Assume IPv6 is "mainstream" now. Every IP enabled device created in the last four years has supported it. All major OS manufacturers support it. All routers and associated devices on the public Internet support it. Assume that every consumer-grade IP(v4 or v6) enabled device has a "friendly name" that can be queried programatically. Assume that every home router sold for the past four years provided the following things: 1) A "web interface" for managing computers attached to the router. (Where "attached" means "has acquired DHCP lease or has been manually configured to communicate on the LAN".) 2) A default firewall policy that worked out to: "only accept inbound connections that are related to an already established outbound session". 3) A method to select a computer by its "friendly name" and allow inbound connections that are unrelated to an established outbound session. [1]
Given that situation, I'd like to ask you a question. How is this any less secure than hiding your live servers behind a NAT?
Additionally, if we disregard all that stuff about IPv6, and only assume that IP enabled devices have a "Friendly Name" [2] do you feel that we currently have the technical prowess to produce the router described above?
Looking forward to your reply, Simon
[1] You could make it a Wizard interface that asks you questions like "Is this a web server? Are you hosting $VIDEO_GAME?" Add in an advanced option that skips the wizard and permits you to specify ports or port ranges. [2] All Windows PCs that I've run into have a hostname that would function as this "Friendly name".
Actually, I'm a lazy bastard. I'm an hourly employee. If I worked full time, I'd make $33K annually (USD). Due to the aforementioned laziness, I earn ~$20K annually.
Guess what? I feed, clothe, and house myself. I have money for eating out. I have money for new harddrives and small technological toys. [1] Hell, I'm even going to have money to go back to night school in January.
"Making it" is not about being cunning or resourceful. It's about having the financial discipline to live within your means.
[1] Have you *seen* some of these 16G flash drives? I remember when 20MB of HDD (on an ISA board, no less! [2]) cost hundreds of dollars! [2] Tandy 1000 TL, represent!
At home, I'm happy to use the latest in Linux Desktop technology to Get Shit Done; and the latest in Windows Server technology to Play Video Games. I'm pretty happy with the situation that Microsoft has helped to create in my household. Don't get me wrong, I know that MSFT has done (still does?) numerous things that hurt computing but are good in the short term for business. But, might some of this lag in computer software be due to incompetent or poorly trained programmers? Hell, I'm employed as a programmer now, and I'm *extremely* incompetent.
However, I'm currently involved in porting a MASSIVE wad of Windows code to Linux. The number of single-character code changes required to build that code under Linux are astounding. : /
The word "assignment" does not appear in that text. Searches for "assign" lead me to links about ICANN and an abbreviated account of the VeriSign.COM hijacking debacle. Are you trying to say that DNS registrars don't currently communicate to their registrants over IPv6? Or is it possible that you are using the word "assignment" incorrectly?
I swear to fucking christ... how do you people not know that a device can have simultaneous, concurrent IPv6 *and* IPv4 connections? There's no "switch" phase involved... the protocols can co-exist! Even on the same wire! (Crazy! I know!)
Tech shouldn't be about "gee, everybody's using it." How about some hard, technical facts?
Agreed.
For instance, you can count on general ABI breakage on Linux.
*Whose* ABI?
That's not a system you can trust for the long haul. You can't trust your applications will remain compatible.
I can build (and run) *ancient* programs on my Gentoo Linux machine. If I can do it, your application vendor can too. If your application vendor has gone tits up, and you *still* don't have the source code for $MISSION_CRITICAL_APP... well, boy, you done screwed up.
Hell. DNSSEC is useless w/out DNSSEC aware components throughout the chain. So, this is *not* for you and your Windows machine, this is for: 1) yet another "barrel o' money" govt. contract. 2) those select individuals served by the IT staff that are paid from said contract.
If there's no physical copy, then what is there to borrow? I'm kinda confused about this. Wouldn't friend 1 be letting friend 2 make a *copy* of his game?
WRT paying money for "pirated" goods: You're never gonna be able to account for people who are insane or extremely unreasonable, eg. folks who wanna hurt Interplay by buying *all* of Interplay's games through shady back-alley warez dealers.;) IMO, a reasonable argument for "stealing" software is a legitimate economic one... you don't have the money to pay for it (or you're getting a free "evaluation copy" and will "upgrade" to a "real copy" if the software meets your needs). If you pay a dude on the street anything near retail for "pirated" software, then this economic argument cannot be considered. Does that make sense?
So sometimes you need to make a judgment call based on the demo. It's far better than basing your decision on a video at Amazon or the game designer web site.
Hmm. You have a point. I don't think that it's universally valid, but it's certainly not a *bad* one. A question: Might we end up with *better* games if folks pulled down full versions of games from P2P, and purchased only the ones that they actually play? This way, noone wastes their money on stuff that they don't want, and the distribution costs of the "evaluation copies" are covered by someone other than the publisher.
So, we've made some advances.:)
Pardon? I'm not sure what you're saying. You do know that shareware demos have been around for decades, right?
Aye. Rentals are a *very* good thing, and a well established means of trying console video games. (I'm not sure if they make sense economically... It's been a decade since I've rented a video game!) 'Twould be nice if Steam (and other digital distributors) could cook up a deal with software publishers to use their effective DRM to do online rentals!
So, in that vein, do you know of a place (meat or cyberspace) that rents PC video games?
Well. This guy was *selling* copies of the games in question. He is a real pirate... ARR!
Ethical people may snag an "evaluation copy" from TPB for just that purpose. Ethical people *will* purchase a copy if it evaluates favourably. It's those damn unethical folks that are making this hard for the rest of us!
Eh. Frequently not. I've run into demos that take their gameplay/setting from the *best* part of the game... so it's all downhill when you go to purchase the game.
The best comparison is like 2 people having a PC, and one borrows the game from the friend. No sale is necessarily made, and no copy is truly "distributed".... However, when it comes to software, there is only one copy. After that is made copies onto other things, technically there is nothing more to be stolen.
A couple of questions for ya: 1) When friend 2 borrows from friend 1, what is he borrowing? 2) After friend 2 borrows from friend 1, can friend 1 still play his game? Why or why not? I don't think that you've though this "only one copy" thing through very well. More questions: 3) What exactly is in those boxes on the shelves of video game stores? 4) If your answer included the word "CD" or "DVD", then where do CD's or DVD's come from? Along those lines, it's perfectly okay to steal a battleship. After all, all the data required to reproduce it is on a computer somewhere... all they need to do "burn the battleship to a DVD", right?
Putting hyperbole aside for a moment... There's little doubt in my mind that most of the AAAA titles make back far more than their R+D and production costs through sales. And no, "stealing" software is generally not equivalent to stealing another good, as the costs to generate another copy of the software are almost always marginal. The internet is a copy machine. See here for someone who doesn't understand that: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/20/bill-oreilly-on-sara.html
"Pirating" is always a sticky topic. "Common sense" says that ethical people will only "pirate" for as long as they have little to no interest in or ability to purchase the software. It's the unethical bastards out there who are ruining it for us.;) And, naturally, if you have someone out there who's *selling* "pirated" copies, it's really easy to argue that each copy sold is a lost sale, as folks are now paying money for the software!
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a hypothetical situation for ya:
Assume IPv6 is "mainstream" now. Every IP enabled device created in the last four years has supported it. All major OS manufacturers support it. All routers and associated devices on the public Internet support it.
Assume that every consumer-grade IP(v4 or v6) enabled device has a "friendly name" that can be queried programatically.
Assume that every home router sold for the past four years provided the following things:
1) A "web interface" for managing computers attached to the router. (Where "attached" means "has acquired DHCP lease or has been manually configured to communicate on the LAN".)
2) A default firewall policy that worked out to: "only accept inbound connections that are related to an already established outbound session".
3) A method to select a computer by its "friendly name" and allow inbound connections that are unrelated to an established outbound session. [1]
Given that situation, I'd like to ask you a question.
How is this any less secure than hiding your live servers behind a NAT?
Additionally, if we disregard all that stuff about IPv6, and only assume that IP enabled devices have a "Friendly Name" [2] do you feel that we currently have the technical prowess to produce the router described above?
Looking forward to your reply,
Simon
[1] You could make it a Wizard interface that asks you questions like "Is this a web server? Are you hosting $VIDEO_GAME?" Add in an advanced option that skips the wizard and permits you to specify ports or port ranges.
[2] All Windows PCs that I've run into have a hostname that would function as this "Friendly name".
Easy.
The DNS server will!
Do this:
$ ping6 ipv6.google.com
OR:
C:\Windows> ping ipv6.google.com
IOW: Please stop trolling. You're hurting Slashdot.
Ah crap.
slap20 beat me to it.
You're looking for the Jargon File, I think.
Actually, I'm a lazy bastard. I'm an hourly employee. If I worked full time, I'd make $33K annually (USD). Due to the aforementioned laziness, I earn ~$20K annually.
Guess what?
I feed, clothe, and house myself. I have money for eating out. I have money for new harddrives and small technological toys. [1] Hell, I'm even going to have money to go back to night school in January.
"Making it" is not about being cunning or resourceful. It's about having the financial discipline to live within your means.
[1] Have you *seen* some of these 16G flash drives? I remember when 20MB of HDD (on an ISA board, no less! [2]) cost hundreds of dollars!
[2] Tandy 1000 TL, represent!
Dogg. Please use the "footnote" [1] style of linking as demonstrated in this post. It greatly improves the flow and readability of your words.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footnotes
Hooray! I get to self-link!
Relevant comment on general intelligence here:
http://www.metafilter.com/75387/Sarah-Palins-Poujadist-Agenda#2286250
Define community organizer, please.
This is slashdot. You can say 'ass' here.
TBH, I don't think that we've ever received an official visit from the FCC.
IDK.
At home, I'm happy to use the latest in Linux Desktop technology to Get Shit Done; and the latest in Windows Server technology to Play Video Games.
I'm pretty happy with the situation that Microsoft has helped to create in my household.
Don't get me wrong, I know that MSFT has done (still does?) numerous things that hurt computing but are good in the short term for business. But, might some of this lag in computer software be due to incompetent or poorly trained programmers? Hell, I'm employed as a programmer now, and I'm *extremely* incompetent.
Your generalization is a bit over-broad.
However, I'm currently involved in porting a MASSIVE wad of Windows code to Linux. The number of single-character code changes required to build that code under Linux are astounding. : /
If your meaning was clear, then I would not be asking for clarification.
Are *you* interested in trolling, or communication?
The word "assignment" does not appear in that text. Searches for "assign" lead me to links about ICANN and an abbreviated account of the VeriSign .COM hijacking debacle.
Are you trying to say that DNS registrars don't currently communicate to their registrants over IPv6? Or is it possible that you are using the word "assignment" incorrectly?
Perhaps I'm ignorant... what does "using IPv6 for name assignment?" mean?
I swear to fucking christ... how do you people not know that a device can have simultaneous, concurrent IPv6 *and* IPv4 connections? There's no "switch" phase involved... the protocols can co-exist! Even on the same wire! (Crazy! I know!)
Tech shouldn't be about "gee, everybody's using it."
How about some hard, technical facts?
Agreed.
For instance, you can count on general ABI breakage on Linux.
*Whose* ABI?
That's not a system you can trust for the long haul. You can't trust your applications will remain compatible.
I can build (and run) *ancient* programs on my Gentoo Linux machine. If I can do it, your application vendor can too.
If your application vendor has gone tits up, and you *still* don't have the source code for $MISSION_CRITICAL_APP... well, boy, you done screwed up.
Let me add some more: I can't, for the life of me, imagine Linux running on Computed Tomography scanners.
Why?
Hell.
DNSSEC is useless w/out DNSSEC aware components throughout the chain. So, this is *not* for you and your Windows machine, this is for:
1) yet another "barrel o' money" govt. contract.
2) those select individuals served by the IT staff that are paid from said contract.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Mmm.
If there's no physical copy, then what is there to borrow? I'm kinda confused about this. Wouldn't friend 1 be letting friend 2 make a *copy* of his game?
WRT paying money for "pirated" goods: ;)
You're never gonna be able to account for people who are insane or extremely unreasonable, eg. folks who wanna hurt Interplay by buying *all* of Interplay's games through shady back-alley warez dealers.
IMO, a reasonable argument for "stealing" software is a legitimate economic one... you don't have the money to pay for it (or you're getting a free "evaluation copy" and will "upgrade" to a "real copy" if the software meets your needs). If you pay a dude on the street anything near retail for "pirated" software, then this economic argument cannot be considered.
Does that make sense?
So sometimes you need to make a judgment call based on the demo. It's far better than basing your decision on a video at Amazon or the game designer web site.
Hmm. You have a point. I don't think that it's universally valid, but it's certainly not a *bad* one.
A question:
Might we end up with *better* games if folks pulled down full versions of games from P2P, and purchased only the ones that they actually play? This way, noone wastes their money on stuff that they don't want, and the distribution costs of the "evaluation copies" are covered by someone other than the publisher.
So, we've made some advances. :)
Pardon? I'm not sure what you're saying.
You do know that shareware demos have been around for decades, right?
Aye. Rentals are a *very* good thing, and a well established means of trying console video games. (I'm not sure if they make sense economically... It's been a decade since I've rented a video game!) 'Twould be nice if Steam (and other digital distributors) could cook up a deal with software publishers to use their effective DRM to do online rentals!
So, in that vein, do you know of a place (meat or cyberspace) that rents PC video games?
Well.
This guy was *selling* copies of the games in question. He is a real pirate... ARR!
Ethical people may snag an "evaluation copy" from TPB for just that purpose. Ethical people *will* purchase a copy if it evaluates favourably. It's those damn unethical folks that are making this hard for the rest of us!
Eh.
Frequently not. I've run into demos that take their gameplay/setting from the *best* part of the game... so it's all downhill when you go to purchase the game.
The best comparison is like 2 people having a PC, and one borrows the game from the friend. No sale is necessarily made, and no copy is truly "distributed".... However, when it comes to software, there is only one copy. After that is made copies onto other things, technically there is nothing more to be stolen.
A couple of questions for ya:
1) When friend 2 borrows from friend 1, what is he borrowing?
2) After friend 2 borrows from friend 1, can friend 1 still play his game? Why or why not?
I don't think that you've though this "only one copy" thing through very well. More questions:
3) What exactly is in those boxes on the shelves of video game stores?
4) If your answer included the word "CD" or "DVD", then where do CD's or DVD's come from?
Along those lines, it's perfectly okay to steal a battleship. After all, all the data required to reproduce it is on a computer somewhere... all they need to do "burn the battleship to a DVD", right?
Putting hyperbole aside for a moment...
There's little doubt in my mind that most of the AAAA titles make back far more than their R+D and production costs through sales. And no, "stealing" software is generally not equivalent to stealing another good, as the costs to generate another copy of the software are almost always marginal. The internet is a copy machine. See here for someone who doesn't understand that:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/20/bill-oreilly-on-sara.html
"Pirating" is always a sticky topic. "Common sense" says that ethical people will only "pirate" for as long as they have little to no interest in or ability to purchase the software. It's the unethical bastards out there who are ruining it for us. ;)
And, naturally, if you have someone out there who's *selling* "pirated" copies, it's really easy to argue that each copy sold is a lost sale, as folks are now paying money for the software!
Feh. You don't have kids! ...unless "your child" is the nickname for the mushrooms in your parents' basement!