Well, jumping isn't a great things, as it would make the vehicle that much more obvious/visible. DARPA isn't trying to have something invented that looks cool or "just works", it has to serve a purpose.
Hover vehicles have limitations of their own, that have actually been discussed on/. boards in the past.
As for nature... you don't see any animals that "hover" either... perhaps save the flying fish. You have some that fly, and a few that float down from somewhere higher up, but not more than 1 or 2 that have any type of actual "hover" capabilities.
Wheeled craft are easier to maintain than jumping or hovering equipment. That means that the military that would inevitably use this technology would not need special training on the mechanics... just possibly on the electronics used. Quite possibly not even on that.
Personally, I don't get why they didn't use low, bumper-mounted radar to detect things like giant obtrusions so that axles didn't get broke and the like. *appauled* I really don't get it!
Didn't these people but their vehicles through any kind of testing before bringing them out? They should've assumed that obstacles of various types would have been employed and tried to create and program their vehicles to avoid or untangle themselves from such things.
I find this to be truly appauling, personally! It seems to me that any team that took the time to build one of these would have put the time in to make sure things like breaks would get stuck and axles wouldn't break. Absolutely appauling!
Nothing was said about whether it was within policies or guidelines, just that the writer felt it wasn't a fair trade off, and then further suggested a compeitors product. Glendale... jump the gun a slight bit there? Sure they can do whatever they want with their services, and maybe they'll be surpised to learn that more than a few people may drop their service for something else over one or two channels. I probably would! *shrug*
Hmmm, so what happens if I use my US ATM card? If it wrote new code on my card, it wouldn't function anymore. Perhaps it's certain banks that allow for this?
Hmmm, well, that's not right. Typicall, brackets are used to define switches that are optional. Switches defined outside of brackets are usually mandatory, or nessecary for proper use of the command. Hence, with this logic, the author is actually speaking of an "acker", with possible indications of a "Hacker" or "Cracker" as an option.
Perhaps you don't live within the US? Are you not familiar with how technology trials have gone in the past? I'm not speaking of mistrials, I'm talking about trials that end with bad results due to the misinterpretation of a law and/or misunderstanding of technology. A stretch? Sure! But stretches of the law occur daily in the US... *shrug*
The basis of which is that it's all a matter of interpretation, and the law tends to side with the less reasonable more often than not (in the US). Hence people can sue McDonald's for hot coffee and the like. Reason holds no light to law. And I'm not trying to be flamebait, or start an argument amongst us, but if you look at cases logically, ESPECIALLY in technology, where there are fewer experts than one would expect by counting the number of epople who proclaim themselves as technology experts, you would surely see an imbalance in the law where technology is concerned.
Well, there are a few things to look at here though...
First, there are ways in which a case could be worded where a changelog that specifically discussed key files in a security breach of a system could be linked to a tool written to breach that hole, thereby making the authors in violation of the DMCA for supplying information to "hackers" making a utility for bypassing the security of a system. To the law, the worst case scenario seems to win out. If it was presented to a judge that Mr. Joe Nobody wrote a changelog entry defining file xyzzy.c that has hole 'a' in it which causes this issue... and Mr. Jack Cracka makes a program based on that info, and Master Script Kiddie then uses that program to take down a server for some company, it could be construed that Mr. Nobody's original document allowed for circumvention of system security and therefore was in violation of the DMCA. See?
Secondly, the vast majority of people in the non-tech fields, and specifically law, have little understanding of how technologies work. Things can be said wholly out of context without seeming apparent to a judge, lawyer, jury, etc. Without proper understanding, and with realization that a "secutiry expert" or "technology expert" put on the stand may not know what an LCD or an RS232 is... a trial can go to hell quickly, without proper cause.
Just my view points... feel free to rebut, but I think I'm fairly on target with this...
Red Hat is not causing the contention. The document in question was written by another party, and was COPYRIGHTED, and therefore, Red Hat cannot use their document without going through the license which it was bound by... which is the sites license and which prevents US citizens and protected from viewing it. The people who went that route made the decision, and the general concensus is that they did so for the PURPOSE of making the DMCA look ridiculous. Bravo to them!
Many people, even among the techno-elite still don't see too many problems with the DMCA. But if things like this continue, perhaps more support will rally behind anti-DMCA groups. It's a pathetic piece of legislature that has no place in a "free" (as in speech) society. Hopefully it won't be around long... *sigh*
No call for new legislation? I'm utterly amazed... *stunned silence*
Now then, obviously being a/. forum, I'm preaching to the choir about this (I assume, for the most part at least), but seriously... There are far more important concerns for American children today than chatrooms.
The thing that alarms me the most is that a House subcomitee is formed to look into chatroom-initiated sexual abuse with children, but one is NOT created to oversee changes and overhauls to state and local child protection agencies. Agencies which, around the SE Michigan area at least, fail most of the time to actually PROTECT children that are in definate danger of being assaulted or molested.
I fear that part of this is caused by the populace at large, however. Most people today are still afraid of or uncomfortable with computer technology. As much as they might have a neighbor beating or molesting his/her kids, they find greater fear coming from the other side of an internet chat, mostly because they don't understand it. This ignorance of the people causes the government to react. Anyone who says the government in the US is no longer "Of the people... For the people" obviously doesn't pay attention to trends like this.
The government needs to STOP listening to every whim of an ignorant population, and start making command decision that make sense, and actually help the people. Your average American doesn't KNOW what will help them, their families or their friends. They fear things as lemmings, afraid only because they don't understand and other are afraid as well. This mentality leads to poor decision making by the people, and ultimately by the government.
For as ridiculous as it sounds, this is actually quite an amusing concept.
Technically, because this method is being used to defeat copy-protection, it IS in violation of the DMCA. Sadly, this goes to show how poorly the Act in question is written, and how obsurdly it could be interpretted. However, I wouldn't be too amazed these days to see such a lawsuit occur. I mean, seriously... these RIAA folks are getting a bit far-fetched trying to save their precious dollars (which, BTW, they are STILL not actually losing). Oh well, chalk one up for insanity!
Aside from the main comments about this article... what laws might be affected by this. Currently, I believe, Federal law prohibits retailers from taking returns on opened CD-based products, as it could be copied and break copyright laws. Since these new discs are copy-protected, do they still fall under the same laws? Also, since they are not technically CDs, does the same apply?
What reaction has anyone received when trying to return one of these discs? What course of action seems to work best? Are there any retailers that are recognizing this issue currently?
I'd personally love to hear some reactions to this.
Simply put... no! Or at least not really. Even 'swordgeek's thoughts on moral responsibility fall a touch shy of target here.
Currently, I am gainfully employed at my local CompUSA. I sell iMacs to customers every so often. Now that I am aware of this issue, I will surely point it out to my future customers. However, before just a few days ago, I was wholly unaware of this issue, and therefore had no way to be morally OR legally responsible.
The same applies with music stores. As was mentioned previously, I doubt that most employees of your local FYE, Harmony House, Barnes and Noble, or other music store even KNOW what colorbook standards ARE, little well if an individual disc comforms to one. I would further assume that Sony, et al, did not send out pre-release information about the new copy-protected discs except POSSIBLY to say, "Hey... these are copy protected". Therefore, even moral responsibility seems not realistic.
However, perhaps we can all educate our local music/Apple dealers. It surely never hurts!
I don't believe that small claims court can make judgements against the cost of a computer... even an iMac. I believe, at least in Michigan, small claims courts are limited to settlements of ~$500-1000.
First of all, Sony begins using this copy-protection scheme by forcing it's children-companies to begin putting it on their "CD"s. This is apparently an attempt to prevent ripping of said "CD" tracks into MP3 or other digital media files. On the other hand, Sony is one of the larger companies who are currently making hardware to play "legitimate" MP3s, such as the Sony MP505 mini-disc MP3 players, and others.
Now, how does one go about using their Sony MP505 to play MP3s from their new Sony-parented "CD"? I mean, I understand that the MP3 players are just to jump into a market where money is to be had, but still, this seems like a case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing.
First of all, as has been stated many-a-time, the patent holder of TRUE CDs should sue the pants off of companies that are creating discs that do not conform to standards, but still market them as CDs. Perhaps the official CD logo is not there on many of these CDs, but do the record labels make any statement that these are not truly Compact Discs?
What other devices might these not work in? Some items made for the computer-oriented user that has a more CD-ROM style interface than a standard CD interface? What about MP3 players that use CD media to play MP3s, but also can play audio CDs? What about a device like my Apex AD-3201. that uses a very standard DVD-ROM drive attached via an ATAPI interface to a decoder? If not these discs, will others that are soon to follow cause problems here as well?
Perhaps I am not technically inclined enough with color book standards to understand what causes the current problems in iMacs, and why there may not be other problems here and there... but I know enough to be mildly concerned about this.
If someday I purchase Star Wars Episode II on DVD and pop it into my Apex (with region encoding and Macrovision turned off), and my DVD and mainboard firmware become damaged... I'm going to be particularly upset.
Does anyone have a webpage up yet that lists not only known discs with this protection, but also known devices, SPECIFICALLY, which will fail and how? Just curious if maybe the full impact has not yet been felt or noticed.
Alright, before you go flaming me for thinking of this, posting this or whatever, just realize that I belong to the school of thought that says, "If you can think of something malicious, someone else can think of it too, best to be prepared"
What would be the option to detect and protect yourself from a virus that did this:
1) Gets on your webserver through whatever means.
2) Grabs your password files (either *nix or Win*) and creates a text file with a strange, multi-character and fairly unique name that stores that data, then adds a robots.txt file in your root to allow searches for that file.
3) Now the attacker can do a search on google for that file name and likely come up with few matches that are NOT what s/he is loking for.
Well, first of all, these little discs are cool as hell. Problem is my Plextor CD-R drive will not burn them. Actually, no Plextor drive will burn them. I called Plextor and asked, and they said that, since it wasn't a "standard" they would not include support for it. The lack of ability to burn comes from their in-drive "smart" chip that detects CD-R flaws and size and such pre-recording to minimize problems later on. It isn't a new feature. I own and older 8x recorder, and the newer ones have the same problem.
Now, my question is... where can you get one of these 3" - 5" adapters? I've looked high and low for them, online, local stores, even while I was in Singapore. I can find them NOWHERE. If anyone knows, PLEASE email me (xepherys@xepherys.net). I would be quite grateful.
-Xeph
Re:Ya. don't know the name of it, it exists in spa
on
Making Small Change
·
· Score: 1
Ahm... isn't a gram a measure of mass, as are pounds? is this supposed to be per 100 CC/mL or are you just an idiot?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, jumping isn't a great things, as it would make the vehicle that much more obvious/visible. DARPA isn't trying to have something invented that looks cool or "just works", it has to serve a purpose.
/. boards in the past.
Hover vehicles have limitations of their own, that have actually been discussed on
As for nature... you don't see any animals that "hover" either... perhaps save the flying fish. You have some that fly, and a few that float down from somewhere higher up, but not more than 1 or 2 that have any type of actual "hover" capabilities.
Wheeled craft are easier to maintain than jumping or hovering equipment. That means that the military that would inevitably use this technology would not need special training on the mechanics... just possibly on the electronics used. Quite possibly not even on that.
Personally, I don't get why they didn't use low, bumper-mounted radar to detect things like giant obtrusions so that axles didn't get broke and the like. *appauled* I really don't get it!
Didn't these people but their vehicles through any kind of testing before bringing them out? They should've assumed that obstacles of various types would have been employed and tried to create and program their vehicles to avoid or untangle themselves from such things.
I find this to be truly appauling, personally! It seems to me that any team that took the time to build one of these would have put the time in to make sure things like breaks would get stuck and axles wouldn't break. Absolutely appauling!
Nothing was said about whether it was within policies or guidelines, just that the writer felt it wasn't a fair trade off, and then further suggested a compeitors product. Glendale... jump the gun a slight bit there? Sure they can do whatever they want with their services, and maybe they'll be surpised to learn that more than a few people may drop their service for something else over one or two channels. I probably would! *shrug*
Hmmm, so what happens if I use my US ATM card? If it wrote new code on my card, it wouldn't function anymore. Perhaps it's certain banks that allow for this?
This guy is my hero. He's both:
a) Exploiting our lame legal system
and
b) Making a mockery of our lame legal system
Yeah, I'm impressed.
Hmmm, well, that's not right. Typicall, brackets are used to define switches that are optional. Switches defined outside of brackets are usually mandatory, or nessecary for proper use of the command. Hence, with this logic, the author is actually speaking of an "acker", with possible indications of a "Hacker" or "Cracker" as an option.
*shrug*
-Xeph
Maybe not... being that you'll be able to reproduce all your fat and cholesterol shot organs... hell, that might be a big BOOST for fast food!
New slogan: "You can print a burger, but you just can't print the taste of FLAME-BROILED. Come on down to BK for some tasty action."
Perhaps you don't live within the US? Are you not familiar with how technology trials have gone in the past? I'm not speaking of mistrials, I'm talking about trials that end with bad results due to the misinterpretation of a law and/or misunderstanding of technology. A stretch? Sure! But stretches of the law occur daily in the US... *shrug*
Click Here for my other post on this topic.
The basis of which is that it's all a matter of interpretation, and the law tends to side with the less reasonable more often than not (in the US). Hence people can sue McDonald's for hot coffee and the like. Reason holds no light to law. And I'm not trying to be flamebait, or start an argument amongst us, but if you look at cases logically, ESPECIALLY in technology, where there are fewer experts than one would expect by counting the number of epople who proclaim themselves as technology experts, you would surely see an imbalance in the law where technology is concerned.
-Xeph
Well, there are a few things to look at here though...
First, there are ways in which a case could be worded where a changelog that specifically discussed key files in a security breach of a system could be linked to a tool written to breach that hole, thereby making the authors in violation of the DMCA for supplying information to "hackers" making a utility for bypassing the security of a system. To the law, the worst case scenario seems to win out. If it was presented to a judge that Mr. Joe Nobody wrote a changelog entry defining file xyzzy.c that has hole 'a' in it which causes this issue... and Mr. Jack Cracka makes a program based on that info, and Master Script Kiddie then uses that program to take down a server for some company, it could be construed that Mr. Nobody's original document allowed for circumvention of system security and therefore was in violation of the DMCA. See?
Secondly, the vast majority of people in the non-tech fields, and specifically law, have little understanding of how technologies work. Things can be said wholly out of context without seeming apparent to a judge, lawyer, jury, etc. Without proper understanding, and with realization that a "secutiry expert" or "technology expert" put on the stand may not know what an LCD or an RS232 is... a trial can go to hell quickly, without proper cause.
Just my view points... feel free to rebut, but I think I'm fairly on target with this...
-Xeph
Red Hat is not causing the contention. The document in question was written by another party, and was COPYRIGHTED, and therefore, Red Hat cannot use their document without going through the license which it was bound by... which is the sites license and which prevents US citizens and protected from viewing it. The people who went that route made the decision, and the general concensus is that they did so for the PURPOSE of making the DMCA look ridiculous. Bravo to them!
Many people, even among the techno-elite still don't see too many problems with the DMCA. But if things like this continue, perhaps more support will rally behind anti-DMCA groups. It's a pathetic piece of legislature that has no place in a "free" (as in speech) society. Hopefully it won't be around long... *sigh*
-Xeph
so... does this mean that cybersex geeks will start getting ETDs?
No call for new legislation? I'm utterly amazed... *stunned silence*
/. forum, I'm preaching to the choir about this (I assume, for the most part at least), but seriously... There are far more important concerns for American children today than chatrooms.
Now then, obviously being a
The thing that alarms me the most is that a House subcomitee is formed to look into chatroom-initiated sexual abuse with children, but one is NOT created to oversee changes and overhauls to state and local child protection agencies. Agencies which, around the SE Michigan area at least, fail most of the time to actually PROTECT children that are in definate danger of being assaulted or molested.
I fear that part of this is caused by the populace at large, however. Most people today are still afraid of or uncomfortable with computer technology. As much as they might have a neighbor beating or molesting his/her kids, they find greater fear coming from the other side of an internet chat, mostly because they don't understand it. This ignorance of the people causes the government to react. Anyone who says the government in the US is no longer "Of the people... For the people" obviously doesn't pay attention to trends like this.
The government needs to STOP listening to every whim of an ignorant population, and start making command decision that make sense, and actually help the people. Your average American doesn't KNOW what will help them, their families or their friends. They fear things as lemmings, afraid only because they don't understand and other are afraid as well. This mentality leads to poor decision making by the people, and ultimately by the government.
*sigh*
-Xeph
For as ridiculous as it sounds, this is actually quite an amusing concept.
Technically, because this method is being used to defeat copy-protection, it IS in violation of the DMCA. Sadly, this goes to show how poorly the Act in question is written, and how obsurdly it could be interpretted. However, I wouldn't be too amazed these days to see such a lawsuit occur. I mean, seriously... these RIAA folks are getting a bit far-fetched trying to save their precious dollars (which, BTW, they are STILL not actually losing). Oh well, chalk one up for insanity!
-Xeph
Aside from the main comments about this article... what laws might be affected by this. Currently, I believe, Federal law prohibits retailers from taking returns on opened CD-based products, as it could be copied and break copyright laws. Since these new discs are copy-protected, do they still fall under the same laws? Also, since they are not technically CDs, does the same apply?
What reaction has anyone received when trying to return one of these discs? What course of action seems to work best? Are there any retailers that are recognizing this issue currently?
I'd personally love to hear some reactions to this.
-Xeph
Simply put... no! Or at least not really. Even 'swordgeek's thoughts on moral responsibility fall a touch shy of target here.
Currently, I am gainfully employed at my local CompUSA. I sell iMacs to customers every so often. Now that I am aware of this issue, I will surely point it out to my future customers. However, before just a few days ago, I was wholly unaware of this issue, and therefore had no way to be morally OR legally responsible.
The same applies with music stores. As was mentioned previously, I doubt that most employees of your local FYE, Harmony House, Barnes and Noble, or other music store even KNOW what colorbook standards ARE, little well if an individual disc comforms to one. I would further assume that Sony, et al, did not send out pre-release information about the new copy-protected discs except POSSIBLY to say, "Hey... these are copy protected". Therefore, even moral responsibility seems not realistic.
However, perhaps we can all educate our local music/Apple dealers. It surely never hurts!
-Xeph
I don't believe that small claims court can make judgements against the cost of a computer... even an iMac. I believe, at least in Michigan, small claims courts are limited to settlements of ~$500-1000.
Though I could be terribly mistaken as well...
-Xeph
I see many conflicts of interest here...
First of all, Sony begins using this copy-protection scheme by forcing it's children-companies to begin putting it on their "CD"s. This is apparently an attempt to prevent ripping of said "CD" tracks into MP3 or other digital media files. On the other hand, Sony is one of the larger companies who are currently making hardware to play "legitimate" MP3s, such as the Sony MP505 mini-disc MP3 players, and others.
Now, how does one go about using their Sony MP505 to play MP3s from their new Sony-parented "CD"? I mean, I understand that the MP3 players are just to jump into a market where money is to be had, but still, this seems like a case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing.
First of all, as has been stated many-a-time, the patent holder of TRUE CDs should sue the pants off of companies that are creating discs that do not conform to standards, but still market them as CDs. Perhaps the official CD logo is not there on many of these CDs, but do the record labels make any statement that these are not truly Compact Discs?
What other devices might these not work in? Some items made for the computer-oriented user that has a more CD-ROM style interface than a standard CD interface? What about MP3 players that use CD media to play MP3s, but also can play audio CDs? What about a device like my Apex AD-3201. that uses a very standard DVD-ROM drive attached via an ATAPI interface to a decoder? If not these discs, will others that are soon to follow cause problems here as well?
Perhaps I am not technically inclined enough with color book standards to understand what causes the current problems in iMacs, and why there may not be other problems here and there... but I know enough to be mildly concerned about this.
If someday I purchase Star Wars Episode II on DVD and pop it into my Apex (with region encoding and Macrovision turned off), and my DVD and mainboard firmware become damaged... I'm going to be particularly upset.
Does anyone have a webpage up yet that lists not only known discs with this protection, but also known devices, SPECIFICALLY, which will fail and how? Just curious if maybe the full impact has not yet been felt or noticed.
-Xepherys
It wasn't fun? *sigh* Note to self: CmdrTaco != Good Game Reviews! ;-)
Xeph
Alright, before you go flaming me for thinking of this, posting this or whatever, just realize that I belong to the school of thought that says, "If you can think of something malicious, someone else can think of it too, best to be prepared"
What would be the option to detect and protect yourself from a virus that did this:
1) Gets on your webserver through whatever means.
2) Grabs your password files (either *nix or Win*) and creates a text file with a strange, multi-character and fairly unique name that stores that data, then adds a robots.txt file in your root to allow searches for that file.
3) Now the attacker can do a search on google for that file name and likely come up with few matches that are NOT what s/he is loking for.
*shrug* Just a thought
Xeph
www.defenselink.mil, the official DOD website, is also unreachable.
Well, first of all, these little discs are cool as hell. Problem is my Plextor CD-R drive will not burn them. Actually, no Plextor drive will burn them. I called Plextor and asked, and they said that, since it wasn't a "standard" they would not include support for it. The lack of ability to burn comes from their in-drive "smart" chip that detects CD-R flaws and size and such pre-recording to minimize problems later on. It isn't a new feature. I own and older 8x recorder, and the newer ones have the same problem.
Now, my question is... where can you get one of these 3" - 5" adapters? I've looked high and low for them, online, local stores, even while I was in Singapore. I can find them NOWHERE. If anyone knows, PLEASE email me (xepherys@xepherys.net). I would be quite grateful.
-Xeph
Ahm... isn't a gram a measure of mass, as are pounds? is this supposed to be per 100 CC/mL or are you just an idiot?
Ahhhh... ignorance abounds...
Grrrr... A discussion board that doesn't allow (nt) comments... *grumble*