use the same hardware in the same way, the difference being that the VM is in a sandboxed area of memory. Using the example of classic consoles, an NES could only be virtualized on a variant of the 6502. The Genesis/MegaDrive, only on a 68000. Gaining hardware independence comes at the cost of recreating those architectures in code, and naturally there's a speed hit as well.
Whoa. Hold on. Compulsory licensing for covering a song is not the same as compulsory licensing for radio play. There are different terms, as they deal with different rights. Complete red herring.
When AllofMP3 sold music to US customers, they were supposed to follow US law, because they were doing business in the US. If you don't live in Russia, then the point of sale cannot possibly be in Russia. And more importantly, the Russian radio licensing doesn't apply to you. US copyright code does.
I liked AllofMP3 as well, but I'm going to call it what it was: me being stupid & lazy enough to pay for music that I hadn't acquired legally.
Hmm...I've never had the extensions go back, but then I usually don't have both installed on the same machine.
I try to use Foxit where I can get away with it, but occasionally you get the PDFs that only Adobe Reader can handle. OSX Preview is great but I haven't yet tested it on PDFs containing Javascript & the like. Anyway I'd be more inclined to blame the association reverts on Adobe Reader.
Actually, there are probably more alternatives in Windows for these programs than there are in Linux. Foxit Reader, QT Alternative, Real Alternative, etc. iTunes is not the only program that can sync with an iPod. I dunno about Windows iTunes replacements other than "they exist". And Amarok can sync iPods, though I don't know how the support for brand new models is.
Aside: Preview on OSX is great. Much better than Adobe reader. Quick as hell, documents even look a little sharper.
As for the rest: VMWare needs a restart when it rains. I can't blame Windows or Linux for that. Yahoo! at your company is not something to complain about, unless you bought the machine.
"To some extent"? No, we are talking about unauthorized code here, so running with least privileges is the *entire* solution. There's not much that can be done to help what's between the chair and keyboard, but Windows is botnet fuel because it gets run as administrator, not because it's popular. There's plenty of internet-connected devices out there that don't run Windows, and, last time I checked, cell phones & game consoles aren't usually used to send spam.
Insightful? Unfortunately I think this just a case of reader bias. Slashdot is not where you want to be posting articles about historical *anything*. Not since it was sacked by the high schoolers & wannabes (who failed history 'cause they were doing their math homework, of course).
In case no one actually gets it, still: sometimes things have value that don't reside in RAM. Things like culture, and heritage. You can't get those on a torrent, you need to preserve them. Let the "free market" rules apply to actual markets. People are saying, "well, they don't make enough to keep the museum running, so probably it doesn't matter anyway."
I guess you're right, it doesn't matter. But hey, let's put a mall there, right? Cause we're always a few short of those things. NOT EVERYTHING THAT HAS VALUE IS EASILY PRICED.
Usually there's more than one court date, even for smaller stuff, at which point the next date is set. They might explain the charges to you, then have you come back after you've had time to hook up with a lawyer, etc. I doubt they had it all planned out on the injunction papers.
But even if he didn't get something in the mail, if someone told him in person that he had to be back on a certain date, and that person remembers it, and that person is a judge, then he's gonna have a problem with that excuse.
But really, who here believes that line anyway? He's just going to keep running. As long as what he's doing isn't criminal, then the worst they can do is take his money, and what does he care? He steals it. He'll steal more.
They need to slap him with contempt of court, and lock him up (sans computer priveleges of course).
Justice shouldn't be about "sides". But I agree with you that the damages are worse than what people would probably estimate at first. For instance, they were breaking into people's accounts and impersonating them, that's gotta be worth something (not that those people were part of the suit, but it does hurt MySpace's brand somewhat).
(a) people who are dual-booting OSX on PC hardware probably have a partition set aside for linux as well. They're doing it for the nerd-factor above all else. (b) the majority of people doing this are not going out and buying a copy of Leopard in order to stay legit. So they're not looking at it from a cost perspective or even a "merits of open source" perspective. They're just trying it out and having some fun.
Would I deploy a hacked OS in a place of business? Hell no. Would I even feel comfortable doing it for a friend? Again, no way. I'd only get blamed when it inevitably broke. So I think this is just a case of people looking for something to do.
IIRC, Apple did have an official clone program, and it very nearly drove them out of business.
Of course they could always go back to the licensing program, which might provide a higher volume of sales, but at lower margins. But why bother? What they're doing now is working, and they're much healthier now as a company than when the PowerPCs were cutting into their hardware sales. I don't mean to say that ending the clone program saved them, but all of their past attempts to be more like MS got them into deeper and deeper trouble.
The problem is that while the benefits are mostly localized, the "costs" affect all of us. I'm not going to lay the blame on the shipping companies, but if people are trying to come up with a solution then let's go with that instead of trying to "adapt" the consequences of our own stupidity.
I don't know about that specific case, but generally introducing predators isn't done any more because it's kind of like using water to put out a grease fire. Actually it's probably more like using more grease to put out a grease fire...
While a voice line requires more live bandwidth, it's also much more forgiving when it comes to dropping a packet. An SMS has to get there intact. And it has to ride on there on a network that's designed for throughput rather than accuracy or speed. I don't think it impacts the main point a lot, that cellular companies have a price-gouging fetish, but I think it needs to pointed out.
And I'll bet that many of them have better links upstream than broadband...while OP implies that broadband=fast, it's more like broadband="link that shares a physical line with an existing utility". I'm sure the military has plenty of their own real copper lines they could be using.
Who's to say that they won't be way more likely to hand this out as a sentence than something like community service? Once the public is OK with it, and it seems harmless enough, they'll probably be passing the trackers out like candy.
I'm not saying I haven't downloaded music, but it's not a catch-22. If you think it's overpriced, you always have the option not to buy it. Nobody put a gun to your head and said "hop on that torrent". Maybe if it was bread to feed your starving child I'd say, OK, rationalize away. But for pop music? And manga? You can't possibly be trying to argue that it's ethical in this case.
Not trying to sound like a shill but...People who don't know any better need those messages there so that they don't inadvertently trash the OS. If you are smart/brave enough to blow past them, then you weren't the intended recipient anyway.
Also, while there's quite a lot of the darker regions of Windows are undocumented, the KB is huge, and growing all the time. It's rare that I'll have to dig much farther than Microsoft.com to find the answer to a problem, even something very complicated.
No, the problem is the *registry*. It's what, five files? It stores the configuration for all of the OS and 90% of the applications, plus drivers, network stacks, shared library locations...it's like having all your (millions of) eggs in a spiky basket. Regular users need to be warned against screwing with it. Not because the users shouldn't have control over their own system, but because Microsoft has coded themselves into a corner.
I feel your pain, but I think you should re-image the beast sooner than later...I did about 25 SP3 installs on Wednesday, some interactive, some through WSUS, on lots of different hardware setups. None had any problems.
I've used system restore a few times but something about it makes me a little skittish.
Unfortunately it looks like they changed the normal activation setup to now require Genuine Advantage. We have our licenses in order, but I am so sick of them sneaking that in (like with WMP 11).
For me, starting from scratch with a fresh Windows installation makes the most sense right after a new service pack comes out (like right now). It's a new baseline. You slipstream or install a single service pack, rather than hundreds of updates. May as well just go the safer route for now.
Not all media is entertainment-only stuff produced on Sunset Blvd for teenagers to steal. This is about culture and the free interchange of ideas. Governments fear what they don't understand. When banning Beatles records in the USSR, Kruschev said "It's just a small step from saxophones to switchblades."
Ironically, he was probably right to do it, since the dissemination of Western culture did a lot to weaken the Party's influence on the minds of Soviet youth.
If we extend the discussion to patents, then we see real dollars-and-cents effects on jobs and entire industries. Those things are worth discussing, and they're worth voting over. But you won't see it on CNN...the major outlets have a vested interest in talking about anything *except* IP reform.
I've dealt with this with smaller software companies as well. Logically, it shouldn't happen.
At least Microsoft is semi-lenient in that you can just call and press a phone key that "yes I did change my motherboard". But I've had companies basically say, your loss, pay up. Just one of the benefits of proprietary code.
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Those keys do suck. Unfortunately I really don't think they're going away in the business world, ever. They're just too well-established. The older ones are indeed useless for anything but a flat LAN, or Terminal Services.
We have a few of them for various apps, the worst offender is a parallel port HASP key that's there to protect (drumroll please) some shitty FoxPro time & attendance app that doesn't understand UNC names and is a huge PITA to maintain because of it. Steal it? I think I'd rather pay them to learn how to code for operating systems newer than NT4.
Well, it's a little different in that case...throwing out your CD cases isn't part of the copy protection :D
Put another (probably harsher) way...you admittedly put the unlock keys for thousands of dollars of software on a thumb drive, which you lost track of, and sheets of paper, which you also lost track of. I'm not a fan of DRM, but I can't really see how this relates at all.
But I feel for you, since I do that sort of crap all the time.
I wouldn't call that trolling...if someone is willing to go without something, then they can tell me it was overpriced and I'd respect them for that. I don't believe the RIAA's statistics, and can give you lots of reasons why they're both wrong and suited to a specific agenda.
But to say that nobody buys music because there isn't any good music out there? I don't think any sane, rational person could honestly believe that. So it really does go back to the whole question of, why would somebody take something (in violation of ethics and law) while sneering at it? Usually people take things because they *really* want them, and can't see any other way. What we have going on here is a bunch of cognitive-dissonance-fueled whining. Integrity is all about standing behind what you say. To say one thing and do another...we have another word for that.
Gotta be pedantic here: virtualization and emulation are very different technologies. Strict virtualization will use the same hardware in the same way, the difference being that the VM is in a sandboxed area of memory. Using the example of classic consoles, an NES could only be virtualized on a variant of the 6502. The Genesis/MegaDrive, only on a 68000. Gaining hardware independence comes at the cost of recreating those architectures in code, and naturally there's a speed hit as well.
Whoa. Hold on. Compulsory licensing for covering a song is not the same as compulsory licensing for radio play. There are different terms, as they deal with different rights. Complete red herring.
When AllofMP3 sold music to US customers, they were supposed to follow US law, because they were doing business in the US. If you don't live in Russia, then the point of sale cannot possibly be in Russia. And more importantly, the Russian radio licensing doesn't apply to you. US copyright code does.
I liked AllofMP3 as well, but I'm going to call it what it was: me being stupid & lazy enough to pay for music that I hadn't acquired legally.
Hmm...I've never had the extensions go back, but then I usually don't have both installed on the same machine.
I try to use Foxit where I can get away with it, but occasionally you get the PDFs that only Adobe Reader can handle. OSX Preview is great but I haven't yet tested it on PDFs containing Javascript & the like. Anyway I'd be more inclined to blame the association reverts on Adobe Reader.
Actually, there are probably more alternatives in Windows for these programs than there are in Linux. Foxit Reader, QT Alternative, Real Alternative, etc. iTunes is not the only program that can sync with an iPod. I dunno about Windows iTunes replacements other than "they exist". And Amarok can sync iPods, though I don't know how the support for brand new models is.
Aside: Preview on OSX is great. Much better than Adobe reader. Quick as hell, documents even look a little sharper.
As for the rest: VMWare needs a restart when it rains. I can't blame Windows or Linux for that. Yahoo! at your company is not something to complain about, unless you bought the machine.
"To some extent"? No, we are talking about unauthorized code here, so running with least privileges is the *entire* solution. There's not much that can be done to help what's between the chair and keyboard, but Windows is botnet fuel because it gets run as administrator, not because it's popular. There's plenty of internet-connected devices out there that don't run Windows, and, last time I checked, cell phones & game consoles aren't usually used to send spam.
Insightful? Unfortunately I think this just a case of reader bias. Slashdot is not where you want to be posting articles about historical *anything*. Not since it was sacked by the high schoolers & wannabes (who failed history 'cause they were doing their math homework, of course).
In case no one actually gets it, still: sometimes things have value that don't reside in RAM. Things like culture, and heritage. You can't get those on a torrent, you need to preserve them. Let the "free market" rules apply to actual markets. People are saying, "well, they don't make enough to keep the museum running, so probably it doesn't matter anyway."
I guess you're right, it doesn't matter. But hey, let's put a mall there, right? Cause we're always a few short of those things. NOT EVERYTHING THAT HAS VALUE IS EASILY PRICED.
Usually there's more than one court date, even for smaller stuff, at which point the next date is set. They might explain the charges to you, then have you come back after you've had time to hook up with a lawyer, etc. I doubt they had it all planned out on the injunction papers.
But even if he didn't get something in the mail, if someone told him in person that he had to be back on a certain date, and that person remembers it, and that person is a judge, then he's gonna have a problem with that excuse.
But really, who here believes that line anyway? He's just going to keep running. As long as what he's doing isn't criminal, then the worst they can do is take his money, and what does he care? He steals it. He'll steal more.
They need to slap him with contempt of court, and lock him up (sans computer priveleges of course).
Justice shouldn't be about "sides". But I agree with you that the damages are worse than what people would probably estimate at first. For instance, they were breaking into people's accounts and impersonating them, that's gotta be worth something (not that those people were part of the suit, but it does hurt MySpace's brand somewhat).
My suspicions are:
(a) people who are dual-booting OSX on PC hardware probably have a partition set aside for linux as well. They're doing it for the nerd-factor above all else.
(b) the majority of people doing this are not going out and buying a copy of Leopard in order to stay legit. So they're not looking at it from a cost perspective or even a "merits of open source" perspective. They're just trying it out and having some fun.
Would I deploy a hacked OS in a place of business? Hell no. Would I even feel comfortable doing it for a friend? Again, no way. I'd only get blamed when it inevitably broke. So I think this is just a case of people looking for something to do.
IIRC, Apple did have an official clone program, and it very nearly drove them out of business.
Of course they could always go back to the licensing program, which might provide a higher volume of sales, but at lower margins. But why bother? What they're doing now is working, and they're much healthier now as a company than when the PowerPCs were cutting into their hardware sales. I don't mean to say that ending the clone program saved them, but all of their past attempts to be more like MS got them into deeper and deeper trouble.
The problem is that while the benefits are mostly localized, the "costs" affect all of us. I'm not going to lay the blame on the shipping companies, but if people are trying to come up with a solution then let's go with that instead of trying to "adapt" the consequences of our own stupidity.
I don't know about that specific case, but generally introducing predators isn't done any more because it's kind of like using water to put out a grease fire. Actually it's probably more like using more grease to put out a grease fire...
While a voice line requires more live bandwidth, it's also much more forgiving when it comes to dropping a packet. An SMS has to get there intact. And it has to ride on there on a network that's designed for throughput rather than accuracy or speed. I don't think it impacts the main point a lot, that cellular companies have a price-gouging fetish, but I think it needs to pointed out.
And I'll bet that many of them have better links upstream than broadband...while OP implies that broadband=fast, it's more like broadband="link that shares a physical line with an existing utility". I'm sure the military has plenty of their own real copper lines they could be using.
Who's to say that they won't be way more likely to hand this out as a sentence than something like community service? Once the public is OK with it, and it seems harmless enough, they'll probably be passing the trackers out like candy.
I'm not saying I haven't downloaded music, but it's not a catch-22. If you think it's overpriced, you always have the option not to buy it. Nobody put a gun to your head and said "hop on that torrent". Maybe if it was bread to feed your starving child I'd say, OK, rationalize away. But for pop music? And manga? You can't possibly be trying to argue that it's ethical in this case.
Not trying to sound like a shill but...People who don't know any better need those messages there so that they don't inadvertently trash the OS. If you are smart/brave enough to blow past them, then you weren't the intended recipient anyway.
Also, while there's quite a lot of the darker regions of Windows are undocumented, the KB is huge, and growing all the time. It's rare that I'll have to dig much farther than Microsoft.com to find the answer to a problem, even something very complicated.
No, the problem is the *registry*. It's what, five files? It stores the configuration for all of the OS and 90% of the applications, plus drivers, network stacks, shared library locations...it's like having all your (millions of) eggs in a spiky basket. Regular users need to be warned against screwing with it. Not because the users shouldn't have control over their own system, but because Microsoft has coded themselves into a corner.
I feel your pain, but I think you should re-image the beast sooner than later...I did about 25 SP3 installs on Wednesday, some interactive, some through WSUS, on lots of different hardware setups. None had any problems.
I've used system restore a few times but something about it makes me a little skittish.
Unfortunately it looks like they changed the normal activation setup to now require Genuine Advantage. We have our licenses in order, but I am so sick of them sneaking that in (like with WMP 11).
For me, starting from scratch with a fresh Windows installation makes the most sense right after a new service pack comes out (like right now). It's a new baseline. You slipstream or install a single service pack, rather than hundreds of updates. May as well just go the safer route for now.
Not all media is entertainment-only stuff produced on Sunset Blvd for teenagers to steal. This is about culture and the free interchange of ideas. Governments fear what they don't understand. When banning Beatles records in the USSR, Kruschev said "It's just a small step from saxophones to switchblades."
Ironically, he was probably right to do it, since the dissemination of Western culture did a lot to weaken the Party's influence on the minds of Soviet youth.
If we extend the discussion to patents, then we see real dollars-and-cents effects on jobs and entire industries. Those things are worth discussing, and they're worth voting over. But you won't see it on CNN...the major outlets have a vested interest in talking about anything *except* IP reform.
Wait, those are *news* channels? We really are screwed...Thanks a lot, Nancy Grace. Thanks a lot.
I've dealt with this with smaller software companies as well. Logically, it shouldn't happen.
At least Microsoft is semi-lenient in that you can just call and press a phone key that "yes I did change my motherboard". But I've had companies basically say, your loss, pay up. Just one of the benefits of proprietary code.