But the networks don't really care if you watch the shows. They want you to watch the commercials. Most people who watch a show time-shifted are going to be fast-forwarding through the commercials.
I've been playing back 1080p content over a network on my Mac Mini for almost a year. Yeah, the Mini with a 1.83GHz processor and crappy Intel graphics. It's choked on exactly one, particularly high bitrate file. Everything else works great.
Maybe there's just some crappy playback software out there that's choking? I know Perian has issues with MKV files, and I suspect that Perian+MKV is a common combination with many Mac filesharers.
I-frames are essentially an entire picture. You could decode an I-frame and have a screenshot from the movie file.
P-frames (predictive) are essentially stored as the difference between the current frame and the preceding I- or P-frame. You save quite a bit of space this way, as you suspected.
B-frames are like P-frames, but they're predicted based upon both the previous and next frames.
The catch is that in order to skip to a specific P- or B-frame, you've got to decode the dependencies, too. So you have to strike a balance--you could be extremely space-efficient if you only ever coded one I-frame, but seeking would suffer horribly. Likewise, you could encode only to I-frames, but you'll be using a lot space. There's nothing strictly wrong with decoding the required frames and then starting playback from the dependent frames, but that can take time. The user would probably prefer seeing a bit more of their film than wondering if their player is broken. Not only that, what if the user tries to skip around several times?
No, but there are pretty good reasons to optimize with 60hz in mind--most people these days have LCDs, and most (all?) LCDs are stuck at that frequency.
Internet Explorer is a web browser. Trident is the layout engine. Other programs can make use of Trident to, in effect, allow for web browsing. Microsoft can use Trident in places other than IE where it makes sense to have a layout engine. Removing IE will not remove Trident.
Why not run wireless unencrypted. and run anything you actually care about being encrypted either over ssl, through an ssh tunnel, or some other form of real encryption?
Why not use both?
Use WPA2 to mitigate the risk of someone accessing your AP in an unauthorized manner--let's be realistic here, it's a "good enough" protocol for now, and there will be lots of time to adjust if it's ever broken (it will be the biggest story of the year on Slashdot--we'll all hear about it before we're in any real danger.) But you can use the secure protocols just to be safe--hell, I already do, because I don't trust what's outside of my wireless network.
The reasons to use WPA2 despite the fact that I'm already security my important traffic? Schneier outlines that perfectly:
While none thought you could be successfully prosecuted just because someone else used your network to commit a crime, any investigation could be time-consuming and expensive. You might have your computer equipment seized, and if you have any contraband of your own on your machine, it could be a delicate situation. Also, prosecutors aren't always the most technically savvy bunch, and you might end up being charged despite your innocence. The lawyers I spoke with say most defense attorneys will advise you to reach a plea agreement rather than risk going to trial on child-pornography charges.
Although he denounces that based upon statistics, it's such a simple thing to use WPA2 (in most cases) that it's almost like a free shot at some extra security. On the off chance that someone does use your connection for illicit means and you get caught, I don't think the Judge is going to care about the statistics. Better to take then 10 minutes to set up WPA2 and be done with it.
Looking back, though, it doesn't look like Schneier is concerned with the "fake security" of this at all. Mostly, it's an odds game, and the fact that he doesn't mind sharing. That's noble--it really is--but in this climate where being accused of a crime is often tantamount to having committed it (in the eyes of the law) it's not a chance I'm willing to take.
But interestingly, in the US, this would only apply to the criminal aspects. The burden of proof in civil trials is much lower than the burden of proof in criminal trials. Look at OJ Simpson--he was exonerated of the crime of murder back in the 90s, but was found liable for the deaths int he civil trial and ordered to pay restitution.
The rationale for a 64-bit build was a 40% performance improvement.
Wow, what software was that? Most of the time, I find that 32-bit software benchmarks a bit faster than the same software compiled for 64-bit on the same machine.
Only if I'm using memory-intensive applications and have gobs of RAM in the machine have I found this to be different. Even then, I've never seen anything get near to a 40% performance boost.
This could be done with Windows. Teach the users not to click "Continue" on UAC prompts unless they know what they're doing.
The problem has been, is, and always will be the users. They want their shiny "asteroid cursors" and their "desktop playmates" and they're going to get them, along with whatever crap comes along with it.
There's a real pack rat mentality that goes on with a lot of people. I've known people who literally had years and years worth of music (assuming listening 24 hours a day). They'll never listen to it all. I've also known people who owned thousands of DVD movies. Though they might own fewer total discs, the fact that DVDs demand more of your attention makes it just as likely that they'll never watch them all.
And in college, I knew people who pirated these massive amounts of media. There was a sort of status associated with sharing that much--of how many gigabytes (and now probably terabytes) of data you had on the network. It had little to do with wanting things for free.
Personally, I buy DVDs of movies that I really like, partly because I don't want to ever be unable to watch them. There's still the occasional hard-to-find film out there, and that's without companies going out of their way to make artificial scarcity even more scarce. But it's an extremely expensive habit, and I can see someone turning to piracy when all they really want to do is ensure that no one can deprive them of viewing the material just because they want to. In a way, at least Disney's up front about it. Most other production studios don't warn you when they're about to stop producing copies of a film.
If they ever brought me to court, I'm going to ask what the difference is between getting the movie in the mail and ripping it myself.
Ripping it yourself from where? You're talking about two completely different things here--having possession of a disc and making a digital copy, and getting possession of the disc in the first place.
I want software from people whose motivation is better software, that way we get things like Synaptic Package Manager and Update Manager at least in the case of Ubuntu.
Microsoft's in a bad position in this case. Sure, they're monetarily motivated, but I suspect that they'd do a lot better business with something like Synaptic and Update Manager to help you manage all of the software on your computer. The problem? They'd surely be hit with antitrust allegations every time they don't manage to include all types of software which perform a given function.
Anyway, look into Secunia PSI for software management on Windows. It will scan your computer (files and registry) looking for out of date software, and oftentimes it will be able to provide you with a link to the manufacturer's download page, if not to the executable itself, for updates. It isn't a true repository solution since it won't install new software, but it will at least help you keep installed software up-to-date.
Of course, you may quickly notice some problems that occur due to software manufacturers failing to completely uninstall old versions. I've had multiple versions of software detected by PSI when clearly only one was installed. Cleaning out old files seemed to do the trick.
All things considered it is just plain lazier to restart your server after applying patches
Fixed that for you.
Someone who is knowledgeable will be able to restart the appropriate services on a Linux box without going through a full reboot cycle. It's not hard to check the processes on a box to see if they're using the library which was updated.
To the best of my knowledge, it is impossible to do this in many cases with Windows, because you can't replace the file while it is in use (and forcibly unlocking the file to replace it has undefined behavior with any given program.)
I'd love to be proven wrong on that Microsoft bit, though. If there's a way to safely patch without having to restart, please let me know!
It's not that we're trying to turn one into the other--it's that people use one as the other incorrectly, and that further weakens Wikipedia. It's always the idiots that spoil it for the rest of us.
Couldn't they keep releasing patches as holes were discovered and simply provide the means for their clients to decide when to install them at their discretion?
Yes, thats how it always worked, and still does.
Well, not really. You're missing a step.
Old way: 1) Exploit discovered. 2) Patch developed/tested/released by Microsoft. 3) Patch installed at user's convenience.
New way: 1) Exploit discovered. 2) Patch developed/tested by Microsoft. 3) Microsoft waits for Tuesday. 4) Patch released. 5) Patch installed at user's convenience.
What people in this thread are complaining about is that there's a gap between the amount of time that the patch is finished and when it's released. That's the point that the grandparent was making--they weren't insinuating that patches were ever mandatory by Microsoft.
You're correct that once a patch is released, it's easier to reverse-engineer the vulnerability. That's precisely why Microsoft came up with Patch Tuesday--so that their big clients could have a scheduled time frame for patch deployment.
That doesn't mean that it's the best way to do it, though. While the corporations are sitting pretty behind their locked down systems and corporate firewalls, the rest of the world is vulnerable.
And that's what I'd tell the Asker's clients. Being closed source doesn't help you--it just means that you're beholden to one company to fix your problems.
Except that eventually, they'll probably cut back on production of dead tree books. We already saw CD sales tank last year, while digital downloads of music skyrocketed.
Now I'm not sure that books will follow that trend any time soon, but devices like the Kindle are making it more feasible. To me, there's no advantage to having any number of books available to me at any given time (unless they were textbooks), but the instant gratification aspect of the device+service cannot be ignored.
"And then I can't read until it's returned to me. Fantastic."
And that's different from dead-tree how?
Did you mentally insert an "it" in my quote?
I said that I couldn't/read/ until it was returned to me, not that I couldn't read "it". The clear difference between loaning a dead-tree book to someone and loaning my reader to someone is that if I loan the dead-tree book, I can still read something else. If I loan someone my Kindle...not so much. Well, I can get a dead-tree book to read, but then what's the point of the Kindle?
I understand the technology and where it's going. I'm saying that I don't like it, and I'm stating the reasons.
That's the point of DRM-encumbered digital media. They want to kill the second-hand market. If they can keep people from selling their books/music or loaning them to other people, then they get to sell that a few more copies.
Slashdot Mirror
But the networks don't really care if you watch the shows. They want you to watch the commercials. Most people who watch a show time-shifted are going to be fast-forwarding through the commercials.
I've been playing back 1080p content over a network on my Mac Mini for almost a year. Yeah, the Mini with a 1.83GHz processor and crappy Intel graphics. It's choked on exactly one, particularly high bitrate file. Everything else works great.
Maybe there's just some crappy playback software out there that's choking? I know Perian has issues with MKV files, and I suspect that Perian+MKV is a common combination with many Mac filesharers.
In case you're curious....
I-frames are essentially an entire picture. You could decode an I-frame and have a screenshot from the movie file.
P-frames (predictive) are essentially stored as the difference between the current frame and the preceding I- or P-frame. You save quite a bit of space this way, as you suspected.
B-frames are like P-frames, but they're predicted based upon both the previous and next frames.
The catch is that in order to skip to a specific P- or B-frame, you've got to decode the dependencies, too. So you have to strike a balance--you could be extremely space-efficient if you only ever coded one I-frame, but seeking would suffer horribly. Likewise, you could encode only to I-frames, but you'll be using a lot space. There's nothing strictly wrong with decoding the required frames and then starting playback from the dependent frames, but that can take time. The user would probably prefer seeing a bit more of their film than wondering if their player is broken. Not only that, what if the user tries to skip around several times?
No, but there are pretty good reasons to optimize with 60hz in mind--most people these days have LCDs, and most (all?) LCDs are stuck at that frequency.
Internet Explorer is a web browser. Trident is the layout engine. Other programs can make use of Trident to, in effect, allow for web browsing. Microsoft can use Trident in places other than IE where it makes sense to have a layout engine. Removing IE will not remove Trident.
It's really not that hard, people.
Why not run wireless unencrypted. and run anything you actually care about being encrypted either over ssl, through an ssh tunnel, or some other form of real encryption?
Why not use both?
Use WPA2 to mitigate the risk of someone accessing your AP in an unauthorized manner--let's be realistic here, it's a "good enough" protocol for now, and there will be lots of time to adjust if it's ever broken (it will be the biggest story of the year on Slashdot--we'll all hear about it before we're in any real danger.) But you can use the secure protocols just to be safe--hell, I already do, because I don't trust what's outside of my wireless network.
The reasons to use WPA2 despite the fact that I'm already security my important traffic? Schneier outlines that perfectly:
While none thought you could be successfully prosecuted just because someone else used your network to commit a crime, any investigation could be time-consuming and expensive. You might have your computer equipment seized, and if you have any contraband of your own on your machine, it could be a delicate situation. Also, prosecutors aren't always the most technically savvy bunch, and you might end up being charged despite your innocence. The lawyers I spoke with say most defense attorneys will advise you to reach a plea agreement rather than risk going to trial on child-pornography charges.
Although he denounces that based upon statistics, it's such a simple thing to use WPA2 (in most cases) that it's almost like a free shot at some extra security. On the off chance that someone does use your connection for illicit means and you get caught, I don't think the Judge is going to care about the statistics. Better to take then 10 minutes to set up WPA2 and be done with it.
Looking back, though, it doesn't look like Schneier is concerned with the "fake security" of this at all. Mostly, it's an odds game, and the fact that he doesn't mind sharing. That's noble--it really is--but in this climate where being accused of a crime is often tantamount to having committed it (in the eyes of the law) it's not a chance I'm willing to take.
Maybe he has several accounts, and was using an "account decade."
But interestingly, in the US, this would only apply to the criminal aspects. The burden of proof in civil trials is much lower than the burden of proof in criminal trials. Look at OJ Simpson--he was exonerated of the crime of murder back in the 90s, but was found liable for the deaths int he civil trial and ordered to pay restitution.
Yes, because both democrats and republicans happen to agree that logging is needed.
Here you go:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=EULA+upheld+in+court
The rationale for a 64-bit build was a 40% performance improvement.
Wow, what software was that? Most of the time, I find that 32-bit software benchmarks a bit faster than the same software compiled for 64-bit on the same machine.
Only if I'm using memory-intensive applications and have gobs of RAM in the machine have I found this to be different. Even then, I've never seen anything get near to a 40% performance boost.
This could be done with Windows. Teach the users not to click "Continue" on UAC prompts unless they know what they're doing.
The problem has been, is, and always will be the users. They want their shiny "asteroid cursors" and their "desktop playmates" and they're going to get them, along with whatever crap comes along with it.
There's a real pack rat mentality that goes on with a lot of people. I've known people who literally had years and years worth of music (assuming listening 24 hours a day). They'll never listen to it all. I've also known people who owned thousands of DVD movies. Though they might own fewer total discs, the fact that DVDs demand more of your attention makes it just as likely that they'll never watch them all.
And in college, I knew people who pirated these massive amounts of media. There was a sort of status associated with sharing that much--of how many gigabytes (and now probably terabytes) of data you had on the network. It had little to do with wanting things for free.
Personally, I buy DVDs of movies that I really like, partly because I don't want to ever be unable to watch them. There's still the occasional hard-to-find film out there, and that's without companies going out of their way to make artificial scarcity even more scarce. But it's an extremely expensive habit, and I can see someone turning to piracy when all they really want to do is ensure that no one can deprive them of viewing the material just because they want to. In a way, at least Disney's up front about it. Most other production studios don't warn you when they're about to stop producing copies of a film.
If they ever brought me to court, I'm going to ask what the difference is between getting the movie in the mail and ripping it myself.
Ripping it yourself from where? You're talking about two completely different things here--having possession of a disc and making a digital copy, and getting possession of the disc in the first place.
But since I think I understand what you're getting at, here's an interesting read for you:
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php
I want software from people whose motivation is better software, that way we get things like Synaptic Package Manager and Update Manager at least in the case of Ubuntu.
Microsoft's in a bad position in this case. Sure, they're monetarily motivated, but I suspect that they'd do a lot better business with something like Synaptic and Update Manager to help you manage all of the software on your computer. The problem? They'd surely be hit with antitrust allegations every time they don't manage to include all types of software which perform a given function.
Anyway, look into Secunia PSI for software management on Windows. It will scan your computer (files and registry) looking for out of date software, and oftentimes it will be able to provide you with a link to the manufacturer's download page, if not to the executable itself, for updates. It isn't a true repository solution since it won't install new software, but it will at least help you keep installed software up-to-date.
Of course, you may quickly notice some problems that occur due to software manufacturers failing to completely uninstall old versions. I've had multiple versions of software detected by PSI when clearly only one was installed. Cleaning out old files seemed to do the trick.
All things considered it is just plain lazier to restart your server after applying patches
Fixed that for you.
Someone who is knowledgeable will be able to restart the appropriate services on a Linux box without going through a full reboot cycle. It's not hard to check the processes on a box to see if they're using the library which was updated.
To the best of my knowledge, it is impossible to do this in many cases with Windows, because you can't replace the file while it is in use (and forcibly unlocking the file to replace it has undefined behavior with any given program.)
I'd love to be proven wrong on that Microsoft bit, though. If there's a way to safely patch without having to restart, please let me know!
It's not that we're trying to turn one into the other--it's that people use one as the other incorrectly, and that further weakens Wikipedia. It's always the idiots that spoil it for the rest of us.
Couldn't they keep releasing patches as holes were discovered and simply provide the means for their clients to decide when to install them at their discretion?
Yes, thats how it always worked, and still does.
Well, not really. You're missing a step.
Old way:
1) Exploit discovered.
2) Patch developed/tested/released by Microsoft.
3) Patch installed at user's convenience.
New way:
1) Exploit discovered.
2) Patch developed/tested by Microsoft.
3) Microsoft waits for Tuesday.
4) Patch released.
5) Patch installed at user's convenience.
What people in this thread are complaining about is that there's a gap between the amount of time that the patch is finished and when it's released. That's the point that the grandparent was making--they weren't insinuating that patches were ever mandatory by Microsoft.
You're correct that once a patch is released, it's easier to reverse-engineer the vulnerability. That's precisely why Microsoft came up with Patch Tuesday--so that their big clients could have a scheduled time frame for patch deployment.
That doesn't mean that it's the best way to do it, though. While the corporations are sitting pretty behind their locked down systems and corporate firewalls, the rest of the world is vulnerable.
This is exactly what happens. People reverse engineer the patch to discover the exact vulnerability.
http://www.techimo.com/forum/security-privacy-issues/207377-reverse-engineering-security-patches-automatically-generate-exploits.html
And that's what I'd tell the Asker's clients. Being closed source doesn't help you--it just means that you're beholden to one company to fix your problems.
Except that eventually, they'll probably cut back on production of dead tree books. We already saw CD sales tank last year, while digital downloads of music skyrocketed.
Now I'm not sure that books will follow that trend any time soon, but devices like the Kindle are making it more feasible. To me, there's no advantage to having any number of books available to me at any given time (unless they were textbooks), but the instant gratification aspect of the device+service cannot be ignored.
"And then I can't read until it's returned to me. Fantastic."
And that's different from dead-tree how?
Did you mentally insert an "it" in my quote?
I said that I couldn't /read/ until it was returned to me, not that I couldn't read "it". The clear difference between loaning a dead-tree book to someone and loaning my reader to someone is that if I loan the dead-tree book, I can still read something else. If I loan someone my Kindle...not so much. Well, I can get a dead-tree book to read, but then what's the point of the Kindle?
I understand the technology and where it's going. I'm saying that I don't like it, and I'm stating the reasons.
Well the problem with digital is that the idea of "used" flies out the window. What does it mean to have a "used" digital book?
"Second-hand" then. The idea is that I could lose access to the file, and someone else could gain access.
Good thing they closed that analog hole then. Here's the new phrase: "Want to borrow my reader?" instead of the old phrase: "Want to borrow my book?".
And then I can't read until it's returned to me. Fantastic.
Of course, if you're using Truecrypt, they won't know when to stop hitting you.
Indeed. I choose not to buy DRM-encumbered media.
I'm just not looking forward to the day when it's all DRM-encumbered. I guess that's the day I start up a personal library.
That's the point of DRM-encumbered digital media. They want to kill the second-hand market. If they can keep people from selling their books/music or loaning them to other people, then they get to sell that a few more copies.