I've read that mega-pirates don't even enjoy the majority of what they crack and distribute. It's all about the process for them -- some like to defeat copy protection, most like the social circles and ego they've got from being first to release or having the best stuff to offer.
Menace to society, indeed. Maybe they'd do better to pick up programming and write free software rather than cracking someone else's, but I think you've hit the nail on the head; it's not even about the software or movies or music being pirated, in my opinion, when one gets in to the degree these folks have. They get nothing out of what they do but they get nailed harder than spammers or spyware purveyors.
In downtown Japan, there are a great deal of computerized navigational assistants as well. Pay phones, largely obsolete because of the prevalence of cellphones, have been adapted to 'phone maps' -- lift a receiver up and a cheerful voice (or sometimes a flat tone) will request where you want to go.
Upon speaking the destination (speech to text is not perfect, especially if you don't speak the language, so it may take a couple tries) you'll notice a RFID-tagged card issued from the machine and speakers along the sidewalk will guide you to where you want to go, within reason. More modern places will also light the sidewalks with your issued card color, although this relies on service funding by the merchants.
Solitaire KaBlam, where cards drop from the top of the screen and you try to arrange them in stacks of the same suit King to Ace. Windows only.
Ultrashoot 3k, where you play a green square in a sidescrolling adventure game where you jump over obstacles and shoot rectangles at other jumping shapes (circles, hexagons, and in later levels dodecahedrons.) Windows or Linux (openGL)
Zrogia, where you adventure into the depths of a text-only dungeon with your trusty pet in a dungeon-crawling role-playing extravaganza. Fight dragons guarding treasure, ogres guarding treasure, or even the mighty Dungeon Guardian if you dare to crawl past level 99. Windows or Linux.
Does anybody know what 25,000 and 42,500 euros works out to in real cash? They can face millions of dollars and jail time here in the U.S., and I seem to recall a fax spammer getting a $5 million fine not too far back.
As long as they can rake in more cash than they pay out, fines are useless.
While the iPos already does everything it needs to (decent music playback, excellent interface, remarkably durable) there would be a number of advantages to putting Linux on it.
It would be possible to get third-party support for formats that are not officially supported, such as RealMedia or Microsoft DRM-protected audio files. Additionally the dial interface lends itself to use for reading e-book or USENET newsgroups, or for keeping an address book, phonebook, or the days events in your pocket.
However, I wonder if the GPL would create problems in this sort of environment -- presumably there is content that is not open on the player that would be necessary to incorporate into this project. Perhaps it would be wiser to adopt something Open Source such as OpenBSD instead; it's a text-only environment, so the lack of graphical support would be a minor problem at best, and it contains a good deal of security features that would be beneficial should wired applications for this new platform be developed after this project takes off.
It's the same sort of reason Howard Stern is moving to Sirius satellite radio.
The current medium has been taken to its limit and is starting to backslide, so why not take a shot at something new when you can afford the risk and get some entertainment and make history in the process?
Depending on the voltage and amount of power involved.
There are a couple of drawbacks to this plan: first, the increased caution that will be necessary in working with network cable (everybody's used to them being safe as phone lines) and second the possibility of burning out devices that weren't built with this standard in mind. Who's to say that a cheapie network extender installed in a rat's nest of cabling five years ago wouldn't start a fire when you hook something like this up?
I enjoy a wide range of video games and other media. While I believe most adults are capable of consuming such without severe ill effects, I do question whether we are doing enough to prevent violent video games from falling into the hands of children, who are not necessarily able to reconcile what they see in a video game in a proper context (in other words, properly separate fantasy from reality.)
This is not a perception that many people are prepared to accept. A recent survey revealed that while eight out of ten adults could identify three or more Top 40 rap musicians by their photographs and four out of ten knew the relatively obscure fact that chopsticks were actually invented by immigrants in American mining communities in the 1800s as a way of differentiating their restaurants, only three in ten understand and properly apply the rating system for video games to their children.
If you accept the premise that video games, like other media, have some influence on the people that enjoy them it is a simple step to recognize the need to limit the access to those who are least likely to experience harm from it. Perhaps violent games need to be moved behind the counter, or only sold in adult-only forums (such as online stores that accept only checks/credit cards). Or maybe the answer is simpler -- make the games compatible with the V-Chip systems already present in our television sets.
It's about time for these things to support lossless formats (FLAC/SHN/MKW or even WAV). While OGG is better than MP3 and roughly equivalent to Windows Media format (ASF/WMA), there is still a noticable and irritating artifact in the sound stream from the type of compression employed -- on quality headphones this is especially noticable.
Does anybody know if such a project is being undertaken for the Neuros? I might even pick one up and hack on it myself for my own edification.
It's almost scary that they leave the human element in there at all when you think about the amount of money they sink into these cars. Granted, win or lose you've got a ton of sponsors, but it's very nearly to the point where they might as well do everything with robots.
From complex wind shear modelling to the amount of flour to throw in the composite, almost all of the attention is paid to the machine -- it makes me wonder if they're shaving less time off the total than if they put this kind of focus on the driver (proper diet, reflexive training, etc.) Gran Turismo 3 demonstrates quite well the types of skills necessary to take on the track.
I work in cryptography, and the people I know have written off MD5. Heck, the people I know are also quite worried about SHA-1, and the current best attack against that one isn't nearly as strong.
Is there a hash function they don't have serious qualms about? I've seen an intriguing way to work around the limitations present in MD5 involving the generation/validation of hashes for multiple (perhaps overlapping) blocks in a set of data, but this is moving away from the fixed-width representation of validity MD5 was designed for.
If I'm translating this properly, a malicious person can do two things with this knowledge:
He can create a file that MD5sum's to the same result as a legitimate file, but does not have full control over the content or size of the result (making this a mostly useless avenue of exploitation except for people who want to spread trash on P2P networks -- I.E. it shouldn't particularly bother anyone except people who already don't care about security).
Or he can create two files that MD5sum to the same result. But he has to have control over both files, which offers effectively no advantage to someone who is trying to spread malware or tamper with existing archives that have been MD5summed.
Consequently, while this is of academic interest I don't see what the big deal is; any time you reduce a large file to a fingerprint you will inevitably run into problems like this because it is impossible to represent one-to-one every individual possible combination of a large set of data in smaller sets ("fingerprints"). You can reduce the risk by increasing the set domain with a larger variadic function but it is impossible to escape this constraint without using fingerprints as large as the data itself.
Demand spyware scanning in your virus scanner.
on
Given Up to Spyware?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I don't understand why spyware isn't seen for what it is -- a commercial take on malicious programming. Any virus scanner worth its salt should scan for and remove this stuff as it's often worse than the viruses one will encounter, but the only one I've seen that'll do it is Avast!'s antivirus software.
There may be some question about what the user wants and doesn't want, but that doesn't excuse antivirus manufacturers from dodging the problem. If the ability to prevent spyware from installing was ubiquitous (as are virus scanners nowadays) we'd be winning the war. Nobody should have to accept this as an industry practice; things have been getting way too lax with EULAs and intrusive copy protection methods as it is, but this is over the line and we should treat the people who distribute it as we would those who distribute viruses or worms.
As mentioned in the article, SRAM (Static RAM) is many times faster than DRAM (Dynamic RAM) while simultaneously offering a smaller footprint.
However, I wonder if the additional implementation requirements justify the benefits. Static typing is only found in certain computer languages, and programmers have come to rely on dynamic memory allocation offered by malloc() or similar routines. I suspect with careful design one could fully exploit the advantages present -- with software being cheaper than hardware, it could easily be well worth it in embedded or pre-fabricated devices.
The type of implementor that uses (dynamic) extreme programming methodologies may be left out in the cold, although I would like to suggest that would occur anyway to a person working without a blueprint. Regardless, it will be exciting to see how this develops from the embedded perspective...
I listed more points than simply increasing demand, but the product is hardly unattainable. The first run as announced is almost certainly below demand, but what if they produce more than they announced on the first run (or do a 'second run' of a million as the first are coming off the line)? Regardless, you've got people grabbing them off the rack because they think it's the last one the store's going to stock for a month, or doing pre-orders online to try to get it in their hands as soon as it's available.
The only reason we've heard of Tickle-Me Elmo is because of the strategy of building demand through scarcity, and if I've learned anything about watching Slashdot reactions to new Warcraft games it's that gamers only stay pissed until the next time they see something shiny.
To throttle the release of the product. If it's any good this is only bound to increase demand, the platform gets more time to garner support and gain titles from game publishers, production costs will go down over time and with a relatively small first run they won't risk losing the sale of a ton of units in warehouses should production-related defects turn up.
Does anybody know if this super storage disc format will be housed in some type of protective cartridge? I hope they don't look like Gamecube discs, because portable stuff should be built for durability on the road.
I can't tell if you're kidding or not, but the Internet has definitely been circling the drain since corporations and the general public got involved with it. I've been around the Internet for a long time -- since the early 90s in
fact -- and am thus quite aware of the ruinous activities it has been
subjected to by the typical user since then. You know, things like people
popping into a random USENET group and treating it like a tech support
line, or in the larger picture basically assuming the entire network is
there to serve as some form of entertainment.
When I started, the USENET application would inform me that my message would
be spread across tens of thousands of computers at immeasurable cost as
a subtle hint to keep things interesting, and Internet Chat required some
basic knowledge of Makefiles and attention to documentation before you could
run a client. Frankly, things became unmanageable at the point the Internet
was made accessible to anybody with a web browser; anybody who's been around
this long knows what I'm talking about.
It's a short hop to realizing that the problems we're experiencing with virii
and worms are the same problem. Intimate knowledge of x86 assembly used to be
a requirement -- along with a malcontent-type disposition -- in order to wreak
the sort of havoc that today requires fifteen minutes and an Effective
VBScript In Fifteen Minutes manual. Every document is now a program, and
e-mail doubles as FTP.
Many experts believe we should raise the barrier of entry by requiring
programmers to undergo education, certification, and maybe even an oath to do
no harm as part of the certification process if going into a security field.
It used to take years to do what kids today can do in months; additionally, a
would-be programmer who spends a few months picking up Visual Basic or
whatever has hardly learned the fundamentals of programming any more than
someone who reads a manual about his DVD player has become a laser engineer.
I suggest that the field and the general user experience would be greatly
enhanced by limiting access to compilers/assemblers (by means of pricing and
with the cooperation of the open source community) and by separating macros
or other executable content from documents.
It makes more sense than trying to go out and educate every user. Think
about it; in what other field do we "educate" "users"? We don't try to
educate people with electrical outlets and let any curious individual perform
as a licensed electrician. We don't "educate" passengers and let anyone
who cares be a bus driver give it a try. Why are things always so difficult
when it comes to computers?
In yet another attempt to take over all of the Internet, MSN...
How about, "In yet another attempt to make the Internet relevant to the average person?" Why is this a laudable goal for everybody but Microsoft to strive towards?
To have a one-stop shop for communication is pretty much what it's all about. E-mail, instant messaging, fax, voice, photos, movies, TV, radio, and the blog (considered to be the future of websites) converging in a simple-to-use way. This should be something to look forward to.
One possibility is that someone could set up a convincing front-end that would collect (and save) your personal information then forward you to the business-end of this website like nothing happened. Or charge you for somebody else's free service.
I've been around the Internet for a long time -- since the early 90s in
fact -- and am thus quite aware of the ruinous activities it has been
subjected to by the typical user since then. You know, things like people
popping into a random USENET group and treating it like a tech support
line, or in the larger picture basically assuming the entire network is
there to serve as some form of entertainment. The issues with machines getting infected within minutes is only another sign of the degree to which the abuse of the Internet has been risen up to.
When I started, the USENET application would inform me that my message would
be spread across tens of thousands of computers at immeasurable cost as
a subtle hint to keep things interesting, and Internet Chat required some
basic knowledge of Makefiles and attention to documentation before you could
run a client. Frankly, things became unmanageable at the point the Internet
was made accessible to anybody with a web browser; anybody who's been around
this long knows what I'm talking about.
It's a short hop to realizing that the problems we're experiencing with virii
and worms are the same problem. Intimate knowledge of x86 assembly used to be
a requirement -- along with a malcontent-type disposition -- in order to wreak
the sort of havoc that today requires fifteen minutes and an Effective
VBScript In Fifteen Minutes manual. Every document is now a program, and
e-mail doubles as FTP.
Many experts believe we should raise the barrier of entry by requiring
programmers to undergo education, certification, and maybe even an oath to do
no harm as part of the certification process if going into a security field.
It used to take years to do what kids today can do in months; additionally, a
would-be programmer who spends a few months picking up Visual Basic or
whatever has hardly learned the fundamentals of programming any more than
someone who reads a manual about his DVD player has become a laser engineer.
I suggest that the field and the general user experience would be greatly
enhanced by limiting access to compilers/assemblers (by means of pricing and
with the cooperation of the open source community) and by separating macros
or other executable content from documents.
It makes more sense than trying to go out and educate every user. Think
about it; in what other field do we "educate" "users"? We don't try to
educate people with electrical outlets and let any curious individual perform
as a licensed electrician. We don't "educate" passengers and let anyone
who cares be a bus driver give it a try. Why are things always so difficult
when it comes to computers?
Although open source programmers have done neat things, one must be careful not to throw around the word 'hero'.
Heroes are people who save lives. Firefighters and policemen are heroes -- they brave danger on a daily basis to save lives. So too was Jonas Salk; if he developed a program to add tags to MP3 files instead of discovering penicillin and refining it for medical use, this would have been a disappointment.
This isn't intended to disparage the work of open source geeks in any way. They're just in a different class (improving our lives in front of a LCD monitor instead of saving them from a burning building.)
Look for one of those Caller ID units that do text-to-speech on the number. During the calls leading up to the election I don't think we answered one of them, just let them go to the answering machine and dumped them. Would be nice if they wiped out all telemarketing altogether but it'd probably be deemed unconstitutional because of the free speech issues.
If things get really bad, just switch to cellphones. They can't call those, although for some reason they get a lot of wrong numbers.
First, as a security-conscious customer you should make your vendor aware of your concerns as well as places where their application violates your security standards. If there are times when their applications require root where it is clearly not necessary, it's a sign that attention may not have been paid to SDP (secure design principles) during the production of the product.
If a vendor is unsympathetic to your concerns, it's up to you to find an alternative or work around them. As you explain, the second option is not always possible when they require access to a number of services at a fundamental level. The worst cases of this occur when you have one or two vendors to pick from for a given application. My suggestion is then to design the application yourself within your security parameters and functionality requirements -- as many people do not have that capability within their own ASP (otherwise they'd do it already) you might want to use something like Sourceforge and contract a team overseas to do it cheaply, supervising the project from here and optionally open-sourcing it after it's built. Then you've got something designed to your parameters without support or upgrade costs especially if the community digs what you've built.
Norway has an excellent system where experts are explicitly involved in the judging process. At least in the DeCSS case, they involved two laymen with technical knowledge and allowed each to cast a vote towards the verdict (making them effectively assistant judges to the three handling the trial).
There needs to be a clearcut distinction made between good guys and bad guys in the wiretapping statues.
If keystroke logging isn't wiretapping, maybe this opens a whole can of worms whereby spyware becomes legal. And if software that sits on my machine without my knowledge relaying my credit card information to a teenager in a foreign country can't be considered wiretapping -- or if the same standard is applied to spyware purveyors as to government agents -- then there's something screwy in the law that needs to be fixed.
I think spyware needs to be stopped now. And I don't think that the ability to conduct legitimate investigation should be confused in the law with some guy allegedly spying on his employer. Two different things that need to be handled two different ways.
Slashdot Mirror
Menace to society, indeed. Maybe they'd do better to pick up programming and write free software rather than cracking someone else's, but I think you've hit the nail on the head; it's not even about the software or movies or music being pirated, in my opinion, when one gets in to the degree these folks have. They get nothing out of what they do but they get nailed harder than spammers or spyware purveyors.
Upon speaking the destination (speech to text is not perfect, especially if you don't speak the language, so it may take a couple tries) you'll notice a RFID-tagged card issued from the machine and speakers along the sidewalk will guide you to where you want to go, within reason. More modern places will also light the sidewalks with your issued card color, although this relies on service funding by the merchants.
Solitaire KaBlam, where cards drop from the top of the screen and you try to arrange them in stacks of the same suit King to Ace. Windows only.
Ultrashoot 3k, where you play a green square in a sidescrolling adventure game where you jump over obstacles and shoot rectangles at other jumping shapes (circles, hexagons, and in later levels dodecahedrons.) Windows or Linux (openGL)
Zrogia, where you adventure into the depths of a text-only dungeon with your trusty pet in a dungeon-crawling role-playing extravaganza. Fight dragons guarding treasure, ogres guarding treasure, or even the mighty Dungeon Guardian if you dare to crawl past level 99. Windows or Linux.
As long as they can rake in more cash than they pay out, fines are useless.
It would be possible to get third-party support for formats that are not officially supported, such as RealMedia or Microsoft DRM-protected audio files. Additionally the dial interface lends itself to use for reading e-book or USENET newsgroups, or for keeping an address book, phonebook, or the days events in your pocket.
However, I wonder if the GPL would create problems in this sort of environment -- presumably there is content that is not open on the player that would be necessary to incorporate into this project. Perhaps it would be wiser to adopt something Open Source such as OpenBSD instead; it's a text-only environment, so the lack of graphical support would be a minor problem at best, and it contains a good deal of security features that would be beneficial should wired applications for this new platform be developed after this project takes off.
The current medium has been taken to its limit and is starting to backslide, so why not take a shot at something new when you can afford the risk and get some entertainment and make history in the process?
There are a couple of drawbacks to this plan: first, the increased caution that will be necessary in working with network cable (everybody's used to them being safe as phone lines) and second the possibility of burning out devices that weren't built with this standard in mind. Who's to say that a cheapie network extender installed in a rat's nest of cabling five years ago wouldn't start a fire when you hook something like this up?
This is not a perception that many people are prepared to accept. A recent survey revealed that while eight out of ten adults could identify three or more Top 40 rap musicians by their photographs and four out of ten knew the relatively obscure fact that chopsticks were actually invented by immigrants in American mining communities in the 1800s as a way of differentiating their restaurants, only three in ten understand and properly apply the rating system for video games to their children.
If you accept the premise that video games, like other media, have some influence on the people that enjoy them it is a simple step to recognize the need to limit the access to those who are least likely to experience harm from it. Perhaps violent games need to be moved behind the counter, or only sold in adult-only forums (such as online stores that accept only checks/credit cards). Or maybe the answer is simpler -- make the games compatible with the V-Chip systems already present in our television sets.
Does anybody know if such a project is being undertaken for the Neuros? I might even pick one up and hack on it myself for my own edification.
From complex wind shear modelling to the amount of flour to throw in the composite, almost all of the attention is paid to the machine -- it makes me wonder if they're shaving less time off the total than if they put this kind of focus on the driver (proper diet, reflexive training, etc.) Gran Turismo 3 demonstrates quite well the types of skills necessary to take on the track.
Is there a hash function they don't have serious qualms about? I've seen an intriguing way to work around the limitations present in MD5 involving the generation/validation of hashes for multiple (perhaps overlapping) blocks in a set of data, but this is moving away from the fixed-width representation of validity MD5 was designed for.
He can create a file that MD5sum's to the same result as a legitimate file, but does not have full control over the content or size of the result (making this a mostly useless avenue of exploitation except for people who want to spread trash on P2P networks -- I.E. it shouldn't particularly bother anyone except people who already don't care about security).
Or he can create two files that MD5sum to the same result. But he has to have control over both files, which offers effectively no advantage to someone who is trying to spread malware or tamper with existing archives that have been MD5summed.
Consequently, while this is of academic interest I don't see what the big deal is; any time you reduce a large file to a fingerprint you will inevitably run into problems like this because it is impossible to represent one-to-one every individual possible combination of a large set of data in smaller sets ("fingerprints"). You can reduce the risk by increasing the set domain with a larger variadic function but it is impossible to escape this constraint without using fingerprints as large as the data itself.
There may be some question about what the user wants and doesn't want, but that doesn't excuse antivirus manufacturers from dodging the problem. If the ability to prevent spyware from installing was ubiquitous (as are virus scanners nowadays) we'd be winning the war. Nobody should have to accept this as an industry practice; things have been getting way too lax with EULAs and intrusive copy protection methods as it is, but this is over the line and we should treat the people who distribute it as we would those who distribute viruses or worms.
However, I wonder if the additional implementation requirements justify the benefits. Static typing is only found in certain computer languages, and programmers have come to rely on dynamic memory allocation offered by malloc() or similar routines. I suspect with careful design one could fully exploit the advantages present -- with software being cheaper than hardware, it could easily be well worth it in embedded or pre-fabricated devices.
The type of implementor that uses (dynamic) extreme programming methodologies may be left out in the cold, although I would like to suggest that would occur anyway to a person working without a blueprint. Regardless, it will be exciting to see how this develops from the embedded perspective...
The only reason we've heard of Tickle-Me Elmo is because of the strategy of building demand through scarcity, and if I've learned anything about watching Slashdot reactions to new Warcraft games it's that gamers only stay pissed until the next time they see something shiny.
Does anybody know if this super storage disc format will be housed in some type of protective cartridge? I hope they don't look like Gamecube discs, because portable stuff should be built for durability on the road.
When I started, the USENET application would inform me that my message would be spread across tens of thousands of computers at immeasurable cost as a subtle hint to keep things interesting, and Internet Chat required some basic knowledge of Makefiles and attention to documentation before you could run a client. Frankly, things became unmanageable at the point the Internet was made accessible to anybody with a web browser; anybody who's been around this long knows what I'm talking about.
It's a short hop to realizing that the problems we're experiencing with virii and worms are the same problem. Intimate knowledge of x86 assembly used to be a requirement -- along with a malcontent-type disposition -- in order to wreak the sort of havoc that today requires fifteen minutes and an Effective VBScript In Fifteen Minutes manual. Every document is now a program, and e-mail doubles as FTP.
Many experts believe we should raise the barrier of entry by requiring programmers to undergo education, certification, and maybe even an oath to do no harm as part of the certification process if going into a security field. It used to take years to do what kids today can do in months; additionally, a would-be programmer who spends a few months picking up Visual Basic or whatever has hardly learned the fundamentals of programming any more than someone who reads a manual about his DVD player has become a laser engineer. I suggest that the field and the general user experience would be greatly enhanced by limiting access to compilers/assemblers (by means of pricing and with the cooperation of the open source community) and by separating macros or other executable content from documents.
It makes more sense than trying to go out and educate every user. Think about it; in what other field do we "educate" "users"? We don't try to educate people with electrical outlets and let any curious individual perform as a licensed electrician. We don't "educate" passengers and let anyone who cares be a bus driver give it a try. Why are things always so difficult when it comes to computers?
How about, "In yet another attempt to make the Internet relevant to the average person?" Why is this a laudable goal for everybody but Microsoft to strive towards?
To have a one-stop shop for communication is pretty much what it's all about. E-mail, instant messaging, fax, voice, photos, movies, TV, radio, and the blog (considered to be the future of websites) converging in a simple-to-use way. This should be something to look forward to.
One possibility is that someone could set up a convincing front-end that would collect (and save) your personal information then forward you to the business-end of this website like nothing happened. Or charge you for somebody else's free service.
When I started, the USENET application would inform me that my message would be spread across tens of thousands of computers at immeasurable cost as a subtle hint to keep things interesting, and Internet Chat required some basic knowledge of Makefiles and attention to documentation before you could run a client. Frankly, things became unmanageable at the point the Internet was made accessible to anybody with a web browser; anybody who's been around this long knows what I'm talking about.
It's a short hop to realizing that the problems we're experiencing with virii and worms are the same problem. Intimate knowledge of x86 assembly used to be a requirement -- along with a malcontent-type disposition -- in order to wreak the sort of havoc that today requires fifteen minutes and an Effective VBScript In Fifteen Minutes manual. Every document is now a program, and e-mail doubles as FTP.
Many experts believe we should raise the barrier of entry by requiring programmers to undergo education, certification, and maybe even an oath to do no harm as part of the certification process if going into a security field. It used to take years to do what kids today can do in months; additionally, a would-be programmer who spends a few months picking up Visual Basic or whatever has hardly learned the fundamentals of programming any more than someone who reads a manual about his DVD player has become a laser engineer. I suggest that the field and the general user experience would be greatly enhanced by limiting access to compilers/assemblers (by means of pricing and with the cooperation of the open source community) and by separating macros or other executable content from documents.
It makes more sense than trying to go out and educate every user. Think about it; in what other field do we "educate" "users"? We don't try to educate people with electrical outlets and let any curious individual perform as a licensed electrician. We don't "educate" passengers and let anyone who cares be a bus driver give it a try. Why are things always so difficult when it comes to computers?
Heroes are people who save lives. Firefighters and policemen are heroes -- they brave danger on a daily basis to save lives. So too was Jonas Salk; if he developed a program to add tags to MP3 files instead of discovering penicillin and refining it for medical use, this would have been a disappointment.
This isn't intended to disparage the work of open source geeks in any way. They're just in a different class (improving our lives in front of a LCD monitor instead of saving them from a burning building.)
If things get really bad, just switch to cellphones. They can't call those, although for some reason they get a lot of wrong numbers.
If a vendor is unsympathetic to your concerns, it's up to you to find an alternative or work around them. As you explain, the second option is not always possible when they require access to a number of services at a fundamental level. The worst cases of this occur when you have one or two vendors to pick from for a given application. My suggestion is then to design the application yourself within your security parameters and functionality requirements -- as many people do not have that capability within their own ASP (otherwise they'd do it already) you might want to use something like Sourceforge and contract a team overseas to do it cheaply, supervising the project from here and optionally open-sourcing it after it's built. Then you've got something designed to your parameters without support or upgrade costs especially if the community digs what you've built.
Norway has an excellent system where experts are explicitly involved in the judging process. At least in the DeCSS case, they involved two laymen with technical knowledge and allowed each to cast a vote towards the verdict (making them effectively assistant judges to the three handling the trial).
If keystroke logging isn't wiretapping, maybe this opens a whole can of worms whereby spyware becomes legal. And if software that sits on my machine without my knowledge relaying my credit card information to a teenager in a foreign country can't be considered wiretapping -- or if the same standard is applied to spyware purveyors as to government agents -- then there's something screwy in the law that needs to be fixed.
I think spyware needs to be stopped now. And I don't think that the ability to conduct legitimate investigation should be confused in the law with some guy allegedly spying on his employer. Two different things that need to be handled two different ways.