Any Utopian vision of any invention, Internet or otherwise is the author's "best case scenario" or wish list for that tool. The internet, like any other invention will not bring the perfect society, but it will make life better.
Looking at this article, I asked myself how the net has changed my life.
1. Since the net, I can talk to anyone almost anywhere in the world with little difficulty. Before the net, the only way for me to talk to someone in another country (without knowing them and their phone number ahead of time) was Ham Radio. Ham Radio is still there and is still fun, but the net brings a new way to communicate.
2. Ability to "publish" opinions ala Thomas Paine. The net has given me an avenue to get my opinions on ideas and issues out to the world. Anything from the political issues to Operating Systems. Granted, not every country enjoys this freedom (yet), but the gates have been opened.
3. A way to learn about new (and old) things. I have discovered everything from Linux to TRS-80 Coco emulators on the net -- stuff I never would have found before, except perhaps on a BBS system. Fan Fiction, Fan Sites (everything from J.R.R. Tolkien to Hogan's Heroes are only a Google search away.
There is the "dark side" of the revolution, too, but even that means the Net is changing the world. Things like the DMCA, the law suits against DeCSS, are bad, but it means that the opposition is running scared. Like any revolution, there will be battles won and lost along the way, but I am optimistic that in the long run the good will defeat the bad.
In the meantime we must continue to fight for the Sklyarovs, 2600s, Open Source, against the Bin Ladens, RIAAs, DMCAs, and whatever other battles that come our way on the road to a better future for all.
Re:This is not the traditional embedded market
on
Windows XP Embedded
·
· Score: 1
The Jigsaw and 680 terminals (small terminals that read Mag stripe and smart cards) that we use where I work do use a 80186 along with a dos-like os. We program our apps in C, then upload the compiled version to the terminal either during a settlement or from a PC depending on the retailer setup.
However, larger terminals such as ATMs, customer information systems (Highway and Weather conditions at a truck stop or rest area as an example) do use Windows (I have seen enough BSOD's and other window error messages stuck on the screen of these systems to know for sure). I would be real leary of using Windows as the OS for a slot machine -- state regulatory commissions (especially NJ) are real touchy about the operation and payouts of slot machines and such. As a manufacturer or customer, I would rather KNOW what all is going on in my device and since Windows is closed source, that leaves Linux as a good alternative. You also don't need the processor power that XP requires for a Linux based system.
As a side note, it was interesting to find out that Kroger's (a supermarket chain in our neck of the woods) self checkout system is Windows based. I was in our local store the other day, and the self checkout terminals were closed due to being moved because of the store's remodelling. The terminals were hooked up and powered up, and one of the screens sported a start button et al. I was unable to get close enough to see if it was Win95, 98, or 2K.
Dammit! He died again! I wish Tabatha King would quit burying him in that Pet Semetary up there in Maine. First of all they can't spell cemetary correctly, and also he keeps coming back and going back to work writing.
Speaking of King and getting back on topic, authors like King own their works, they have a contract with the publishing company to publish x works in y years. Even though the publisher my have exclusive rights, the copyright itself still belongs to the author. This is the kind of contract Musicians need -- although I suppose it gets more difficult when the music, lyrics, and performance copyrights belong to different people. Still, there must be a better way than signing your soul away to the RIAA for a "record deal".
Twenty cents may not sound like much, but imagine a community even half the size of Napster at it's peak spending twenty cents here, twenty cents there. Remember, we are talking about twenty cents where there was no purchase before. Market it correctly, and the artists and labels can make a fortune.
Bravo! This is exactly the problem. The RIAA just cannot grasp the concept that people don't always want the music that they present in the form that they present it. Music has always been expensive. Back when I was a kid (1975 or so), $5 would buy two or three paperback books at the local Waldenbooks or 1 LP (if I was lucky). There were 45s (the record, not the gun) available for $1.50 or so, so that was an option. We would buy an album only if we really wanted it, and would make cassette copies for our friends. This way we could make our music dollars go further. Books were also available at the Library (yes, I like to read books, and own a copy of my favorites).
Fast forward to 2001. Today, $20 gets you two or three books at the local Waldenbooks or 1 CD. I have seen very few singles on CD - if they exist they are $3 or $4 dollars. It will also get you one or two VHS tapes at the local Wal*mart. Don't want to buy tapes? $20 will get you 4 or 5 rental tapes at the local Video Store. The Library still exists. Instead of trading tapes, now we trade MP3s.
The point of all of this? Dollar for dollar, Music is the most expensive of the three forms of entertainment (I am not going to use the term IP) that is available, and due to the high price point, has always been "illegally" shared.
The RIAA needs to put their lawyers away and get their marketing people to work finding ways to combat "illegally" traded music. Start by lowering prices of CDs. Then offer a site on the internet where high quality wavs, oggs and MP3s (forget the copy protected crap) can be downloaded for a small fee. If the site is user friendly, offers a large catalog and a way to search it, and a high quality download that I know is going to be good, they can build a market for themselves, even with "free" mp3s being available on P2P services. People will pay a reasonable price for convenience and quality. Too bad the RIAA will never realize this.
I finally got smart and started doing that with the 3.5s -- I have a bunch of them too, but the data that lives on them are on Zip drives, CD rom, and/or on my hard drive. Most of the stuff I have on 5 1/4" is either old programs I used at work 10+ years ago or TRS-80 CoCo disks from my College days (that dates me!:) ). Someday I will have to hook up the old CoCo and see if they still work.
To stay on topic, as long as there is a co-ordinated effort to keep past knowledge current there will be no problem, but if data is neglected, it will be lost.
If I read the article correctly, there will still be paper journals published (in this case by MIT press), but the research will also be available on the internet. From the way I read the article, the goal is not to end paper journals, but to publish journals that allow the Author(s) to maintain control of copyright and to allow easy access to all. The cost of the paper journals would be reasonable (no more multi-thousand dollar subscriptions.)
That said, I agree totally that internet only publishing is risky. There are too many opportunities for Natural Disasters, terrorist disasters, or even obsolete media. I have 5 1/4" floppies stored in the basement -- I don't have a computer with a 5 1/4" drive any more. I'm not sure if the disks are even readable any more. This may be the case with CDs in 20, 50, or 100 years from now.
Perhaps the RIAA should call off the Lawyers and put their Marketing arm to work. After all, if Ty can make a fortune selling Beanie Babies, surely the RIAA and Record Company marketing people can milk the collectable market. They can start by making the price of music more reasonable -- say $5 or so a CD (no copy protection). If the RIAA puts on a friendly face, people will spend (in total) as much if not more than they do now.
After all, I would be more likely to buy a $5 CD on impulse than a $13 to $17 CD. That's why used CD stores are my friend:)
I much as I detest the RIAA and the DMCA, the RIAA Lawyers and techs have not broken the DMCA. Yes, they did some scouting around to see the general layout of the file sharing system, but the Lawyers are recommending that the RIAA get a court order to see what the encryption is hiding. This is "legal" under the DMCA.
My 10 year old daughter was a big N'Sync fan a few years ago -- we even went to a show, but now they are just "okay."
A quick look on Bear Share shows the new album all over the place -- I wonder if this "copy protection" crap will backfire and just make more people want to get mp3 or wav copies (I've seen both) just to give the RIAA the finger...
Seriously, if the RIAA insists on this copy protection crap, what incentive is there to buy CDs (other than N'Sync) in the future if I can't listen to it/rip it on the computer...if I am going to have to go fishing on Bear Share even if I have purchased the CD, why make the purchase? There are other ways to support the artist...
Technically Korea and Vietnam were conflicts -- actually I believe Korea was classified as a "Police Action." A war has to be declared by Congress, and the last time they formally declared war was WWII.
Of course, the men who served and died in Korea and Vietnam are still War Heroes IMHO -- just because it was a "conflict" or a "Police Action" doesn't make it any less real...
If you are a big enough target, it doesn't matter where you are. Look at Manuel Noriega -- he was arrested for Drug Trafficing while he was physically in Panama and brought back to Miami by the U.S. Military to face charges. He is currently in a U.S. jail. I'm not commenting on Noriega's crimes, just that Panamanian Sovereignty did not matter.
The other reason people will not be interested in paying for online music is none of the upcoming offerings from the RIAA companies will be MP3s -- all of it will be in some sort of "secure" format that cannot (without some sort of hack) be played on another PC, saved to CD-R, or moved/copied to an MP3 player.
If the average person cannot exercise fair use without resorting to using software to crack the protection, they aren't going to buy. Add the DMCA to the equation, and the market is further narrowed. I still feel that if the Labels would provide access to high quality MP3s or Ogg Vorbis files that could be downloaded on a reasonable subscription or pay per song basis, there would be a market based on convenience alone. I know I would subscribe. In the meantime, the only reasonable alternatives are either ripping CDs yourself or using one of the file sharing programs.
On another note, Lincoln Logs [knex.com] were created much earlier than Legos and have also fallen out of the marketplace. What a shame.:/
Lincoln Logs are alive and well. Both of my Nephews (one turns three in just over week, and the other is four in 2 months) have a set of Lincoln Logs. I have also seen quite a few sets available at Toys R Us. They have some plastic pieces such as the gates to a fort, but the logs themselves are still made of wood and are the same sizes that I remember as a child.
The VISA and Amex Blue are great ideas, but building the infrastructure to use them is going to be the big problem. Any Merchant who accepts credit cards already has a mag stripe reader of some sort. It can be a self contained unit or built into the cash register. For smart card transactions to become popular, chip card readers will have to be placed at retailers. Internet purchasing is another good use for chip card technology, the promise is there, but the implementation is not. Chip card technology is popular in Europe, so the market is there if the applications are forthcoming.
I work for a company that deals with chip cards (although not in the credit card arena) -- the cards themself are highly secure when compared to a mag stripe card. The fraud we have seen has not been hacks to the card itself, but fraud at either the Point-of-sale or when the card is applied for. I'm sure the card could be hacked, given enough time and money, but barring an inside job, the cost of defeating the security is higher than the benefit that would be gained. Of course, in the credit card market the benefit goes up, so there will be more attempts to crack the chip. I'm not going to reveal the exact market that we are in, but remember, google is your friend:)
One of the big advantages of the chip card (beyond fraud control) is that value can be stored on the card. For example, I put $50 dollars on my card. I can then go to locations that accept chip card purchases and I can make a purchase without the Merchant being on line. The merchant settles at the end of the day by dial up modem, and their money can be transferred to the Merchant's bank account the next day. This kind of use is great for merchants that are at Flea Markets, Hamfests, or other locations were online terminals are not practical. The credit card vendor provides all of the infrastructure to make this happen. There is a lot of potential here for this market, the cards are getting out there, but neither VISA or Amex has put the infrastructure together yet to actually make it happen.
Please define how the breaking of encryption translates into a legetimate need?
Put it this way. If someone filed a key to your house/apartment, and then published how he made that key so that others could create their own keys and rob you blind, how would you feel about the person who admittedly shared that information?
Actually a better comparison would be I lock my keys in my car. I whip out my AAA card and call -- they send a locksmith out. He pulls out a slim jim and pops my door open for me. Should the locksmith be arrested? After all, he defeated an access device built by GM to keep people out of my car. Of course the answer is no. The software that defeats adobe encryption is the same thing. It cost $99 and would only work with your e-book.
As far as how I feel -- I'm happy to be back in my car without having to break a window, and GM does not care that a locksmith opened my car.
Five miles is a pretty good distance, but it can be done depending on what is between you and your friend. If your lucky enough to be in line of site of your friend's place, look for some Ricochet "modems" -- now that Ricochet is going (has gone?) dark, there should be plenty available on Ebay. Do some looking around on Google or here at Slashdot, there has been references on how to connect modem to modem without using Ricochet, which modems are best, and other hacks (such as antennas) that can be built.
I believe that Ricochet runs around 900 MHz while 802.11 runs at 2.4 Ghz.
Check out that ACM link. This is a well thought out statement describing how the DMCA can, has, (Dr.Felton),and will hurt research in the U.S. the way it is currently written. The best part is the subtle way that the Sklyarov situation is brought into their argument without mentioning him by name. If I could moderate right now, I would definately mod Hacker Cracker's post up.
Why does Gnutella (Limewire, Bearshare, etc.) display the TCP/IP address anyway? Bearshare even puts little icons of the company with the IP address! I know the original Gnutella protocol was designed this way, but it seems like it could be redesigned to create an alias for each Gnutella node. Using an alias would make it harder (note: not impossible) for bounty hunters to find out what ISP is behind the one sharing without hindering current functionality.
I downloaded a program for the TRS-80 CoCo that would let you receive (I don't remember if it could transmit) TTY using the cassette port. I'd load the program, connected the input sound plug to the earphone jack of my IC2-AT (a great ICOM 2M handheld from the early '80s) and off I'd go. No extra hardware required. The cassette port was actually a pretty good D/A converter that could do more than just save data and programs to tape.
If I use ROT-13 to encript a file, and I send it to someone, then by that it means I don't want you to see it, and you should understand that and refrain from decripting it. Why should I spend money, CPU power and resources to encrypt data, just because there are people out there who have nothing else better to do then look into something that's none of their business? I have the right to be protected by law against these people.
Note: for this discussion I am assuming you sent me the letter ROT-13, so I am the rightful recipient...
The problem with the DMCA is not someone else reading that letter, but that if you require me to purchase and use your Official ROT-13 decryption sheet to read the letter you sent me and I create my own ROT-13 sheet and decrypt the letter without purchasing your decription sheet, then I have broken the law. It is the same case with the e-book case and DeCSS. That is why the DMCA is evil. The intent of the law is CONTROL, not to prevent the "stealing" of IP.
Rap as an artform by itself is not bad. I am not a fan of rap as such, but some rap is not too bad. I remember one particuarly funny one from the late '80s, Nitemare on My Street (I don't remember the Artist) that I enjoyed. "Gangsta Rap" is another story. Songs about Rape, Murder, etc. is where the hate is - and IMHO is not cool. Rap in and of itself is not bad, just like any other form of music.
Baseball has had this for at least a year. In many games, the ad you see behind the batter has been replaced by a computer generated ad by the network. I know ESPN is doing this -- there was an ad for Sportscenter behind the batter for at least an inning in the ESPN Sunday Nite baseball game (Indians vs. Angels). I'm pretty sure that wasn't the ad at the ballpark;)
Slashdot Mirror
Any Utopian vision of any invention, Internet or otherwise is the author's "best case scenario" or wish list for that tool. The internet, like any other invention will not bring the perfect society, but it will make life better.
Looking at this article, I asked myself how the net has changed my life.
1. Since the net, I can talk to anyone almost anywhere in the world with little difficulty. Before the net, the only way for me to talk to someone in another country (without knowing them and their phone number ahead of time) was Ham Radio. Ham Radio is still there and is still fun, but the net brings a new way to communicate.
2. Ability to "publish" opinions ala Thomas Paine. The net has given me an avenue to get my opinions on ideas and issues out to the world. Anything from the political issues to Operating Systems. Granted, not every country enjoys this freedom (yet), but the gates have been opened.
3. A way to learn about new (and old) things. I have discovered everything from Linux to TRS-80 Coco emulators on the net -- stuff I never would have found before, except perhaps on a BBS system. Fan Fiction, Fan Sites (everything from J.R.R. Tolkien to Hogan's Heroes are only a Google search away.
There is the "dark side" of the revolution, too, but even that means the Net is changing the world. Things like the DMCA, the law suits against DeCSS, are bad, but it means that the opposition is running scared. Like any revolution, there will be battles won and lost along the way, but I am optimistic that in the long run the good will defeat the bad.
In the meantime we must continue to fight for the Sklyarovs, 2600s, Open Source, against the Bin Ladens, RIAAs, DMCAs, and whatever other battles that come our way on the road to a better future for all.
The Jigsaw and 680 terminals (small terminals that read Mag stripe and smart cards) that we use where I work do use a 80186 along with a dos-like os. We program our apps in C, then upload the compiled version to the terminal either during a settlement or from a PC depending on the retailer setup.
However, larger terminals such as ATMs, customer information systems (Highway and Weather conditions at a truck stop or rest area as an example) do use Windows (I have seen enough BSOD's and other window error messages stuck on the screen of these systems to know for sure). I would be real leary of using Windows as the OS for a slot machine -- state regulatory commissions (especially NJ) are real touchy about the operation and payouts of slot machines and such. As a manufacturer or customer, I would rather KNOW what all is going on in my device and since Windows is closed source, that leaves Linux as a good alternative. You also don't need the processor power that XP requires for a Linux based system.
As a side note, it was interesting to find out that Kroger's (a supermarket chain in our neck of the woods) self checkout system is Windows based. I was in our local store the other day, and the self checkout terminals were closed due to being moved because of the store's remodelling. The terminals were hooked up and powered up, and one of the screens sported a start button et al. I was unable to get close enough to see if it was Win95, 98, or 2K.
Dammit! He died again! I wish Tabatha King would quit burying him in that Pet Semetary up there in Maine. First of all they can't spell cemetary correctly, and also he keeps coming back and going back to work writing.
Speaking of King and getting back on topic, authors like King own their works, they have a contract with the publishing company to publish x works in y years. Even though the publisher my have exclusive rights, the copyright itself still belongs to the author. This is the kind of contract Musicians need -- although I suppose it gets more difficult when the music, lyrics, and performance copyrights belong to different people. Still, there must be a better way than signing your soul away to the RIAA for a "record deal".
Twenty cents may not sound like much, but imagine a community even half the size of Napster at it's peak spending twenty cents here, twenty cents there. Remember, we are talking about twenty cents where there was no purchase before. Market it correctly, and the artists and labels can make a fortune.
Bravo! This is exactly the problem. The RIAA just cannot grasp the concept that people don't always want the music that they present in the form that they present it. Music has always been expensive. Back when I was a kid (1975 or so), $5 would buy two or three paperback books at the local Waldenbooks or 1 LP (if I was lucky). There were 45s (the record, not the gun) available for $1.50 or so, so that was an option. We would buy an album only if we really wanted it, and would make cassette copies for our friends. This way we could make our music dollars go further. Books were also available at the Library (yes, I like to read books, and own a copy of my favorites).
Fast forward to 2001. Today, $20 gets you two or three books at the local Waldenbooks or 1 CD. I have seen very few singles on CD - if they exist they are $3 or $4 dollars. It will also get you one or two VHS tapes at the local Wal*mart. Don't want to buy tapes? $20 will get you 4 or 5 rental tapes at the local Video Store. The Library still exists. Instead of trading tapes, now we trade MP3s.
The point of all of this? Dollar for dollar, Music is the most expensive of the three forms of entertainment (I am not going to use the term IP) that is available, and due to the high price point, has always been "illegally" shared.
The RIAA needs to put their lawyers away and get their marketing people to work finding ways to combat "illegally" traded music. Start by lowering prices of CDs. Then offer a site on the internet where high quality wavs, oggs and MP3s (forget the copy protected crap) can be downloaded for a small fee. If the site is user friendly, offers a large catalog and a way to search it, and a high quality download that I know is going to be good, they can build a market for themselves, even with "free" mp3s being available on P2P services. People will pay a reasonable price for convenience and quality. Too bad the RIAA will never realize this.
I finally got smart and started doing that with the 3.5s -- I have a bunch of them too, but the data that lives on them are on Zip drives, CD rom, and/or on my hard drive. Most of the stuff I have on 5 1/4" is either old programs I used at work 10+ years ago or TRS-80 CoCo disks from my College days (that dates me! :) ). Someday I will have to hook up the old CoCo and see if they still work.
To stay on topic, as long as there is a co-ordinated effort to keep past knowledge current there will be no problem, but if data is neglected, it will be lost.
If I read the article correctly, there will still be paper journals published (in this case by MIT press), but the research will also be available on the internet. From the way I read the article, the goal is not to end paper journals, but to publish journals that allow the Author(s) to maintain control of copyright and to allow easy access to all. The cost of the paper journals would be reasonable (no more multi-thousand dollar subscriptions.)
That said, I agree totally that internet only publishing is risky. There are too many opportunities for Natural Disasters, terrorist disasters, or even obsolete media. I have 5 1/4" floppies stored in the basement -- I don't have a computer with a 5 1/4" drive any more. I'm not sure if the disks are even readable any more. This may be the case with CDs in 20, 50, or 100 years from now.
Perhaps the RIAA should call off the Lawyers and put their Marketing arm to work. After all, if Ty can make a fortune selling Beanie Babies, surely the RIAA and Record Company marketing people can milk the collectable market. They can start by making the price of music more reasonable -- say $5 or so a CD (no copy protection). If the RIAA puts on a friendly face, people will spend (in total) as much if not more than they do now.
After all, I would be more likely to buy a $5 CD on impulse than a $13 to $17 CD. That's why used CD stores are my friend :)
I much as I detest the RIAA and the DMCA, the RIAA Lawyers and techs have not broken the DMCA. Yes, they did some scouting around to see the general layout of the file sharing system, but the Lawyers are recommending that the RIAA get a court order to see what the encryption is hiding. This is "legal" under the DMCA.
My 10 year old daughter was a big N'Sync fan a few years ago -- we even went to a show, but now they are just "okay."
A quick look on Bear Share shows the new album all over the place -- I wonder if this "copy protection" crap will backfire and just make more people want to get mp3 or wav copies (I've seen both) just to give the RIAA the finger...
Seriously, if the RIAA insists on this copy protection crap, what incentive is there to buy CDs (other than N'Sync) in the future if I can't listen to it/rip it on the computer...if I am going to have to go fishing on Bear Share even if I have purchased the CD, why make the purchase? There are other ways to support the artist...
Technically Korea and Vietnam were conflicts -- actually I believe Korea was classified as a "Police Action." A war has to be declared by Congress, and the last time they formally declared war was WWII.
Of course, the men who served and died in Korea and Vietnam are still War Heroes IMHO -- just because it was a "conflict" or a "Police Action" doesn't make it any less real...
M*A*S*H 4077 - Best care anywhere!
If you are a big enough target, it doesn't matter where you are. Look at Manuel Noriega -- he was arrested for Drug Trafficing while he was physically in Panama and brought back to Miami by the U.S. Military to face charges. He is currently in a U.S. jail. I'm not commenting on Noriega's crimes, just that Panamanian Sovereignty did not matter.
The other reason people will not be interested in paying for online music is none of the upcoming offerings from the RIAA companies will be MP3s -- all of it will be in some sort of "secure" format that cannot (without some sort of hack) be played on another PC, saved to CD-R, or moved/copied to an MP3 player.
If the average person cannot exercise fair use without resorting to using software to crack the protection, they aren't going to buy. Add the DMCA to the equation, and the market is further narrowed. I still feel that if the Labels would provide access to high quality MP3s or Ogg Vorbis files that could be downloaded on a reasonable subscription or pay per song basis, there would be a market based on convenience alone. I know I would subscribe. In the meantime, the only reasonable alternatives are either ripping CDs yourself or using one of the file sharing programs.
On another note, Lincoln Logs [knex.com] were created much earlier than Legos and have also fallen out of the marketplace. What a shame. :/
Lincoln Logs are alive and well. Both of my Nephews (one turns three in just over week, and the other is four in 2 months) have a set of Lincoln Logs. I have also seen quite a few sets available at Toys R Us. They have some plastic pieces such as the gates to a fort, but the logs themselves are still made of wood and are the same sizes that I remember as a child.
Your all wrong. In Battlestar Galactica the universe was created by the Lords of COBOL who were defeated in the great FORTRAN wars...
If the the Universe were written in assembly, we'd have a lot fewer problems....
The VISA and Amex Blue are great ideas, but building the infrastructure to use them is going to be the big problem. Any Merchant who accepts credit cards already has a mag stripe reader of some sort. It can be a self contained unit or built into the cash register. For smart card transactions to become popular, chip card readers will have to be placed at retailers. Internet purchasing is another good use for chip card technology, the promise is there, but the implementation is not. Chip card technology is popular in Europe, so the market is there if the applications are forthcoming.
I work for a company that deals with chip cards (although not in the credit card arena) -- the cards themself are highly secure when compared to a mag stripe card. The fraud we have seen has not been hacks to the card itself, but fraud at either the Point-of-sale or when the card is applied for. I'm sure the card could be hacked, given enough time and money, but barring an inside job, the cost of defeating the security is higher than the benefit that would be gained. Of course, in the credit card market the benefit goes up, so there will be more attempts to crack the chip. I'm not going to reveal the exact market that we are in, but remember, google is your friend :)
One of the big advantages of the chip card (beyond fraud control) is that value can be stored on the card. For example, I put $50 dollars on my card. I can then go to locations that accept chip card purchases and I can make a purchase without the Merchant being on line. The merchant settles at the end of the day by dial up modem, and their money can be transferred to the Merchant's bank account the next day. This kind of use is great for merchants that are at Flea Markets, Hamfests, or other locations were online terminals are not practical. The credit card vendor provides all of the infrastructure to make this happen. There is a lot of potential here for this market, the cards are getting out there, but neither VISA or Amex has put the infrastructure together yet to actually make it happen.
Put it this way. If someone filed a key to your house/apartment, and then published how he made that key so that others could create their own keys and rob you blind, how would you feel about the person who admittedly shared that information?
Actually a better comparison would be I lock my keys in my car. I whip out my AAA card and call -- they send a locksmith out. He pulls out a slim jim and pops my door open for me. Should the locksmith be arrested? After all, he defeated an access device built by GM to keep people out of my car. Of course the answer is no. The software that defeats adobe encryption is the same thing. It cost $99 and would only work with your e-book.
As far as how I feel -- I'm happy to be back in my car without having to break a window, and GM does not care that a locksmith opened my car.
Five miles is a pretty good distance, but it can be done depending on what is between you and your friend. If your lucky enough to be in line of site of your friend's place, look for some Ricochet "modems" -- now that Ricochet is going (has gone?) dark, there should be plenty available on Ebay. Do some looking around on Google or here at Slashdot, there has been references on how to connect modem to modem without using Ricochet, which modems are best, and other hacks (such as antennas) that can be built.
I believe that Ricochet runs around 900 MHz while 802.11 runs at 2.4 Ghz.
Check out that ACM link. This is a well thought out statement describing how the DMCA can, has, (Dr.Felton),and will hurt research in the U.S. the way it is currently written. The best part is the subtle way that the Sklyarov situation is brought into their argument without mentioning him by name. If I could moderate right now, I would definately mod Hacker Cracker's post up.
Why does Gnutella (Limewire, Bearshare, etc.) display the TCP/IP address anyway? Bearshare even puts little icons of the company with the IP address! I know the original Gnutella protocol was designed this way, but it seems like it could be redesigned to create an alias for each Gnutella node. Using an alias would make it harder (note: not impossible) for bounty hunters to find out what ISP is behind the one sharing without hindering current functionality.
I downloaded a program for the TRS-80 CoCo that would let you receive (I don't remember if it could transmit) TTY using the cassette port. I'd load the program, connected the input sound plug to the earphone jack of my IC2-AT (a great ICOM 2M handheld from the early '80s) and off I'd go. No extra hardware required. The cassette port was actually a pretty good D/A converter that could do more than just save data and programs to tape.
DE WB3IZT
If I use ROT-13 to encript a file, and I send it to someone, then by that it means I don't want you to see it, and you should understand that and refrain from decripting it. Why should I spend money, CPU power and resources to encrypt data, just because there are people out there who have nothing else better to do then look into something that's none of their business? I have the right to be protected by law against these people.
Note: for this discussion I am assuming you sent me the letter ROT-13, so I am the rightful recipient...
The problem with the DMCA is not someone else reading that letter, but that if you require me to purchase and use your Official ROT-13 decryption sheet to read the letter you sent me and I create my own ROT-13 sheet and decrypt the letter without purchasing your decription sheet, then I have broken the law. It is the same case with the e-book case and DeCSS. That is why the DMCA is evil. The intent of the law is CONTROL , not to prevent the "stealing" of IP.
Two shots if :
A ship/fighter/shuttle has gravity without using centrifugal force.
Everyone speaks english in the universe.
A character can change his or her shape -- sleeps in a bucket or not
Three shots if:
Two species from two completely different planets can mate and have kids.
Rap as an artform by itself is not bad. I am not a fan of rap as such, but some rap is not too bad. I remember one particuarly funny one from the late '80s, Nitemare on My Street (I don't remember the Artist) that I enjoyed. "Gangsta Rap" is another story. Songs about Rape, Murder, etc. is where the hate is - and IMHO is not cool. Rap in and of itself is not bad, just like any other form of music.
Baseball has had this for at least a year. In many games, the ad you see behind the batter has been replaced by a computer generated ad by the network. I know ESPN is doing this -- there was an ad for Sportscenter behind the batter for at least an inning in the ESPN Sunday Nite baseball game (Indians vs. Angels). I'm pretty sure that wasn't the ad at the ballpark ;)