Will our grandchildren look back at the DCMA and say "that was the start of it all".
They may look back and say that, but only if the freedom of information side wins. If the other side wins who knows if the DMCA will even be remembered - maybe it'll be completely written out of history so that consumers think that the way things are is the way things have always been!
MS and Sony, with their resources, should have invested time and money to develop proprietary media as well.
A better idea would be to let me play a game that I buy anywhere in the world on the system that I already own. That's the problem - proprietary systems may be nice for the manufacturer that wants to limit my ability to play legally purchases games without buying second system; for the enduser they are nothing but frustrating.
While we can see that Dumbledore probably gave him that cloak, Harry wouldn't know this at this point and couldn't expect any protection for his flaunting of rules.
Having not read the books I still feel wholly able to make far-fetched and probably off the mark comments on the movie:
My biggest complaint was that he seemed to get everything handed to him. Maybe in the movie they skipped out on how horrible his life was before learning he is a wizard, but after that everything is shoved towards: vault full of money, free bird, wonderful broomstick, inate wizard powers, invisibility cloak. Hell, he even "buys" his first friend on the train!
From the movie, all I was able to gather was that Harry had a hard life to begin with because his muggle relatives were jealous and tried to prevent him from becoming a wizard. Once at school, his teachers pamper and protect him. He got free stuff, dotted on by the teachers, minimal amount of trouble - if any - for breaking the rules, etc. There was very little conflict that wasn't brushed aside simple to make Harry seem great.
Reminds me of that often retold story about the engineer who charged a large fee when called back to an ex-employee to fix a problem.
The point is that, not only is your time valuable now, but the knowledge you have that no one in the company presently has makes your work that much more valuable. The difficulty comes when balancing the desire to screw your former employer and making a fair deal that may help you more in the long run.
Re:Interesting tidbit
on
Book on NR-1
·
· Score: 3, Informative
That was SL-1 and it demonstrates that not following procedures and, even worse, not understand WHY, can be a very dangerous thing. Making a nuclear reactor go supercritial (basically: the reactor is not only self-sustaining, but each reaction causes the reactor power to increase!) is a bad thing.
Short story - someone purposely pulled a control out of a shutdown reactor too far, causing the reactor to become supercritial, emit a lot of steam, and impale him on the ceiling. The Army - since they didn't have Adm. Rickover (say what you want about him, he did make a very safe, very successful nuclear power program in the Navy) - should not be messing with nuclear power.
University of Phoenix - for what it attempts to accomplish - is a very good, very profitable, school. Not everyone has the time, money, physical ability, etc. to go to MIT full time. Those people would be able to get a complimentary degree, covering the same subject, through a medium not traditionally possible.
If MIT did offer courses online it would, of course, be only in select subjects and not result in a degree with the same prestige as a "real world" degree, but those courses that can be tranlated to an online environment could benefit from this move.
The problems would be ensuring academic honesty and integrity, preserving the MIT name, etc.
I received my first call the morning after I requested tech support to come out and fix the signal strength of my line (it was way out of spec and kept resetting my modem). Well, as protocol they watch your line to see what they can diagnose before the tech arrived at your house. Well that morning (the 10th of July), I uncapped and within ten minutes
Let me get this straight - you called them and asked they monitor your line, then uncapped your modem??? Why are you suprised they caught you??
Nearly all suspended customers resolved their situation within hours (poor, addicted L-users), and many of the unresolved suspensions were the result of clients moving or dying (really.)
I feel for her, but the only alternative for ISPs is to pursue collections of overdue accounts. This is simply way too expensive. Bill in advance and suspend non-payers is the only efficient model. Anything else spikes your costs.
While I understand where this is coming from (company trying to make money by not over serving customer needs) this is partly what will stop the Internet from becoming that ubiquitous resource that everyone uses. It is hard to get your electricity, water, or phone shut off. These are resources that, in today's age, people require to get by. If the industry wants Internet access to reach that level, the customer service needs to increase a lot.
And the attitude that people are "L-users" because they need Internet access is sickening. If we want people be able to work from home, shop online, etc. you can't turn around and insult them when those options are removed or interrupted. Which do you want - the Internet as a toy or an effective, attractive, and respectable utility that people use for everyday activities and important business?
2) the only other thing of interest was that they are supposed to open up any communication protocol that is needed in windows (SMB for instance).
Doesn't the authentication system part of the exceptions make this not so clean cut?
In fact, I would say that the exceptions cover a broad area and once Palladium starts gearing up it will cover even more. compromise the security of a particular installation or
group of installations of anti-piracy, anti-virus, software licensing, digital rights
management, encryption or authentication systems could potentially cover a large part of the OS...
Why do people freeze up as soon as they see a text-based installer?
This kind of comment automatically disqualifies someone from being a good judge of what is needed on the desktop. The "average" user operates so far from the command line or text-based type installations that it isn't even an option.
This isn't a troll or attempting to bash someone, but every review of a Linux distro that I read mentions some trivial problem in the install that required firing up VI to fix, or tweaking some easy to find configuration somewhere. Guess what? The average user isn't going to be able to "fire up VI", let alone realize that some configuration in a script is wrong! Given a fresh installation that doesn't work, the user will assume that it just doesn't work. Which is true.
Until the installation is so simple that it requires answering a couple of questions (user name, type of computer installation, some programs that are optional), the installation takes place, and the user can log on and perform all the tasks they would want to (write a paper, play a CD or DVD, draw a picture, surf the web, or write an email) then it isn't ready for primetime. I would say that WinXP installation could go a little further - most people don't install WinXP, they run it already installed. When they do install it, it is a very big deal.
Why should new laws need to be setup when there exists one already designed to permit disabled persons the same rights as everyone else?
If anything, we need to evaluate laws on a one-by-one basis and determine if it makes sense for them to apply in cyberspace. In this situation - effectively eliminating an entire segment of society from participating in web commerce - it makes sense to me that we should allow handicapped access. What needs to be done, though, is draft an extension to the ADA that specifies what types of sites require access - a shotgun approach would only cause more problems.
I agree with this idea, somewhat. Once something becomes so vital to society it probably should be controlled by the government more - that is why we have it (the government) there, for the most part. Electricity, phone (for a long time), police, firemen, military, etc.
The problem, in this case, is that something that is so vital also changes so rapidly that the government couldn't keep up or even maintain it. This is a problem. Like when Microsoft hinted at taking their toys away if they lost the court case - how do you even control something this vital? Should the government totally take it over? Should the government stay out of the marketplace complete (as these companies would have wanted five years ago) and only come in to offer bailouts when those in the marketplace can't run themselves profitably?
The companies that go under may be the one's currently providing the 'last mile': services for millions of americans...This is where the government bailout would help
The "last mile" is still going to be there. As Albanac said, no one is going to come dig up the cables.
The problem is the companies that end up getting handouts are the ones that don't need it - those companies are the ones that should go out of business because they are inefficient, operating on an obsolete business model, or just corrupt. A quick look at the airline industry - and their reliance on the hub-and-spoke model of wasting money - should show how wonderful these bailouts truly are.
We shouldn't cry for the corporations that can't adapt, overspent based on faulty predictions, or went under because of fraud. That would serve no one, in the end.
The best way to help the "little" people is to let those businesses go under and allow others, with better ideas, business models, etc. use the infrastructure to provide what the "little" people need. The short term pain of some businesses going away and some bad debts being written off is nothing in comparision to the benefits. (who typically lays the power lines and water pipes? who typically profits from them the most in the end?)
Under the terms of the deal, small Webcasters would pay a percentage of their revenues for broadcasts between 1998 and the end of 2002, increasing to 10 percent over the next two years, or 12 percent if the station's revenues exceeded $250,000.
What the webcasters need to do is somehow convince Congress that it makes more sense to base fees on profits and not revenues. Then, once they've done that, hire the MPAA accountants and - presto - there will suddenly be no profits left (after paying the DJ, the webcasting fees, hardware upgrade, new cars, etc.) to pay the RIAA.
I know this is a good idea, but if someone were to put a trojan in the OpenSSH code...how much harder would it be to put an MD5 that matches the modified code?
The human mind is really good at spotting differences. When you read the words "Microsoft" and "Micro$oft" you instantly know that those are very different words. It therefore follows that domain names with different spellings are easily distinguishable and completely distinct.
The human mind is also really good at ignoring the the differences and see what it is expecting. A lot of times people will subconciously ignore the double "the" in the first sentence. The same thing can effectively dilute a trademark as well. Kleenex?
Yes, AOL (Arentfox, really) seem to be picking on a little guy because of AOL in its' name. What I find suprising, though, is that Peng isn't getting in trouble for providing a means to access AOL's private network without using AOL's approved client...
After it bought Compaq this year, the combined company became the largest single buyer of Windows for personal computers and data-serving computers, and thus more dependent on Microsoft
Does this not seem wrong to anyone else? Sense when does the supplier dictate the terms and not the largest customer? This, more than anything else I think, demonstrates that Microsoft has gone from being a viable solution for decent software to a company that needs to be reigned in.
The problem now, though, is that market forces will have to accomplish this. We already know that the government is incapable of stopping Microsoft from doing what it wants. Short of breaking the company into two or three parts, things will continue the way they are.
Do you know something? Despite their proximity in the kitchen, I don't find this plethora of different user interfaces confusing. I didn't even have to read the manuals, even though my new toaster is quite different from the old one. Contrary to what interface designers tell us, we can cope perfectly well with this sort of complexity.
But you just contradicted yourself. That new toaster had consistent controls, no? It is very seldom that software will require special controls and, as another poster pointed out, it is the useless, extraordinary changes that confuse and anger users.
So next time you ask your sysadmin a stupid word question, better hope it's not me, cause i'm a 190lb lean mean gorrilla now that I go out and exercise daily. We'll see who tosses who out the window OK?
Ok, well how about the next time I ask my sysadmin a question that isn't simple (e.g. what is the smtp server address? can you recover the data on my nonfunctioning NTFS drive? etc.) do some *research* beyond looking in your "System Administration for Dummies" book!!! Every time I have to do the job myself - because IT is either too stupid, too lazy, or just plain incompetant - I get less sympathetic to those that complain about "stupid" users.
The reason that sysadmins are maligned by users is precisely this disconnect between what people expect from you and what they actually recieve. It is a service business now. Sorry. The customer is always right - especially when they are wrong.
These days, with "corporate fraud" being the buzzword d'jeur, one could make a very strong argument that the DMCA encourages corporate fraud because it allows companies to sweep their product defects under the carpet.
And that is a great reason to give to your Congress peeps. Not only is "corporate fraud" the buzzword of the day, but the fact that security issues can not be resolved because of the DMCA creates a huge paradox.
On the one had we are told to protect our computers from terrorist intrusion but the means of determining if we are insecure, on the other hand, are made illegal!
I've made it a habit, now, to send an email to Feinstein and Boxter (CA Senators) most days before I leave work. Even if they don't listen I'll atleast bug 'em...
Looking over the Raylink site makes this very, very appealing. Does anyone have experience - or links to somewhere - about setting this up? Questions:
Interoperability with other OS's - the site mentions support for Windows only.
Controlling access.
Setting up accounts and billing.
What services must be provided (i.e. do you really need to provide POP3 accounts or Usenet?)
It would be nice - and extrememly cool - to be able to get out from under the thumb of my DSL provider while giving (selling!!) access to others in the area. Given that this appears to be cheap (equipment + fast connection to share + time = ????) it is very tempting...
Slashdot Mirror
They may look back and say that, but only if the freedom of information side wins. If the other side wins who knows if the DMCA will even be remembered - maybe it'll be completely written out of history so that consumers think that the way things are is the way things have always been!
A better idea would be to let me play a game that I buy anywhere in the world on the system that I already own. That's the problem - proprietary systems may be nice for the manufacturer that wants to limit my ability to play legally purchases games without buying second system; for the enduser they are nothing but frustrating.
Having not read the books I still feel wholly able to make far-fetched and probably off the mark comments on the movie:
My biggest complaint was that he seemed to get everything handed to him. Maybe in the movie they skipped out on how horrible his life was before learning he is a wizard, but after that everything is shoved towards: vault full of money, free bird, wonderful broomstick, inate wizard powers, invisibility cloak. Hell, he even "buys" his first friend on the train!
From the movie, all I was able to gather was that Harry had a hard life to begin with because his muggle relatives were jealous and tried to prevent him from becoming a wizard. Once at school, his teachers pamper and protect him. He got free stuff, dotted on by the teachers, minimal amount of trouble - if any - for breaking the rules, etc. There was very little conflict that wasn't brushed aside simple to make Harry seem great.
The point is that, not only is your time valuable now, but the knowledge you have that no one in the company presently has makes your work that much more valuable. The difficulty comes when balancing the desire to screw your former employer and making a fair deal that may help you more in the long run.
Short story - someone purposely pulled a control out of a shutdown reactor too far, causing the reactor to become supercritial, emit a lot of steam, and impale him on the ceiling. The Army - since they didn't have Adm. Rickover (say what you want about him, he did make a very safe, very successful nuclear power program in the Navy) - should not be messing with nuclear power.
University of Phoenix - for what it attempts to accomplish - is a very good, very profitable, school. Not everyone has the time, money, physical ability, etc. to go to MIT full time. Those people would be able to get a complimentary degree, covering the same subject, through a medium not traditionally possible.
If MIT did offer courses online it would, of course, be only in select subjects and not result in a degree with the same prestige as a "real world" degree, but those courses that can be tranlated to an online environment could benefit from this move.
The problems would be ensuring academic honesty and integrity, preserving the MIT name, etc.
Let me get this straight - you called them and asked they monitor your line, then uncapped your modem??? Why are you suprised they caught you??
While I understand where this is coming from (company trying to make money by not over serving customer needs) this is partly what will stop the Internet from becoming that ubiquitous resource that everyone uses. It is hard to get your electricity, water, or phone shut off. These are resources that, in today's age, people require to get by. If the industry wants Internet access to reach that level, the customer service needs to increase a lot.
And the attitude that people are "L-users" because they need Internet access is sickening. If we want people be able to work from home, shop online, etc. you can't turn around and insult them when those options are removed or interrupted. Which do you want - the Internet as a toy or an effective, attractive, and respectable utility that people use for everyday activities and important business?
Doesn't the authentication system part of the exceptions make this not so clean cut?
In fact, I would say that the exceptions cover a broad area and once Palladium starts gearing up it will cover even more. compromise the security of a particular installation or group of installations of anti-piracy, anti-virus, software licensing, digital rights management, encryption or authentication systems could potentially cover a large part of the OS...
This kind of comment automatically disqualifies someone from being a good judge of what is needed on the desktop. The "average" user operates so far from the command line or text-based type installations that it isn't even an option.
This isn't a troll or attempting to bash someone, but every review of a Linux distro that I read mentions some trivial problem in the install that required firing up VI to fix, or tweaking some easy to find configuration somewhere. Guess what? The average user isn't going to be able to "fire up VI", let alone realize that some configuration in a script is wrong! Given a fresh installation that doesn't work, the user will assume that it just doesn't work. Which is true.
Until the installation is so simple that it requires answering a couple of questions (user name, type of computer installation, some programs that are optional), the installation takes place, and the user can log on and perform all the tasks they would want to (write a paper, play a CD or DVD, draw a picture, surf the web, or write an email) then it isn't ready for primetime. I would say that WinXP installation could go a little further - most people don't install WinXP, they run it already installed. When they do install it, it is a very big deal.
The gain is not for you, the gain is for those that could not use your site before due to being blind.
Why should new laws need to be setup when there exists one already designed to permit disabled persons the same rights as everyone else?
If anything, we need to evaluate laws on a one-by-one basis and determine if it makes sense for them to apply in cyberspace. In this situation - effectively eliminating an entire segment of society from participating in web commerce - it makes sense to me that we should allow handicapped access. What needs to be done, though, is draft an extension to the ADA that specifies what types of sites require access - a shotgun approach would only cause more problems.
The problem, in this case, is that something that is so vital also changes so rapidly that the government couldn't keep up or even maintain it. This is a problem. Like when Microsoft hinted at taking their toys away if they lost the court case - how do you even control something this vital? Should the government totally take it over? Should the government stay out of the marketplace complete (as these companies would have wanted five years ago) and only come in to offer bailouts when those in the marketplace can't run themselves profitably?
The "last mile" is still going to be there. As Albanac said, no one is going to come dig up the cables.
The problem is the companies that end up getting handouts are the ones that don't need it - those companies are the ones that should go out of business because they are inefficient, operating on an obsolete business model, or just corrupt. A quick look at the airline industry - and their reliance on the hub-and-spoke model of wasting money - should show how wonderful these bailouts truly are.
We shouldn't cry for the corporations that can't adapt, overspent based on faulty predictions, or went under because of fraud. That would serve no one, in the end.
The best way to help the "little" people is to let those businesses go under and allow others, with better ideas, business models, etc. use the infrastructure to provide what the "little" people need. The short term pain of some businesses going away and some bad debts being written off is nothing in comparision to the benefits. (who typically lays the power lines and water pipes? who typically profits from them the most in the end?)
What the webcasters need to do is somehow convince Congress that it makes more sense to base fees on profits and not revenues. Then, once they've done that, hire the MPAA accountants and - presto - there will suddenly be no profits left (after paying the DJ, the webcasting fees, hardware upgrade, new cars, etc.) to pay the RIAA.
Seems only fair to me...
Hopefully someone will get around to suing because the "patent" is killing them.
I know this is a good idea, but if someone were to put a trojan in the OpenSSH code...how much harder would it be to put an MD5 that matches the modified code?
The human mind is also really good at ignoring the the differences and see what it is expecting. A lot of times people will subconciously ignore the double "the" in the first sentence. The same thing can effectively dilute a trademark as well. Kleenex?
Yes, AOL (Arentfox, really) seem to be picking on a little guy because of AOL in its' name. What I find suprising, though, is that Peng isn't getting in trouble for providing a means to access AOL's private network without using AOL's approved client...
Does this not seem wrong to anyone else? Sense when does the supplier dictate the terms and not the largest customer? This, more than anything else I think, demonstrates that Microsoft has gone from being a viable solution for decent software to a company that needs to be reigned in.
The problem now, though, is that market forces will have to accomplish this. We already know that the government is incapable of stopping Microsoft from doing what it wants. Short of breaking the company into two or three parts, things will continue the way they are.
But you just contradicted yourself. That new toaster had consistent controls, no? It is very seldom that software will require special controls and, as another poster pointed out, it is the useless, extraordinary changes that confuse and anger users.
Ok, well how about the next time I ask my sysadmin a question that isn't simple (e.g. what is the smtp server address? can you recover the data on my nonfunctioning NTFS drive? etc.) do some *research* beyond looking in your "System Administration for Dummies" book!!! Every time I have to do the job myself - because IT is either too stupid, too lazy, or just plain incompetant - I get less sympathetic to those that complain about "stupid" users.
The reason that sysadmins are maligned by users is precisely this disconnect between what people expect from you and what they actually recieve. It is a service business now. Sorry. The customer is always right - especially when they are wrong.
And that is a great reason to give to your Congress peeps. Not only is "corporate fraud" the buzzword of the day, but the fact that security issues can not be resolved because of the DMCA creates a huge paradox.
On the one had we are told to protect our computers from terrorist intrusion but the means of determining if we are insecure, on the other hand, are made illegal!
I've made it a habit, now, to send an email to Feinstein and Boxter (CA Senators) most days before I leave work. Even if they don't listen I'll atleast bug 'em...
It would be nice - and extrememly cool - to be able to get out from under the thumb of my DSL provider while giving (selling!!) access to others in the area. Given that this appears to be cheap (equipment + fast connection to share + time = ????) it is very tempting...
Whoever wrote that must have had a strange statement on their face at the time!