Because it IS flamebait, and the author displays a complete lack of understading regarding the issues. It has nothing to do with hackers chickening out, it's that they don't want SDMI to be successful. By cracking it, then telling how they did it, they just made it that much harder to fight SDMI in the future.
I usually like the Register, but this one left me scratching my head. I really don't think the author understands what is happening here at all.
I'm sorry, but that editorial is garbage. It seems the author believes that as "hackers", we HAVE to crack SDMI if we are truely against it, otherwise we are just all talk. What the author completly fails to see is that this contest is not the war, it's not even a battle. If we can't hack it, they win. If we hack it and turn in the prize money, they still win because then they can simply close the holes we found. All they are doing is learning from CSS's mistake and trying to make sure they aren't letting something really unsecure out the door.
The "real" hackers will be breaking it after the contest, when it's officially released. And they won't do it for money, they will do it for freedom.
It's funny to think that the white house has some control over or can take credit for the economy. All they did was support or veto budgets that republician controlled congress wrote and passed. Give credit where credit is due. The biggest thing Clinton did to help the economy was to support Greenspan (who the evil Regan appointed)
I don't really know why everybody continues to make fun of Gore just because of that one stupid sentence.
Let me guess, you are one of the people who had plenty of fun and jokes at Dan Quayle's expense for the same kind of thing, right? Personally, I think off all the incredibly stupid things Gore has said it's supprising that this one is what is most applied to him.
"A zebra does not change its spots." - Al Gore, attacking President George Bush in 1992.
Think about it, there is never again going to be a major advance in technology. What we see with the entertainment industry attempting to squash EVERY new media technology that comes along is just the begining. Eager for a future where we have fast efficient engines? The oil industry will NEVER let that happen.
Basically what we have in this world is for the first time a system where corporate power has become global. The current system wants to protect it's revenue stream, and if the world's technology remains static, that's fine by them.
Look at the kind of power and resources these companies have today an imagine that was the case throughout history. Every major invention in the world left significant numbers of people out in the cold with no way to make a living. If they could have, don't you think the radio industry would have liked to get the government to declare TV illegal. How about typsetters having the power to declare the printing press illegal. I'm sure Railroad industry would have loved to find a way to halt the devlopment of alternative forms of transportation.
Now those in power have the resources and a crooked/gullible enough government to do this. We have see all the major advancements in technology that we are going to. Any more would potentially threaten the revenue streams of large, influential companies, and our governments have shown recently that their top priority is to prevent that from happening.
If I write a crappy little operating system (I'm not suggesting that Linux is, just creating a situation) and I forgot to write a driver for some obscure card that happens to come with a PC sold in PA, ca I sue? See how dumb that sounds?
Come on, think! This is obviously about hardware problems, and possibly OEM software problems. Not about driver issues for every OS under the sun.
Here's another reason OSS will likely fail. By VA Linux Systems' own admission, the majority of active OSS projects in the world, right now, are being housed on SourceForge.
And?.... So the server hosting the projects goes down. Are you under the impression that the projects will die if one server on the net vanishes? Come one, pretend you've been paying attention the last few years, you know most of these peojects existed before sourceforge, and they will exist after it. So they move to a different server, big deal.
Ultimately, no one will work for free, if they know the guy next to them is doing the same work for pay.
Really, where did all tihs software I am running come from? Are you suggestion that GNU and Linux and the thousands of other open source projects don't exist? You are claiming that something will not happen that already has.
You are also making the common mistake of assuming that OSS will only survive if the companies that have jumped behind it survive. Linux and OSS have been around for years, and believe it or not, it actually grew into what it is now without VA and Redhat. There is not a single corporate entity keeping it alive, if Corel dies, then Wordperfect is gone, but if Redhat dies, so what. There are plenty of others and people will still continue to work on Redhat.
This is not traditional business, my friend, the rules do not apply. The best examples of open source software were created without ANY corporate support, so why on earth do you think the corporations that back it now are responsible for it's life?
Yes, in those days, they actually had an IBM engineer working full-time on the client site.
That still goes on, most of the larger shops have a full time IBM CE on site.
The scenerio you described is right on the mark. That happened constantly, and usually the code contributers were happy about. Remember in those days, everything was "open source". It wasn't until IBM dropped MVT for MVS and HASP for JESx that things got closed up.
My shop (PSU) was responsible for a good portion of the development in JES2, the job entry subsystem used by most s/390 shops.
The point is that 2600 were linking to the material as a specifically as a means to distribute information on how to make a device to circumvent copy protection.
Please explain what DeCSS even remotly has to do with copy protection.
What would keep politicians from simply wording legislation in a way that only a professional politician (lawyer, etc.) could understand?
This happens now. They also play on widespread misconceptions to try to pass "hot issue" laws (ie, banning plastic guns, even though there is no such thing and the closest that there is, glock 17, is easily identifible by EVERY metal detector and X ray machine.)
I wonder if the stockholders are any smarter than this guy (I'd hate to image they are any dumber). Assuming the music industry has taken in massive gains last year (they have), hopefuly the stockholders will question the sanity of anyone who wants to spend all that money fighting some college kids and their software which has YET to be proven to negativly affect their revenue stream.
Actually, with a few exceptions, I don't think anyone would really care if that happend. Go ahead, take all my GPL code and ship it binary, how on earth is that hurting me? Don't get me wrong, we'd be yelling, we'd be threatening to sue, but nothing would really come of it.
In 1996, only 54% of registered US citizens voted for the presidential elections.
And you want, less people to vote ?
No, I'd like more people to get involved, but keep in mind that all options expressed from me are hypothetical, relying on the ficticious basis that I am living in a country that ISN'T completly apathetic.
I'm fully aware my idea isn't practical.
I don't have an answer to the problem, I was simply spouting out random thoughts.
While your points are correct, the road to a day when a vote for a third party is not wasted will be long.
Let's face the simple fact, those who voted for Ross in '92 (by and large) would have voted for Bush if he was not there. Given the margins, it's pretty safe to say that had Ross not run, Bush would have been elected.
This year, I would say the same about Nadar. I don't know any Republicians who are planning to vote for him, but plently of my Democrat friends are split and because of this, may cause Bush to win (which I consider truely ironic)
So, maybe someday what you say will be true, I look forward to it, but right now, I just don't believe that is the case.
Democracy doesn't mean jack if EVERYONE doesn't have access to the vote
Agreed, however we are not a democracy. The popular vote has nothing to do with who is actually elected president.
As for apathetic voters having less a voice? It would be nice if they did. If you are not following issues and actually paying attention to politics, then your uneducated vote is simply throwing noise into the mix.
If there were some way to limit voting based on competance (IE, do you understand the candidates positions in issues) that would be ideal (in my mind) since it is not discriminating against anything except lazyless.
It sort of goes along with something I said in a post a few days ago, about voting signal:noise.
The signal, being the people who activly participate in civic politics and research voting records to determine which candidate to support, is being drowned out by the noise, being the people who absently pull a party lever without researching anything or based off of a single issue.
When people activly participated, the party system worked well, now that people vote for a party like a reflex action without thinking, it doesn't.
I wonder if the Mozilla people are taking note of the vocal (at least on slashdot) outcry for a SMALL, STANDARDS COMPLIANT, SIMPLE, and FAST browser?
I don't know who wants bundled applications, every feature you can think of, and huge executible size, but appearently someone does, cause that is what they are delivering.
At least there are projects out now to fix this, and since Mozilla is open source, it IS possible to strip it down when it reaches final form.
(disclaimer: I've used every mozilla release since R4, unless you are testing with a quad-xeon, don't flame me telling me it's fast and not bloated)
Do they let you use internet E-mail? I only ask because I don't imagine it's possible to route mail anywhere without hitting sendmail at some point along the line.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Because it IS flamebait, and the author displays a complete lack of understading regarding the issues. It has nothing to do with hackers chickening out, it's that they don't want SDMI to be successful. By cracking it, then telling how they did it, they just made it that much harder to fight SDMI in the future.
I usually like the Register, but this one left me scratching my head. I really don't think the author understands what is happening here at all.
Finkployd
I'm sorry, but that editorial is garbage. It seems the author believes that as "hackers", we HAVE to crack SDMI if we are truely against it, otherwise we are just all talk. What the author completly fails to see is that this contest is not the war, it's not even a battle. If we can't hack it, they win. If we hack it and turn in the prize money, they still win because then they can simply close the holes we found. All they are doing is learning from CSS's mistake and trying to make sure they aren't letting something really unsecure out the door.
The "real" hackers will be breaking it after the contest, when it's officially released. And they won't do it for money, they will do it for freedom.
Finkployd
It's funny to think that the white house has some control over or can take credit for the economy. All they did was support or veto budgets that republician controlled congress wrote and passed. Give credit where credit is due. The biggest thing Clinton did to help the economy was to support Greenspan (who the evil Regan appointed)
Finkployd
I don't really know why everybody continues to make fun of Gore just because of that one stupid sentence.
Let me guess, you are one of the people who had plenty of fun and jokes at Dan Quayle's expense for the same kind of thing, right? Personally, I think off all the incredibly stupid things Gore has said it's supprising that this one is what is most applied to him.
"A zebra does not change its spots." - Al Gore, attacking President George Bush in 1992.
Finkployd
Think about it, there is never again going to be a major advance in technology. What we see with the entertainment industry attempting to squash EVERY new media technology that comes along is just the begining. Eager for a future where we have fast efficient engines? The oil industry will NEVER let that happen.
Basically what we have in this world is for the first time a system where corporate power has become global. The current system wants to protect it's revenue stream, and if the world's technology remains static, that's fine by them.
Look at the kind of power and resources these companies have today an imagine that was the case throughout history. Every major invention in the world left significant numbers of people out in the cold with no way to make a living. If they could have, don't you think the radio industry would have liked to get the government to declare TV illegal. How about typsetters having the power to declare the printing press illegal. I'm sure Railroad industry would have loved to find a way to halt the devlopment of alternative forms of transportation.
Now those in power have the resources and a crooked/gullible enough government to do this. We have see all the major advancements in technology that we are going to. Any more would potentially threaten the revenue streams of large, influential companies, and our governments have shown recently that their top priority is to prevent that from happening.
Finkployd
ICQ is completly owned by AOL.
*Insert sound of bubble bursting*
Sorry
Finkployd
I hope some judge has the common sense to rule that pointing to a crime isn't illegal.
I understand what you are saying, but this comes across admitting that DeCSS is a crime, which is certainly should not be.
Finkployd
I disagree, I was humming the Scoobie Doo theme while writing it.
Finkployd
If I write a crappy little operating system (I'm not suggesting that Linux is, just creating a situation) and I forgot to write a driver for some obscure card that happens to come with a PC sold in PA, ca I sue? See how dumb that sounds?
Come on, think! This is obviously about hardware problems, and possibly OEM software problems. Not about driver issues for every OS under the sun.
Finkployd
Here's another reason OSS will likely fail. By VA Linux Systems' own admission, the majority of active OSS projects in the world, right now, are being housed on SourceForge.
And?.... So the server hosting the projects goes down. Are you under the impression that the projects will die if one server on the net vanishes? Come one, pretend you've been paying attention the last few years, you know most of these peojects existed before sourceforge, and they will exist after it. So they move to a different server, big deal.
Ultimately, no one will work for free, if they know the guy next to them is doing the same work for pay.
Really, where did all tihs software I am running come from? Are you suggestion that GNU and Linux and the thousands of other open source projects don't exist? You are claiming that something will not happen that already has.
You are also making the common mistake of assuming that OSS will only survive if the companies that have jumped behind it survive. Linux and OSS have been around for years, and believe it or not, it actually grew into what it is now without VA and Redhat. There is not a single corporate entity keeping it alive, if Corel dies, then Wordperfect is gone, but if Redhat dies, so what. There are plenty of others and people will still continue to work on Redhat.
This is not traditional business, my friend, the rules do not apply. The best examples of open source software were created without ANY corporate support, so why on earth do you think the corporations that back it now are responsible for it's life?
Finkployd
MFT, yeah I DID know that was before MVT, I just forgot. Oh well, hey, It was all before I was born, I'm still trying to learn the history :)
I didn't know DOS was first though, interesting.
Finkployd
Actually, if you are interested, MVT can be downloaded and run via the s/360 emulator, Hercules.
finkployd
then i should imagine that something such as OS/390 & JCL would be one of the first (Though there may be earlier still).
OS/390 is a pretty new name for MVS (multiple variable storage) and JCL is simply a Job Control Language, that's right, it's a language.
The earliest s/360 operating system I'm aware of is MVT (open source, IIRC), the job entry system was called HASP.
Finkployd
Yes, in those days, they actually had an IBM engineer working full-time on the client site.
That still goes on, most of the larger shops have a full time IBM CE on site.
The scenerio you described is right on the mark. That happened constantly, and usually the code contributers were happy about. Remember in those days, everything was "open source". It wasn't until IBM dropped MVT for MVS and HASP for JESx that things got closed up.
My shop (PSU) was responsible for a good portion of the development in JES2, the job entry subsystem used by most s/390 shops.
Finkployd
The point is that 2600 were linking to the material as a specifically as a means to distribute information on how to make a device to circumvent copy protection.
Please explain what DeCSS even remotly has to do with copy protection.
Finkployd
What would keep politicians from simply wording legislation in a way that only a professional politician (lawyer, etc.) could understand?
This happens now. They also play on widespread misconceptions to try to pass "hot issue" laws (ie, banning plastic guns, even though there is no such thing and the closest that there is, glock 17, is easily identifible by EVERY metal detector and X ray machine.)
Finkployd
I wonder if the stockholders are any smarter than this guy (I'd hate to image they are any dumber). Assuming the music industry has taken in massive gains last year (they have), hopefuly the stockholders will question the sanity of anyone who wants to spend all that money fighting some college kids and their software which has YET to be proven to negativly affect their revenue stream.
Finkployd
Actually, with a few exceptions, I don't think anyone would really care if that happend. Go ahead, take all my GPL code and ship it binary, how on earth is that hurting me? Don't get me wrong, we'd be yelling, we'd be threatening to sue, but nothing would really come of it.
Finkployd
In 1996, only 54% of registered US citizens voted for the presidential elections.
:)
And you want, less people to vote ?
No, I'd like more people to get involved, but keep in mind that all options expressed from me are hypothetical, relying on the ficticious basis that I am living in a country that ISN'T completly apathetic.
I'm fully aware my idea isn't practical.
I don't have an answer to the problem, I was simply spouting out random thoughts.
Sorry
Finkployd
While your points are correct, the road to a day when a vote for a third party is not wasted will be long.
Let's face the simple fact, those who voted for Ross in '92 (by and large) would have voted for Bush if he was not there. Given the margins, it's pretty safe to say that had Ross not run, Bush would have been elected.
This year, I would say the same about Nadar. I don't know any Republicians who are planning to vote for him, but plently of my Democrat friends are split and because of this, may cause Bush to win (which I consider truely ironic)
So, maybe someday what you say will be true, I look forward to it, but right now, I just don't believe that is the case.
Finkployd
Democracy doesn't mean jack if EVERYONE doesn't have access to the vote
Agreed, however we are not a democracy. The popular vote has nothing to do with who is actually elected president.
As for apathetic voters having less a voice? It would be nice if they did. If you are not following issues and actually paying attention to politics, then your uneducated vote is simply throwing noise into the mix.
If there were some way to limit voting based on competance (IE, do you understand the candidates positions in issues) that would be ideal (in my mind) since it is not discriminating against anything except lazyless.
Finkployd
Man, that was pretty insightful :)
It sort of goes along with something I said in a post a few days ago, about voting signal:noise.
The signal, being the people who activly participate in civic politics and research voting records to determine which candidate to support, is being drowned out by the noise, being the people who absently pull a party lever without researching anything or based off of a single issue.
When people activly participated, the party system worked well, now that people vote for a party like a reflex action without thinking, it doesn't.
Finkployd
I wonder if the Mozilla people are taking note of the vocal (at least on slashdot) outcry for a SMALL, STANDARDS COMPLIANT, SIMPLE, and FAST browser?
I don't know who wants bundled applications, every feature you can think of, and huge executible size, but appearently someone does, cause that is what they are delivering.
At least there are projects out now to fix this, and since Mozilla is open source, it IS possible to strip it down when it reaches final form.
(disclaimer: I've used every mozilla release since R4, unless you are testing with a quad-xeon, don't flame me telling me it's fast and not bloated)
Finkployd
No longer will it only be those who partake of LSD that can smell colors (or colours, any spelling you like)
Finkployd
Do they let you use internet E-mail? I only ask because I don't imagine it's possible to route mail anywhere without hitting sendmail at some point along the line. :)
Finkployd