Which, oddly enough, means it should be able to be READ in any CD-ROM drive, since basically every drive ever made is Redbook compatible. That's what the headphone jack in the front was for. If a CD doesn't READ in a drive, then it should not carry the CD logo.
However, as the astute have pointed out, that means nothing about being able to copy the data off the CD. But, what's to stop someone *cough*Linuxdriverdeveloper*cough* from tweaking the CD drivers to make it work? You want to call it encryption under the DMCA? I bet a lawyer could easily argue it's not true encryption, merely error introduction which the developer corrected. That should make for an interesting fight.
It's his right to burn a CD if he owns the music. The issue isn't with burning copies, it's with distributing them. However, the record companies don't want to deal with that fight, so they're taking the easy way out. By doing what they did, they unethically took away fair use rights for many people who aren't law breakers. In my opinion, that's boycott worthy.
You know, I find it interesting that in an economy that is seeing a massive downturn, especially in luxury sales, that the record companies would blame their problems on music pirating. *sigh* Next you'll have the tech companies blaming their layoffs on music pirating too. Oh, and the travel industry too.
Nothing offends me worse than people who twist stats for their own agendas. It's like saying the American public's too dumb to figure it out. Then again, has the public proven otherwise?
The majority of consumers will never know the difference. The only people the record companies are offending here are the "geeks" who play CDs in their computers. Unfortunately, we're not the largest chunk of the consumer base (right now, it's teenagers), so they really don't give a rat's butt. The record companies are of the impression that we're not worth their time, since we take all the CDs and make illegal copies of them (heavy sarcasm alert).
I for one think it's exceptionally unethical to muck with standards like this. Of course, someone will figure a way to work around it, and the files will end up out there anyway. Those files will probably get pirated more just out of spite. The best thing any of us can do is boycott any "modified" CDs like this, and tell our friends to do so as well. It's been said before, speak with your wallet. That's what I intend to do.
On the fear of being redundant, you guys at Slashdot did a spectacular job. When other sites were getting blitzed of the net by traffic, Slashdot and other tech news sites (CNET and WIRED for starters) picked up the slack and kept people informed. You also did an incredible job keeping the servers up under the crushing weight of everyone. Thanks again, guys.
So now we have developers afraid to release products because of litigation and liability? Either this is a major cop out, or we're witnessing the first death knells of our free market. I have a hard time believing things are really that bad, and I'm a bloody cynic at heart.
Now, if this type of thing becomes more commonplace, you can really kiss that whole "land of the free" thing goodbye and replace it with "land of those who can afford lawyers". That's what keeps me awake at night, folks.
The format isn't the problem
on
DivX;) Goes Legit
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
*gets out the equine cadaver bat*
It absolutely amazes me that we keep going back to blaming a format for piracy problems. It's simply foolish, really. By the laws of Internet probability, someone will come up with a compression scheme to transmit data. That scheme will naturally contain little if any copy protection scheme, because why copy protect something you want to disseminate?
The only way to truly win that war is to create a format that works better and includes a level of copy protection that is both secure and doesn't impeded normal operation. Unfortunately, this seems to be a holy grail that companies aren't able to reach yet. Encrypted CDs aren't the answer, because they don't work on PCs or some players. Neither are proprietary forms of encoding, because no one wants to spend $400 on a special player to play one lousy movie or CD.
Wish there was an easy answer to this issue, but as long as there is data, there'll always be a way to compress and send it.
Ok folks, before everyone goes ballistic about the latest way to monitor what goes on in a browser (I'm probably too late), consider this. If they really see how we ignore banner ads and slam close popup windows, is this a bad thing? Maybe the Evil Marketing People(tm) will finally realize what doesn't work with ads and quit doing them. Maybe they'll realize that more-intrusive-ad!=more-attention.
Sometimes you have to look at things for what they can do positively, not just negatively.
Just to clarify, there's a difference between this stuff and Carnivore. Carnivore is/was basically a wiretap, a way to monitor ongoing communications both incoming and outgoing. What's being discussed here is a way to organize and sift through information that is archived and already subpoenaed. Apples and oranges, my friends.
Wonder if they would be kind enough to run that against my email box and sort out all the spammers for me? Then I could take it to court to request compensation for the bandwidth consumption as well as "emotional damages" because of all the pron spam:)
To those who were criticizing the not-guilty plea and saying he is guilty, this needs to be said. Had he went ahead and pleaded guilty, there would be no legal examination of the DMCA. He would have been fined and sentenced to prison, end of story. The United States NEEDS this examination of the DMCA, if for no other reason than to bring the flaws in the law to light in an official manner. It will be up to the courts to make the decision, and in the mean time, the issues surrounding the DMCA will hopefully become more public knowledge.
I'm really saddened that Russia had to issue its advisory, but again maybe that will be a wake up call to everyone that there is something very very wrong with the way the DMCA is being enforced. One would hope that we can settle the issue internally before it becomes more of an international issue than it already is. The US preaches so much about "human rights" and begs for other countries to "do the right thing" even though their laws are written differently. It's time we practice what we preach.
Unfortunately, this is just another sign of the new "American way". People want things fast and simple. Corporations have the money and power to deliver them. What most don't realize is that the information being delivered will be biased based on the agenda of whichever corporation is delivering them. However, increasingly the public has displayed a sort of almost domestic animal mentality. They want information, and don't care to look into the motivations behind those delivering it. They assume that it must be truth, since it's published. That's the assumption that gives the corporations more control.
Everyone's got an agenda, but only the observant notice it. Too bad the observant seem to be in the minority now.
Ok, you turn off a majority of the system checks to make this possible. Nice if you plan on having a regular reboot schedule. However, if the system fails due to hardware, you're forced to go in and turn all the checks on, then reboot again just to find out what broke. Seems to violate that "seven nines" rule, doesn't it? You'd have to have a lot of faith in your system being reliable to do that.
You can create new stem call lines, they just don't qualify for federal funds. They need to be privately financed by the biotech sector.
How long do you think it will take before that happens? Most likely within our lifetimes, I'd figure. Then that corporation would have a nice little monopoly on the stem cell lines, since they could most likely be protected as property of some fashion or another (patent or intellectual or other nonsense). Thank you Mr. Bush for quietly looking out for the coporate interest again.
Wonder if Mr. Gates has thought of using some of his money that way? Can you imagine MS StemCell XP? *huge shudder*
Windows is an enabling technology which allows ordinary people to become music pirates. MS has deep pockets to sue too. I think it's about time the RIAA targets MS for complicity in facilitating ordinary people with the means to commit music piracy.
Yep, I fully agree with you there. Think the problem the RIAA has with that thought is that MS has deeper pockets than they do. MS would obliterate them legally then assimilate them. Can you imagine what the music industry would be like if MS ran it? *shudder*
Many in the music community are concerned about the continued use of CD-Rs
Hmmm...they sure make it sound like the artists are concerned. But the music community also includes the coporate interests as well. I'd being willing to bet a few karma points that their definition of "many" is actually the people in their offices and the recording companies' offices as well.
Remember kids, only believe half of what you read, and always look for the between the lines stuff.:)
I know you're saying this flippantly, but back in the day when the Web was still in its infancy, all these backbone providers saw this kind of thing coming and took measures to shield themselves from lawsuits. It's the "cowboys" out there like MP3.com and Napster (to name the most prominent 2) who didn't take legal precautions and now find themselves on the receiving end of the judicial system.
Wish I had some mod points for you, cause that was a good reply. Of course, it always struck me that these companies do things that are questionably legal, then flaunt themselves with advertising and becoming companies. Like you said, cowboys...and they should have had their castle walls built up before aggravating the RIAA barbarians:)
While we're at it, why doesn't somebody sue MCI Worldcom, Sprint, and any other backbone provider for upkeeping the Internet which allows file sharing to occur in the first place?
This kind of litigation is ridiculous. It's merely an attempt to bleed more money out a dying company, and any judge with half a brain would realize the absolute dangerous precedence this would set. Anyone who merely touches a certain technology could be sued if the tech was used for copyright infraction. "Oh, those CDR manufacturers should be sued, since they're making discs that carry pirated material. They're accessories to infringement."
Once again, I say puuhleeeze. This whole attack on "piracy" is doing nothing but making the recording industry look bad. It pushes people to find better ways to circumvent the process and causes others to completely boycott legitimate music purchases all together.
Industry, find someway to make the customer happy without ramming lawsuits and unethical CD mods down our throats. Customers, support reasonable attempts at legitimate digital music, but let your voice be heard when abuse of the law and standards occurs. Until then, a lot of good people will lose out.
What gives Microsoft and other companies like them their power isn't so much a monopoly as the fact that they take advantage of ignorance. Those of us who are somewhat knowledgable about computers can see the problems with Microsoft and their practices. However, the average Joe Blow doesn't know or care that there are better alternatives. They buy their computer and turn it on and use what they're given. They don't want to bother downloading or installing new stuff. They just want it to work.
Microsoft and AOL know this and use this to their advantage. Thus, as long as Microsoft is the defacto OS, they can use the ignorance to their advantage. The normal customer doesn't realize what they're missing, and in most cases they don't really care. The savvy ones can always find ways around MS's control, but we're not the majority of Windows users. Only when the government steps in will MS be called into check, since the populous on whole has demonstrated a particular apathy to the situation.
This whole issue with XP will demonstrate once and for all if our government really supports the people or not. If nothing is done and XP goes to market as is, it will be obvious that Congress is nothing more than pawns for the mega corporations like Microsoft and AOL Time Warner. This will be a sad day in America, for we will be witness to the beginnings of the coporate government culture so many writers have predicted.
If you try to see things from Microsoft's perspective (warped as it is), their arguments aren't without logic. They see proprietary code as the key to controlling the market, or "he who controls the code controls the market". Something like the GPL eliminates that control by keeping the code open and able to be modified. MS would no longer have the ability to come up with "trade secret" innovations that allow them to continue to dominate the market as they have in the past. Someone could always come along and improve or modify the product, and then the new non-MS version could be the dominant product.
Of course, this logic requires drinking the same Kool-Aid as the Microsoft marketing and business folks. Why make something better than the other guys when you can just make something the other guys aren't compatible with and then bundle it into every new computer that comes out? 'Cause that's the Microsoft way, and in that light GPL and other open-source licenses are very anti-Microsoft.
"The Internet is an important cultural phenomenon, but that doesn't excuse its failure to comply with basic economic laws," said Thomas Nolle, a New Jersey telecommunications consultant. "The problem is that it was devised by a bunch of hippie anarchists who didn't have a strong profit motive. But this is a business, not a government-sponsored network."
Bleh. First off the Internet is based on an idea the military came up with (ARPANet), so it wasn't devised by a bunch of "hippie anarchists". Secondly, it wasn't designed with business in mind, it was designed to propogate information. This is a grand case of a supposed expert not knowing what he's talking about.
As said before and most likely again, the issue shouldn't be changing the Internet to fit businesses, but rather changing the businesses to fit the Internet. Yes, a lot of ideas failed. That doesn't mean the Internet is useless. It simply means you have to look at what it can offer and use it for that. It's a learning process, but so many higher management types don't want to take the time to do the neccessary research. They want results, and fast, so they make the techies throw something together with a poor business model and a poor support structure. And guess who gets blamed/laid-off when the whole thing goes south?
I remember back in the days when I first started messing with computers. A virus back then was a nasty piece of work that lived on an EXE file or in the boot sector of the disk. It jumped from program to program, or disk to disk, and could wreak all sorts of havok to the unsuspecting person. They were tiny bits of code with a purpose, engineered especially for the job at hand. It didn't matter what mail program you were running. Some of the things attacked on the first read of the infected disk in the floppy drive. While a certain level of gullibility was required, it certainly took a lot less dumbness to pass a virus around (don't have updated AV software and pass an infected file on disk or over a network).
Nowadays, most of the virus attacks are merely variations of the same thing. Hide an attachement in email and let it do its damage by mailing itself to the world via a particular mail program. They even make kits for people to download to mutate these worms (I hesitate to put them in the same context as the virus of old). It takes no programming skill to make one, and requires such a high level of ignorance on the recipient's part. There's no glory in it.
"Look at me, I fooled a bunch of ignorant MS users into spreading my hacked version of ILOVEYOU with a header of Britney Spears on it"
Yeah, real cool. That's why everyone calls them "kiddies". You want real respect, make a boot virus or something like that. Something that doesn't require the user to be a total technophobe to spread. Then you might get an ooh or an ahh.
"Kindred: The Embraced" was another attempt to translate a rich role-playing universe (Vampire the Masquerade) into a live-action story. It failed hideously, mostly because the average Joe couldn't get into it and the hardcore gamers were too busy criticizing it for not being "their vision" of that particular world. Viewership dwindled, and the Kindred TV series died after only a few episodes.
I feel that the DnD movie will more than likely suffer a similar fate. The mainstream audience will see it as just another fantasy film, and unless it has something incredible going for it in the creativity department then it will be largely ignored. To add insult to injury, the gamers will probably sit there and nitpick the movie to death...saying how this isn't right and this should be better. In general, it's going to have a hard time living up to everybody's expectations.
If I were doing the movie, I would have went for a Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms. Use something more focused than trying to sum up the WHOLE game in one movie. Everyone has their own vision of AD&D, and I find it very hard to believe that this one 2-hour movie will satisfy. Of course, I'll be pleasantly surprised if it does:)
So here we have something else to take a little of the brainwork out of living. It does sound like a good idea, since I'm one of those cooking-impaired people (still can't even make french toast). However, if you subscribe to the oft-mentioned Star Trek philosophy, all this convenience is supposed to be freeing the human race up to pursue other intellectual and physical pursuits like exploration and research. So, why is it with all this we're getting more stressed and more violent every day???
Slashdot Mirror
Which, oddly enough, means it should be able to be READ in any CD-ROM drive, since basically every drive ever made is Redbook compatible. That's what the headphone jack in the front was for. If a CD doesn't READ in a drive, then it should not carry the CD logo.
However, as the astute have pointed out, that means nothing about being able to copy the data off the CD. But, what's to stop someone *cough*Linuxdriverdeveloper*cough* from tweaking the CD drivers to make it work? You want to call it encryption under the DMCA? I bet a lawyer could easily argue it's not true encryption, merely error introduction which the developer corrected. That should make for an interesting fight.
It's his right to burn a CD if he owns the music. The issue isn't with burning copies, it's with distributing them. However, the record companies don't want to deal with that fight, so they're taking the easy way out. By doing what they did, they unethically took away fair use rights for many people who aren't law breakers. In my opinion, that's boycott worthy.
You know, I find it interesting that in an economy that is seeing a massive downturn, especially in luxury sales, that the record companies would blame their problems on music pirating. *sigh* Next you'll have the tech companies blaming their layoffs on music pirating too. Oh, and the travel industry too.
Nothing offends me worse than people who twist stats for their own agendas. It's like saying the American public's too dumb to figure it out. Then again, has the public proven otherwise?
The majority of consumers will never know the difference. The only people the record companies are offending here are the "geeks" who play CDs in their computers. Unfortunately, we're not the largest chunk of the consumer base (right now, it's teenagers), so they really don't give a rat's butt. The record companies are of the impression that we're not worth their time, since we take all the CDs and make illegal copies of them (heavy sarcasm alert).
I for one think it's exceptionally unethical to muck with standards like this. Of course, someone will figure a way to work around it, and the files will end up out there anyway. Those files will probably get pirated more just out of spite. The best thing any of us can do is boycott any "modified" CDs like this, and tell our friends to do so as well. It's been said before, speak with your wallet. That's what I intend to do.
On the fear of being redundant, you guys at Slashdot did a spectacular job. When other sites were getting blitzed of the net by traffic, Slashdot and other tech news sites (CNET and WIRED for starters) picked up the slack and kept people informed. You also did an incredible job keeping the servers up under the crushing weight of everyone. Thanks again, guys.
So now we have developers afraid to release products because of litigation and liability? Either this is a major cop out, or we're witnessing the first death knells of our free market. I have a hard time believing things are really that bad, and I'm a bloody cynic at heart.
Now, if this type of thing becomes more commonplace, you can really kiss that whole "land of the free" thing goodbye and replace it with "land of those who can afford lawyers". That's what keeps me awake at night, folks.
*gets out the equine cadaver bat*
It absolutely amazes me that we keep going back to blaming a format for piracy problems. It's simply foolish, really. By the laws of Internet probability, someone will come up with a compression scheme to transmit data. That scheme will naturally contain little if any copy protection scheme, because why copy protect something you want to disseminate?
The only way to truly win that war is to create a format that works better and includes a level of copy protection that is both secure and doesn't impeded normal operation. Unfortunately, this seems to be a holy grail that companies aren't able to reach yet. Encrypted CDs aren't the answer, because they don't work on PCs or some players. Neither are proprietary forms of encoding, because no one wants to spend $400 on a special player to play one lousy movie or CD.
Wish there was an easy answer to this issue, but as long as there is data, there'll always be a way to compress and send it.
Ok folks, before everyone goes ballistic about the latest way to monitor what goes on in a browser (I'm probably too late), consider this. If they really see how we ignore banner ads and slam close popup windows, is this a bad thing? Maybe the Evil Marketing People(tm) will finally realize what doesn't work with ads and quit doing them. Maybe they'll realize that more-intrusive-ad!=more-attention.
Sometimes you have to look at things for what they can do positively, not just negatively.
Just to clarify, there's a difference between this stuff and Carnivore. Carnivore is/was basically a wiretap, a way to monitor ongoing communications both incoming and outgoing. What's being discussed here is a way to organize and sift through information that is archived and already subpoenaed. Apples and oranges, my friends.
Wonder if they would be kind enough to run that against my email box and sort out all the spammers for me? Then I could take it to court to request compensation for the bandwidth consumption as well as "emotional damages" because of all the pron spam :)
To those who were criticizing the not-guilty plea and saying he is guilty, this needs to be said. Had he went ahead and pleaded guilty, there would be no legal examination of the DMCA. He would have been fined and sentenced to prison, end of story. The United States NEEDS this examination of the DMCA, if for no other reason than to bring the flaws in the law to light in an official manner. It will be up to the courts to make the decision, and in the mean time, the issues surrounding the DMCA will hopefully become more public knowledge.
I'm really saddened that Russia had to issue its advisory, but again maybe that will be a wake up call to everyone that there is something very very wrong with the way the DMCA is being enforced. One would hope that we can settle the issue internally before it becomes more of an international issue than it already is. The US preaches so much about "human rights" and begs for other countries to "do the right thing" even though their laws are written differently. It's time we practice what we preach.
Unfortunately, this is just another sign of the new "American way". People want things fast and simple. Corporations have the money and power to deliver them. What most don't realize is that the information being delivered will be biased based on the agenda of whichever corporation is delivering them. However, increasingly the public has displayed a sort of almost domestic animal mentality. They want information, and don't care to look into the motivations behind those delivering it. They assume that it must be truth, since it's published. That's the assumption that gives the corporations more control.
Everyone's got an agenda, but only the observant notice it. Too bad the observant seem to be in the minority now.
Ok, you turn off a majority of the system checks to make this possible. Nice if you plan on having a regular reboot schedule. However, if the system fails due to hardware, you're forced to go in and turn all the checks on, then reboot again just to find out what broke. Seems to violate that "seven nines" rule, doesn't it? You'd have to have a lot of faith in your system being reliable to do that.
You can create new stem call lines, they just don't qualify for federal funds. They need to be privately financed by the biotech sector.
How long do you think it will take before that happens? Most likely within our lifetimes, I'd figure. Then that corporation would have a nice little monopoly on the stem cell lines, since they could most likely be protected as property of some fashion or another (patent or intellectual or other nonsense). Thank you Mr. Bush for quietly looking out for the coporate interest again.
Wonder if Mr. Gates has thought of using some of his money that way? Can you imagine MS StemCell XP? *huge shudder*
Windows is an enabling technology which allows ordinary people to become music pirates. MS has deep pockets to sue too. I think it's about time the RIAA targets MS for complicity in facilitating ordinary people with the means to commit music piracy.
Yep, I fully agree with you there. Think the problem the RIAA has with that thought is that MS has deeper pockets than they do. MS would obliterate them legally then assimilate them. Can you imagine what the music industry would be like if MS ran it? *shudder*
Many in the music community are concerned about the continued use of CD-Rs
:)
Hmmm...they sure make it sound like the artists are concerned. But the music community also includes the coporate interests as well. I'd being willing to bet a few karma points that their definition of "many" is actually the people in their offices and the recording companies' offices as well.
Remember kids, only believe half of what you read, and always look for the between the lines stuff.
I know you're saying this flippantly, but back in the day when the Web was still in its infancy, all these backbone providers saw this kind of thing coming and took measures to shield themselves from lawsuits. It's the "cowboys" out there like MP3.com and Napster (to name the most prominent 2) who didn't take legal precautions and now find themselves on the receiving end of the judicial system.
:)
Wish I had some mod points for you, cause that was a good reply. Of course, it always struck me that these companies do things that are questionably legal, then flaunt themselves with advertising and becoming companies. Like you said, cowboys...and they should have had their castle walls built up before aggravating the RIAA barbarians
While we're at it, why doesn't somebody sue MCI Worldcom, Sprint, and any other backbone provider for upkeeping the Internet which allows file sharing to occur in the first place?
This kind of litigation is ridiculous. It's merely an attempt to bleed more money out a dying company, and any judge with half a brain would realize the absolute dangerous precedence this would set. Anyone who merely touches a certain technology could be sued if the tech was used for copyright infraction. "Oh, those CDR manufacturers should be sued, since they're making discs that carry pirated material. They're accessories to infringement."
Once again, I say puuhleeeze. This whole attack on "piracy" is doing nothing but making the recording industry look bad. It pushes people to find better ways to circumvent the process and causes others to completely boycott legitimate music purchases all together.
Industry, find someway to make the customer happy without ramming lawsuits and unethical CD mods down our throats. Customers, support reasonable attempts at legitimate digital music, but let your voice be heard when abuse of the law and standards occurs. Until then, a lot of good people will lose out.
What gives Microsoft and other companies like them their power isn't so much a monopoly as the fact that they take advantage of ignorance. Those of us who are somewhat knowledgable about computers can see the problems with Microsoft and their practices. However, the average Joe Blow doesn't know or care that there are better alternatives. They buy their computer and turn it on and use what they're given. They don't want to bother downloading or installing new stuff. They just want it to work.
Microsoft and AOL know this and use this to their advantage. Thus, as long as Microsoft is the defacto OS, they can use the ignorance to their advantage. The normal customer doesn't realize what they're missing, and in most cases they don't really care. The savvy ones can always find ways around MS's control, but we're not the majority of Windows users. Only when the government steps in will MS be called into check, since the populous on whole has demonstrated a particular apathy to the situation.
This whole issue with XP will demonstrate once and for all if our government really supports the people or not. If nothing is done and XP goes to market as is, it will be obvious that Congress is nothing more than pawns for the mega corporations like Microsoft and AOL Time Warner. This will be a sad day in America, for we will be witness to the beginnings of the coporate government culture so many writers have predicted.
If you try to see things from Microsoft's perspective (warped as it is), their arguments aren't without logic. They see proprietary code as the key to controlling the market, or "he who controls the code controls the market". Something like the GPL eliminates that control by keeping the code open and able to be modified. MS would no longer have the ability to come up with "trade secret" innovations that allow them to continue to dominate the market as they have in the past. Someone could always come along and improve or modify the product, and then the new non-MS version could be the dominant product.
Of course, this logic requires drinking the same Kool-Aid as the Microsoft marketing and business folks. Why make something better than the other guys when you can just make something the other guys aren't compatible with and then bundle it into every new computer that comes out? 'Cause that's the Microsoft way, and in that light GPL and other open-source licenses are very anti-Microsoft.
To quote the article:
"The Internet is an important cultural phenomenon, but that doesn't excuse its failure to comply with basic economic laws," said Thomas Nolle, a New Jersey telecommunications consultant. "The problem is that it was devised by a bunch of hippie anarchists who didn't have a strong profit motive. But this is a business, not a government-sponsored network."
Bleh. First off the Internet is based on an idea the military came up with (ARPANet), so it wasn't devised by a bunch of "hippie anarchists". Secondly, it wasn't designed with business in mind, it was designed to propogate information. This is a grand case of a supposed expert not knowing what he's talking about.
As said before and most likely again, the issue shouldn't be changing the Internet to fit businesses, but rather changing the businesses to fit the Internet. Yes, a lot of ideas failed. That doesn't mean the Internet is useless. It simply means you have to look at what it can offer and use it for that. It's a learning process, but so many higher management types don't want to take the time to do the neccessary research. They want results, and fast, so they make the techies throw something together with a poor business model and a poor support structure. And guess who gets blamed/laid-off when the whole thing goes south?
I remember back in the days when I first started messing with computers. A virus back then was a nasty piece of work that lived on an EXE file or in the boot sector of the disk. It jumped from program to program, or disk to disk, and could wreak all sorts of havok to the unsuspecting person. They were tiny bits of code with a purpose, engineered especially for the job at hand. It didn't matter what mail program you were running. Some of the things attacked on the first read of the infected disk in the floppy drive. While a certain level of gullibility was required, it certainly took a lot less dumbness to pass a virus around (don't have updated AV software and pass an infected file on disk or over a network).
Nowadays, most of the virus attacks are merely variations of the same thing. Hide an attachement in email and let it do its damage by mailing itself to the world via a particular mail program. They even make kits for people to download to mutate these worms (I hesitate to put them in the same context as the virus of old). It takes no programming skill to make one, and requires such a high level of ignorance on the recipient's part. There's no glory in it.
"Look at me, I fooled a bunch of ignorant MS users into spreading my hacked version of ILOVEYOU with a header of Britney Spears on it"
Yeah, real cool. That's why everyone calls them "kiddies". You want real respect, make a boot virus or something like that. Something that doesn't require the user to be a total technophobe to spread. Then you might get an ooh or an ahh.
Is anyone measuring any statistics on how many counts/min that counter is going through? :)
"Kindred: The Embraced" was another attempt to translate a rich role-playing universe (Vampire the Masquerade) into a live-action story. It failed hideously, mostly because the average Joe couldn't get into it and the hardcore gamers were too busy criticizing it for not being "their vision" of that particular world. Viewership dwindled, and the Kindred TV series died after only a few episodes.
:)
I feel that the DnD movie will more than likely suffer a similar fate. The mainstream audience will see it as just another fantasy film, and unless it has something incredible going for it in the creativity department then it will be largely ignored. To add insult to injury, the gamers will probably sit there and nitpick the movie to death...saying how this isn't right and this should be better. In general, it's going to have a hard time living up to everybody's expectations.
If I were doing the movie, I would have went for a Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms. Use something more focused than trying to sum up the WHOLE game in one movie. Everyone has their own vision of AD&D, and I find it very hard to believe that this one 2-hour movie will satisfy. Of course, I'll be pleasantly surprised if it does
So here we have something else to take a little of the brainwork out of living. It does sound like a good idea, since I'm one of those cooking-impaired people (still can't even make french toast). However, if you subscribe to the oft-mentioned Star Trek philosophy, all this convenience is supposed to be freeing the human race up to pursue other intellectual and physical pursuits like exploration and research. So, why is it with all this we're getting more stressed and more violent every day???
Something to think about...