I'm sure I won't be the first (or last) to say this, but I just don't think DivX;-) really has a big effect on movie piracy. The simple fact remains that most people do not have high-speed net connections, and most people don't want to be bothered with finding and downloading movies.
Most people have never even heard of IRC, much less know where to go to get pirated movies. Even if they did, DivX;-) has two things working against it: file size, and an extra codec.
First, DivX;-) movies are, on the whole, quite a bit larger than their ASF brethren. Joe Sixpack doesn't mind the lower quality of ASF if it means he has to download 200MB less to watch it.
Second, if Joe Sixpack does decide to download "Shaft-DVD-Rip-DivX.avi", he'll get a nasty surprise when he tries to play it: "Codec Not Found". In the age of transparent auto-updates, this is a big problem.
Finally, let's say DivX;-) lets more pirates put movies on CDs, etc. Who's going to have them? The same people who buy pirated VCDs and VHS tapes right now! Just because they become more commonplace doesn't mean it'll be any easier to get them without venturing into questionable neighborhoods.
As such, I don't see that DivX;-) is really a major threat to the MPAA, certainly no moreso than Windows Media. Ironic, huh...
We've got this running on the network at my campus, and it works reasonably well (now that we've added normal.dot to the list of files to be restored on logout). Every time a user logs out of an NT machine, PC-Rdist does a quick scan and replaces anything that needs replacing. This tends to keep things reasonably clean; although at first, before we protected normal.dot, the lab PCs were just a haven for Word macro virii.
Also, I definitely agree about having homogenous hardware -- we don't, and it's a huge pain. We've got, I think, 4 different kinds of PC in the labs, each with its own image that it restores from, and it's just an enormous hassle.
In all, though, this is a reasonable (and pretty cheap) way to protect PCs from virii.
A method for creating a physical representation of a document or data set which exists in digital form. This includes, but is not limited to, creating "hard copy" of a document, visual representation with photons, aural presentation using sound waves, and tactile presentation using "force-feedback" technology.
I would like to point out a small technicality: this is not censorship. The library is choosing to provide internet access. It is not obligated to provide access at all, and it can provide access to whatever it wants on its own terms. A right to free speech and a right to government subsidized access to other people's free speech are two different things.
This is most certainly censorship. Libraries don't have to carry potentially offensive books, either. But they do (or, at least, many do). Any librarian worth his salt would never even consider limiting access to the information on paper; why should access to the digital stuff be any different?
Certainly, this is the work of mindless bureaucrats; most have gotten over their penchant for censoring books, but there are still plenty who are keen on censoring the Internet. If it looks like censorship, smells like censorship, and makes you feel dirty all over like censorship, it's probably censorship.
If there's a national organization of Librarians, they need to get on top of this ASAP.
I'm at Harvard right now, sitting in my dorm room, using Napster. To the best of my knowledge, our policy about Napster (which is currently nonexistent) has nothing to do with copyright (we're officially bound by some sort of moral code, which the administration feels is sufficient, I believe) and everything to do with bandwidth. That is, we've got FAT pipes, so we can use Napster. (Actually, we've just upgraded this summer, and now everyone's got dedicated 10Mb lines, heehee).
Let's hope the administration doesn't back down on this one. I'll be sorely disappointed.
I'm not sure what to make of this. On the one hand, I want to be happy that we have a possible temporary solution to the "organ shortage." On the other hand, the whole thing is a little creepy. I mean, come on; we're cloning pigs to harvest their organs. Doesn't this seem just a little creepy?
And, granted, they say they wouldn't use primates even though they'd be a better match because they can only reproduce one-at-a-time... but, of course, the best match would be humans. Sure, it may not be possible today, or maybe even not in the near future, but is it really impossible to imagine cloning people for their organs?
Okay, so maybe cloning humans just for organs would be inefficient. If we could clone just organs... that would be something. I've heard something about growing an ear in a petri dish or somesuch, so I'm sure we'll eventually be able to grow kidneys or hearts or spleens (whatever those do).
I think next we should work on cloning chihuahuas so everyone can have a talking dog. I mean, they all really talk, right? It's on TV, it must be true.
Come on now, really. These things are entirely different. Bellbottoms != iMacs. Other designers can make bellbottoms because they're not trying to capitalize on another designer's particular style of bellbottom (i.e., people buy designer clothing because of some distinct mark that carries prestige, whether it be the label or a particular type of stitching or what have you).
On the other hand, eMachines made a computer that looked frighteningly like the iMac, repulsive translucent blue-green and all. Consumers see adverts for the iMac on TV, or on billboards, or in magazines. They say, "Wow, that's a pretty cool-looking computer. Maybe I should buy me one." When they get to the store (especially if it's one of those Office Superstore things), they're confronted with about 20 eMachines and a smiling salesman who just wants to move computers.
Of course, Joe Consumer is confused. Because he saw this ad, and it was for an iMac, but here is the eOne which looks the same and is simliarly priced. What does he do? He gives in to the salesman and buys the eOne and ruins his life.
I think what I'm trying to say is that people like the iMac. The iMac was the first, and it was unique. Chrysler can't produce an Audi TT, so why should eMachines be able to produce an iMac?
Man, you've summed it up beautifully. I remember those days. People who used Windows were so lame.
And looking at virus source code... I was one of those losers sitting around reading 40h in the dark thinking about how cool it would be to write a some really virulent code. As it turned out, I wrote a really lame com-infector that didn't even spread outside of the directory it was run in, making it pretty useless. But it did prevent programs from running on my birthday.
Man, I really wasted my youth. Now I'm a bitter almost-20 who would gladly take a summer job doing web design for Joe's Auto Shop and Taxidermy. God, somebody please hire me.
I think the moral of the story is: don't read 40h. It'll rot your mind.
Indeed. Granted, I don't know how feasible rebuilding protocols is at this point (I'm just a humble designer and sometime-programmer). But it's certainly a good idea.
What concerns me most about these propositions, though, is not the loss of anonymity (I don't pretend to have anonymity now and, for the most part, that's okay with me), but rather that it suggests ISPs keep detailed logs of users' activities online. While it may be possible to track users online now (especially those with static IPs), it is certainly more complicated than handing a warrant to their ISP and ordering the surrender of records.
On top of it all (and this is probably me just being paranoid), by keeping records of all online activity in one place, it sure becomes a lot easier for someone with a bad attitude to find out that you've been looking at a.f.t.s.o.j from your desk at work.
Wasn't the purpose of more TLDs to make things less complicated (ie. ".sex" and such) and not moreso? Sure,.sucks might be useful to a certain extent, but, as everyone has already noted, who the hell will use.isnotgreen? That's just plain silly and, yes, too long.
Oh yeah - did anyone else notice that they forgot to mention the.net TLD in the article? (Personally, I really like.net!)
I'm just waiting for a.geek so I can get me one of them domain name thingamabobs.
... as in, "It's a good idea, but!" As has been pointed out, there are potential privacy issues. For the "average" user, though, I don't think this is a terribly big deal. What becomes a problem, then, is access to the Robust URL redirector (as I understand it from posts, the site seems to either be simply down, or a victim of the/. effect). Since all Robust URLs have to pass through the redirector, what happens if the redirector is down? What happens if the redirector is unreachable?
Furthermore, simply feeding keywords to a search engine doesn't guarantee finding your page quickly, or even finding it at all. Designers would have to include unique keywords - words that might not even apply to their page - so that a Robust URL search would turn up only their page. Not only does this bloat HTML code, but it also confuses people using search engines in the usual way.
Certainly a good idea, as many people hate 404s (bah, they're just a fact of life), but it seems like it's got more than a few bugs left in it.
We've known for ages that governments try to find ways around their own laws to get rid of things they don't particularly like. This is just another silly example.
It's like DeCSS all over again: "authority" cracks down on something they don't understand because they feel that it encroaches on their information monopoly. Just because something can be used to commit a crime doesn't mean that's all it's good for.
The question remains, though: is the problem that the government doesn't understand the software, or that they're afraid of us using it for our own good, and outsmarting them?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure I won't be the first (or last) to say this, but I just don't think DivX ;-) really has a big effect on movie piracy. The simple fact remains that most people do not have high-speed net connections, and most people don't want to be bothered with finding and downloading movies.
Most people have never even heard of IRC, much less know where to go to get pirated movies. Even if they did, DivX ;-) has two things working against it: file size, and an extra codec.
First, DivX ;-) movies are, on the whole, quite a bit larger than their ASF brethren. Joe Sixpack doesn't mind the lower quality of ASF if it means he has to download 200MB less to watch it.
Second, if Joe Sixpack does decide to download "Shaft-DVD-Rip-DivX.avi", he'll get a nasty surprise when he tries to play it: "Codec Not Found". In the age of transparent auto-updates, this is a big problem.
Finally, let's say DivX ;-) lets more pirates put movies on CDs, etc. Who's going to have them? The same people who buy pirated VCDs and VHS tapes right now! Just because they become more commonplace doesn't mean it'll be any easier to get them without venturing into questionable neighborhoods.
As such, I don't see that DivX ;-) is really a major threat to the MPAA, certainly no moreso than Windows Media. Ironic, huh...
Oh my god! The Hooters girls were bots all along? I feel so dirty!
(And yes, the Hooters girls do use up resources on the target system, if you get my drift)
i once had similaritis, but some penicillin cleared that right up.
We've got this running on the network at my campus, and it works reasonably well (now that we've added normal.dot to the list of files to be restored on logout). Every time a user logs out of an NT machine, PC-Rdist does a quick scan and replaces anything that needs replacing. This tends to keep things reasonably clean; although at first, before we protected normal.dot, the lab PCs were just a haven for Word macro virii.
Also, I definitely agree about having homogenous hardware -- we don't, and it's a huge pain. We've got, I think, 4 different kinds of PC in the labs, each with its own image that it restores from, and it's just an enormous hassle.
In all, though, this is a reasonable (and pretty cheap) way to protect PCs from virii.
A method for creating a physical representation of a document or data set which exists in digital form. This includes, but is not limited to, creating "hard copy" of a document, visual representation with photons, aural presentation using sound waves, and tactile presentation using "force-feedback" technology.
I would like to point out a small technicality: this is not censorship. The library is choosing to provide internet access. It is not obligated to provide access at all, and it can provide access to whatever it wants on its own terms. A right to free speech and a right to government subsidized access to other people's free speech are two different things.
This is most certainly censorship. Libraries don't have to carry potentially offensive books, either. But they do (or, at least, many do). Any librarian worth his salt would never even consider limiting access to the information on paper; why should access to the digital stuff be any different?
Certainly, this is the work of mindless bureaucrats; most have gotten over their penchant for censoring books, but there are still plenty who are keen on censoring the Internet. If it looks like censorship, smells like censorship, and makes you feel dirty all over like censorship, it's probably censorship.
If there's a national organization of Librarians, they need to get on top of this ASAP.
I'm at Harvard right now, sitting in my dorm room, using Napster. To the best of my knowledge, our policy about Napster (which is currently nonexistent) has nothing to do with copyright (we're officially bound by some sort of moral code, which the administration feels is sufficient, I believe) and everything to do with bandwidth. That is, we've got FAT pipes, so we can use Napster. (Actually, we've just upgraded this summer, and now everyone's got dedicated 10Mb lines, heehee).
Let's hope the administration doesn't back down on this one. I'll be sorely disappointed.
I'm not sure what to make of this. On the one hand, I want to be happy that we have a possible temporary solution to the "organ shortage." On the other hand, the whole thing is a little creepy. I mean, come on; we're cloning pigs to harvest their organs. Doesn't this seem just a little creepy?
And, granted, they say they wouldn't use primates even though they'd be a better match because they can only reproduce one-at-a-time... but, of course, the best match would be humans. Sure, it may not be possible today, or maybe even not in the near future, but is it really impossible to imagine cloning people for their organs?
Okay, so maybe cloning humans just for organs would be inefficient. If we could clone just organs... that would be something. I've heard something about growing an ear in a petri dish or somesuch, so I'm sure we'll eventually be able to grow kidneys or hearts or spleens (whatever those do).
I think next we should work on cloning chihuahuas so everyone can have a talking dog. I mean, they all really talk, right? It's on TV, it must be true.
Come on now, really. These things are entirely different. Bellbottoms != iMacs. Other designers can make bellbottoms because they're not trying to capitalize on another designer's particular style of bellbottom (i.e., people buy designer clothing because of some distinct mark that carries prestige, whether it be the label or a particular type of stitching or what have you).
On the other hand, eMachines made a computer that looked frighteningly like the iMac, repulsive translucent blue-green and all. Consumers see adverts for the iMac on TV, or on billboards, or in magazines. They say, "Wow, that's a pretty cool-looking computer. Maybe I should buy me one." When they get to the store (especially if it's one of those Office Superstore things), they're confronted with about 20 eMachines and a smiling salesman who just wants to move computers.
Of course, Joe Consumer is confused. Because he saw this ad, and it was for an iMac, but here is the eOne which looks the same and is simliarly priced. What does he do? He gives in to the salesman and buys the eOne and ruins his life.
I think what I'm trying to say is that people like the iMac. The iMac was the first, and it was unique. Chrysler can't produce an Audi TT, so why should eMachines be able to produce an iMac?
Man, you've summed it up beautifully. I remember those days. People who used Windows were so lame.
And looking at virus source code... I was one of those losers sitting around reading 40h in the dark thinking about how cool it would be to write a some really virulent code. As it turned out, I wrote a really lame com-infector that didn't even spread outside of the directory it was run in, making it pretty useless. But it did prevent programs from running on my birthday.
Man, I really wasted my youth. Now I'm a bitter almost-20 who would gladly take a summer job doing web design for Joe's Auto Shop and Taxidermy. God, somebody please hire me.
I think the moral of the story is: don't read 40h. It'll rot your mind.
Indeed. Granted, I don't know how feasible rebuilding protocols is at this point (I'm just a humble designer and sometime-programmer). But it's certainly a good idea.
What concerns me most about these propositions, though, is not the loss of anonymity (I don't pretend to have anonymity now and, for the most part, that's okay with me), but rather that it suggests ISPs keep detailed logs of users' activities online. While it may be possible to track users online now (especially those with static IPs), it is certainly more complicated than handing a warrant to their ISP and ordering the surrender of records.
On top of it all (and this is probably me just being paranoid), by keeping records of all online activity in one place, it sure becomes a lot easier for someone with a bad attitude to find out that you've been looking at a.f.t.s.o.j from your desk at work.
Maybe now I'll stop getting all those ads for the Pleasure-Vibe 2000 mailed to me every week.
Err, what I meant to say was, it's good that no one except pretty much everyone I do business with will be able to check up on what I've been buying.
Oh, was that sarcastic?
Wasn't the purpose of more TLDs to make things less complicated (ie. ".sex" and such) and not moreso? Sure, .sucks might be useful to a certain extent, but, as everyone has already noted, who the hell will use .isnotgreen? That's just plain silly and, yes, too long.
Oh yeah - did anyone else notice that they forgot to mention the .net TLD in the article? (Personally, I really like .net!)
I'm just waiting for a .geek so I can get me one of them domain name thingamabobs.
... as in, "It's a good idea, but!" As has been pointed out, there are potential privacy issues. For the "average" user, though, I don't think this is a terribly big deal. What becomes a problem, then, is access to the Robust URL redirector (as I understand it from posts, the site seems to either be simply down, or a victim of the /. effect). Since all Robust URLs have to pass through the redirector, what happens if the redirector is down? What happens if the redirector is unreachable?
Furthermore, simply feeding keywords to a search engine doesn't guarantee finding your page quickly, or even finding it at all. Designers would have to include unique keywords - words that might not even apply to their page - so that a Robust URL search would turn up only their page. Not only does this bloat HTML code, but it also confuses people using search engines in the usual way.
Certainly a good idea, as many people hate 404s (bah, they're just a fact of life), but it seems like it's got more than a few bugs left in it.
We've known for ages that governments try to find ways around their own laws to get rid of things they don't particularly like. This is just another silly example.
It's like DeCSS all over again: "authority" cracks down on something they don't understand because they feel that it encroaches on their information monopoly. Just because something can be used to commit a crime doesn't mean that's all it's good for.
The question remains, though: is the problem that the government doesn't understand the software, or that they're afraid of us using it for our own good, and outsmarting them?