"A method and system for making a purchase via the Internet. A computer system (client) or similar technology receives a series of Web pages detailing information about products and services produced on the fly by another computer system (server) or similar technology, such that these products or services may be purchased or more information about these products or services may be displayed. The server system receives purchaser information including identification of the purchaser, payment information, and shipment information from the client system. The server system sends to the client system an HTML document identifying the item and including an order button. The client system receives and displays the HTML document. In response to the selection of the order button, the client system sends to the server system a request to purchase the identified item. The server system receives the request from the client system and generates an order to purchase the item in accordance with the billing and shipment information whereby the purchaser effects the ordering of the product by selection of the order button. "
If a person reverse engineered the protocols they use, one could make sure the information being sent back was on the up and up.
Hack a shell on the box and see for yourself. It's all TCL scripts, with a bit of shell scripting thrown in. The main viewing data is stored in a file called tivoLog.prv. It's text, nice and simple. It gets FTP'd to their site, with a filename = to your serial number, randomized. Also, the date and time of the file are randomized when it's uploaded.
There's a flag on the machine that controls whether your personal info is sent at all. If you enable that flag, it doesn't get sent. So, you can either hack the box and set it, OR you can call Tivo and opt-out of the viewing info. They send a script to your machine on the next call it makes that has been verified to set that flag.
Anyway, this policy change has nothing to with your anonymous viewing information. Next time, get the details before you start spouting off. ---
Look, your TV viewing habits are valuable, way more valuable than $10/month.
Funny, they don't have my viewing habits, at least not in a way that's identifiable to me personally. That's what anonymous means.
BTW, is it hard to be so cynical all the time? Tivo is not one of the bad guys. Some companies do know the difference between right and wrong, you know.
4.2 Manufacturing Partners. We reserve the right to disclose to our hardware manufacturing partners (for example, Sony, Philips and Thomson) the Account Information and Anonymous Viewing Information of subscribers who use a Receiver made by that manufacturing partner, as well as Personal Viewing Information (but only if you have expressly consented to our collection and disclosure of Personal Viewing Information) we collect from the Receivers manufactured by that manufacturing partner. However, TiVo contractually binds our manufacturing partners to comply with the provisions of this Privacy Promise; our manufacturing partners are legally liable for misuse of Subscriber Information.
4.3 Contractors and Third Party Service Providers. We use contractors to help with some of our operations. Some of these contractors will have access to our databases of Subscriber Information on a temporary basis for specific tasks. TiVo also uses third parties to help with certain aspects of its operations, which may require disclosure of your Subscriber Information to them. For example, TiVo may use a third party to communicate with you (via telephone, email, or letter) about your account or upcoming features or services, to mail rebate checks, to process and collect payment for your TiVo Service via your credit card, to generate demographic profiles based on Subscriber Information of current TiVo subscribers, and to perform other work that we may need to outsource. TiVo contractually binds these contractors and third parties to use your Subscriber Information only as necessary to perform the services they are asked to perform; such contractors and third parties are legally liable for misuse of Subscriber Information.
This is in order to let DirecTV directly bill the DirecTivo users for the Tivo service. With the old privacy policy, they couldn't do that.
That's it, fellas. Your viewing info (that everyone worries about) is still completely anonymous, and only used in an aggregate form.
I convinced my PHB's to switch to Apache very simply. I setup IIS and let it run on one of our installations. It ran fine for a few months, when nobody was using it much. Then the system finally went full time, and IIS started crashing every 3 hours. It couldn't handle the load (which was actually pretty minor). So I quickly configured Apache for NT, and set it up (after removing IIS) with the exact same dynamic content (CGIs mostly). It works without fail, and uses less processor time to do the same thing.
Now I'm using that as leverage to make them see why NT sucks so bad for this system. Maybe I can push them to a Linux or BSD type solution.
Sure, IIS may be a bit faster, but there's a huge difference between fast and stable.
1. While it's recording, you can only watch the show being recorded.
I think both Replay and Tivo will allow you to watch any recorded program while it's recording something else. I know Tivo will, certainly.
2. It appears to me that once you select a show to record every occurence of it only cares about the day and time of that show and ignores the title of that show from that point onward.
No, both units download guide information, Replay 7 days in advance I think, Tivo 11-12 days in advance. From this Guide info, it finds out when the show is coming on, and records it. Tivo, has functionality to not record the same episode more than once, if it has guide data on what the episode is about. However, sometimes it doesn't have that data, and will record it again, thus giving you a repeat. No big deal, and it doesn't happen nearly as often now that people have griped at Tribune and the networks about providing accurate data. Anyway, it's not just a "channel+time" setup. It's a "Pick the show, let me take of the rest" type of thing, on both units.
The two LED's on the Tivo are multicolored. The left one is green when the unit is on, and flashes yellow when it picks up remote control inputs. The right one is red when recording, yellow when using the phone, and orange if both are true.
It's not intended for long term storage, but for short term (2 weeks or less, really). The standard method of usage:
a) you set it up to record a show, whenever it comes on.
b) whenever you sit down, it has a bunch of stuff for you to watch.
c) once you've watched the show, you delete it. If you want to save it for a longer period (long term archival), you record it to a more permanent medium, such as VHS tape or something.
It's mainly a way to divorce content from time, to make when a show comes on no longer matter.
...and in so doing, you dump the current contents of the buffer. Have you actually used a TiVo?
Tip: in 2.0, due out by the end of the year (and already out on the DirecTiVos!), you won't. Hit record in the middle of a show, and it will try to grab as much of that show from the live buffer as it can, and save it all.
You're thinking of the Tivo, which can use an 800 number if no local number is available. With Replay, you must use a local number, even if it costs you long distance charges. They have no 800 type number to use.
[i]While TiVo does offer the "Suggestions" feature where an algorithm records programs by trying to match to your preferences based on monitoring your viewing habits, ReplayTV instead gives the viewer powerful tools to choose what he wants to record. [/i]
Not exactly, it's based on what you tell it your preferences are. And Tivo has those same powerful tools to choose what you want to record. With 2.0 at the end of the year, I'd say the Tivo's selection tools will be somewhat more powerful than Replay, thanks to user settable show priorities.
ReplayTV won't let you watch TV while it makes its call. A bit stupid really.. Tivo can make its call anytime and you can watch TV while it does it. Totally background.
The Tivo hacking folks have made some great discoveries. Like how to extend that LiveTV Buffer out to an hour or more. Or how to increase your capacity to 100+ hrs of video.
On the point about global cooling, this is ALSO a possible outcome simply because changing a stable system cause unpredictable outcomes; similar to the butterfly effect often widely discussed.
On it's face, this is the stupidest statement I've ever seen. Stable means that you can't easily change it, it resists change. Stable.
Perhaps you meant to say that introducing change into a chaotic system causes unpredictable outcomes.
It's amazing to me how the record companies, RIAA, and so on have managed to change their image in the minds of at least the "hacker" crowd. Looking at this forum in the past, I'd see an attitude of "How stupid these guys are," when something like this occured. Instead, now I see an attitude of "These guys are the enemy," which is fine in itself, but it goes to show how the record companies actions are having the effect of turning its own customers against itself.
Now, I've never taken a business class or anything, but somehow I get the feeling that making your customers think of you as the enemy is probably not the best business strategy.:)
[i]Before saying things like it's just Math, you'd better not forget that quantum theory and GR are quite successfull, so if they predict that something happen, well, it has quite a chance to happen "for real".. [/i]
Okay, first off, it's not a matter of chance. Something is real, or it isn't. The theory is either real to the world in this respect or it isn't. There is no way to measure what the "chances" are that it's correct, and as we all know, if you can't measure it, it's not science.:)
And a theory can be completely and totally correct in every respect except one, and still be wrong.
Also, note that I don't thing it's incorrect here, I just don't see how you can get the particle/unparticle explanation from the math of it. Seems like that's a made up explanation for mass comsumption.
[i]However, this leaves a few questions
1) how come more negative (un-, if you wish) than positive particles are attracted?
1.1) how come gravity works the same on unparticles? Shouldn't they be repelled?
2) why does this happen at a faster rate for small black holes (I understand that rate of evaporation is inversely proportional to mass)[/i]
You're taking the particle/un-particle pair too seriously. While that's the conventional explanation, it doesn't quite fit the math. In fact, the math admits of no explanation. It's just mathematics.
Anyway, having looked hard at the math until my head buzzed, I couldn't see how the standard particle/un-particle explanation fit. However, I also couldn't see any 'real world' explanation that fits either.
The thing is hackable, you know. It runs Linux. If you're worried about what it's sending back, did it occur to nobody to just look?
Three files are uploaded to TiVo daily: tivoLog.pub, tivoLog.prv, and a log for 'myworld', the program that runs the machine.
tivoLog.pub appears to contain info on internal errors that have occured, but is usually empty.
tivoLog.prv is the issue here, it contains a log of every program watched and every button pressed on the remote.
Now, looking at the dialup scripts (Yes! It's all scripted!) You can see how it RANDOMIZES the name of the file before uploading it. No identifying information at all is in the file itself, the serial number isn't there. The serial number is used as the filename for upload, after being randomized. It appears possible for TiVo to change a setting and have the serial as the file name not randomized, but this is not set. It seems to be for debug purposes.
Sheesh.
Now the kicker: why shouldn't they have this info? It says it's taken in the manual. It says so on the site. Call up customer service and ask, they won't deny that they get it. One thing they do claim is that it's totally anonymous (true) and if you still don't want it, you can tell them to turn it off and it's done (also true, there's a setting in the box for it).
One final word (to correct a bad assumption): The TiVo Suggestions are computed entirely on your personal TiVo. No TiVo servers are used to compile this info, none of your thumbs ratings for shows are sent back to TiVo for this purpose. It's all local.
From now, before you bash something, learn what's really happening. It's fine to argue in the abstract, but a computer is not abstract, it's a real physical device. It's simpler to actually hack the thing and find the real story.
When was the last time an employer asked anyone a theoretical question of this kind?
I deal with stuff like this on a daily basis. You know what I program? Heavy duty CGI stuff mostly. but I have to be able to handle thousands upon thousands of users. Your script-kiddie written perl script may work most of the time. My program is guaranteed to by both theory and practice. That's the difference.
95% of the time my employer is asking for a new script to be written or a more stable database design, the other 5% we're discussing where to go for beers at the end of the day.
Funny, I discuss beer a lot more than 5% of the time. Why? Because the programming doesn't take all my time. I know what I'm doing, because I've been educated on all aspects of the system. That's another difference.
The questions you're suggesting are fine for the theoretical set, but when it comes down to putting a product together I'll take an experienced high school educated coder over a wet behind the ears college punk any day.
Ah, so you want a kid who doesn't have the slightest clue about mission-critical systems. In other words, you want it to work. Who cares if it breaks, he'll always work for us! Yeah, right.
Don't even get me started about how much I prefer military educated folks over any of the above...
Ahhh, you've just lost all credibility. Good job!:)
Slashdot Mirror
"A method and system for making a purchase via the Internet. A computer system (client) or similar technology receives a series of Web pages detailing information about products and services produced on the fly by another computer system (server) or similar technology, such that these products or services may be purchased or more information about these products or services may be displayed. The server system receives purchaser information including identification of the purchaser, payment information, and shipment information from the client system. The server system sends to the client system an HTML document identifying the item and including an order button. The client system receives and displays the HTML document. In response to the selection of the order button, the client system sends to the server system a request to purchase the identified item. The server system receives the request from the client system and generates an order to purchase the item in accordance with the billing and shipment information whereby the purchaser effects the ordering of the product by selection of the order button. "
---
If a person reverse engineered the protocols they use, one could make sure the information being sent back was on the up and up.
Hack a shell on the box and see for yourself. It's all TCL scripts, with a bit of shell scripting thrown in. The main viewing data is stored in a file called tivoLog.prv. It's text, nice and simple. It gets FTP'd to their site, with a filename = to your serial number, randomized. Also, the date and time of the file are randomized when it's uploaded.
---
There's a flag on the machine that controls whether your personal info is sent at all. If you enable that flag, it doesn't get sent. So, you can either hack the box and set it, OR you can call Tivo and opt-out of the viewing info. They send a script to your machine on the next call it makes that has been verified to set that flag.
Anyway, this policy change has nothing to with your anonymous viewing information. Next time, get the details before you start spouting off.
---
Look, your TV viewing habits are valuable, way more valuable than $10/month.
Funny, they don't have my viewing habits, at least not in a way that's identifiable to me personally. That's what anonymous means.
BTW, is it hard to be so cynical all the time? Tivo is not one of the bad guys. Some companies do know the difference between right and wrong, you know.
---
4.2 Manufacturing Partners. We reserve the right to disclose to our hardware manufacturing partners (for example, Sony, Philips and Thomson) the Account Information and Anonymous Viewing Information of subscribers who use a Receiver made by that manufacturing partner, as well as Personal Viewing Information (but only if you have expressly consented to our collection and disclosure of Personal Viewing Information) we collect from the Receivers manufactured by that manufacturing partner. However, TiVo contractually binds our manufacturing partners to comply with the provisions of this Privacy Promise; our manufacturing partners are legally liable for misuse of Subscriber Information.
'Nuff said.
---
The Sept. 2000 one IS the new one. The old one was April, 1999.
---
Mainly, this:
4.3 Contractors and Third Party Service Providers. We use contractors to help with some of our operations. Some of these contractors will have access to our databases of Subscriber Information on a temporary basis for specific tasks. TiVo also uses third parties to help with certain aspects of its operations, which may require disclosure of your Subscriber Information to them. For example, TiVo may use a third party to communicate with you (via telephone, email, or letter) about your account or upcoming features or services, to mail rebate checks, to process and collect payment for your TiVo Service via your credit card, to generate demographic profiles based on Subscriber Information of current TiVo subscribers, and to perform other work that we may need to outsource. TiVo contractually binds these contractors and third parties to use your Subscriber Information only as necessary to perform the services they are asked to perform; such contractors and third parties are legally liable for misuse of Subscriber Information.
This is in order to let DirecTV directly bill the DirecTivo users for the Tivo service. With the old privacy policy, they couldn't do that.
That's it, fellas. Your viewing info (that everyone worries about) is still completely anonymous, and only used in an aggregate form.
---
I convinced my PHB's to switch to Apache very simply. I setup IIS and let it run on one of our installations. It ran fine for a few months, when nobody was using it much. Then the system finally went full time, and IIS started crashing every 3 hours. It couldn't handle the load (which was actually pretty minor). So I quickly configured Apache for NT, and set it up (after removing IIS) with the exact same dynamic content (CGIs mostly). It works without fail, and uses less processor time to do the same thing.
Now I'm using that as leverage to make them see why NT sucks so bad for this system. Maybe I can push them to a Linux or BSD type solution.
Sure, IIS may be a bit faster, but there's a huge difference between fast and stable.
---
After some trial and error with some fake numbers, you quickly learn the minimum fee is $264.
---
1. While it's recording, you can only watch the show being recorded.
I think both Replay and Tivo will allow you to watch any recorded program while it's recording something else. I know Tivo will, certainly.
2. It appears to me that once you select a show to record every occurence of it only cares about the day and time of that show and ignores the title of that show from that point onward.
No, both units download guide information, Replay 7 days in advance I think, Tivo 11-12 days in advance. From this Guide info, it finds out when the show is coming on, and records it. Tivo, has functionality to not record the same episode more than once, if it has guide data on what the episode is about. However, sometimes it doesn't have that data, and will record it again, thus giving you a repeat. No big deal, and it doesn't happen nearly as often now that people have griped at Tribune and the networks about providing accurate data. Anyway, it's not just a "channel+time" setup. It's a "Pick the show, let me take of the rest" type of thing, on both units.
---
The two LED's on the Tivo are multicolored. The left one is green when the unit is on, and flashes yellow when it picks up remote control inputs. The right one is red when recording, yellow when using the phone, and orange if both are true.
---
It's not intended for long term storage, but for short term (2 weeks or less, really). The standard method of usage:
a) you set it up to record a show, whenever it comes on.
b) whenever you sit down, it has a bunch of stuff for you to watch.
c) once you've watched the show, you delete it. If you want to save it for a longer period (long term archival), you record it to a more permanent medium, such as VHS tape or something.
It's mainly a way to divorce content from time, to make when a show comes on no longer matter.
---
...and in so doing, you dump the current contents of the buffer. Have you actually used a TiVo?
Tip: in 2.0, due out by the end of the year (and already out on the DirecTiVos!), you won't. Hit record in the middle of a show, and it will try to grab as much of that show from the live buffer as it can, and save it all.
---
You're thinking of the Tivo, which can use an 800 number if no local number is available. With Replay, you must use a local number, even if it costs you long distance charges. They have no 800 type number to use.
---
[i]While TiVo does offer the "Suggestions" feature where an algorithm records programs by trying to match to your preferences based on monitoring your viewing habits, ReplayTV instead gives the viewer powerful tools to choose what he wants to record. [/i]
Not exactly, it's based on what you tell it your preferences are. And Tivo has those same powerful tools to choose what you want to record. With 2.0 at the end of the year, I'd say the Tivo's selection tools will be somewhat more powerful than Replay, thanks to user settable show priorities.
---
ReplayTV won't let you watch TV while it makes its call. A bit stupid really.. Tivo can make its call anytime and you can watch TV while it does it. Totally background.
---
TiVo's 2.0 version of software, due around Xmas, has this feature. Front and back padding, adjustable per Season Pass.
www.tivocommunity.com
---
The Tivo hacking folks have made some great discoveries. Like how to extend that LiveTV Buffer out to an hour or more. Or how to increase your capacity to 100+ hrs of video.
www.tivocommunity.com
---
On the point about global cooling, this is ALSO a possible outcome simply because changing a stable system cause unpredictable outcomes; similar to the butterfly effect often widely discussed.
On it's face, this is the stupidest statement I've ever seen. Stable means that you can't easily change it, it resists change. Stable.
Perhaps you meant to say that introducing change into a chaotic system causes unpredictable outcomes.
---
It's amazing to me how the record companies, RIAA, and so on have managed to change their image in the minds of at least the "hacker" crowd. Looking at this forum in the past, I'd see an attitude of "How stupid these guys are," when something like this occured. Instead, now I see an attitude of "These guys are the enemy," which is fine in itself, but it goes to show how the record companies actions are having the effect of turning its own customers against itself.
:)
Now, I've never taken a business class or anything, but somehow I get the feeling that making your customers think of you as the enemy is probably not the best business strategy.
Rather amusing, anyway...
---
[i]Before saying things like it's just Math, you'd better not forget that quantum theory and GR are quite successfull, so if they predict that something happen, well, it has quite a chance to happen "for real".. [/i]
:)
Okay, first off, it's not a matter of chance. Something is real, or it isn't. The theory is either real to the world in this respect or it isn't. There is no way to measure what the "chances" are that it's correct, and as we all know, if you can't measure it, it's not science.
And a theory can be completely and totally correct in every respect except one, and still be wrong.
Also, note that I don't thing it's incorrect here, I just don't see how you can get the particle/unparticle explanation from the math of it. Seems like that's a made up explanation for mass comsumption.
---
[i]However, this leaves a few questions
1) how come more negative (un-, if you wish) than positive particles are attracted?
1.1) how come gravity works the same on unparticles? Shouldn't they be repelled?
2) why does this happen at a faster rate for small black holes (I understand that rate of evaporation is inversely proportional to mass)[/i]
You're taking the particle/un-particle pair too seriously. While that's the conventional explanation, it doesn't quite fit the math. In fact, the math admits of no explanation. It's just mathematics.
Anyway, having looked hard at the math until my head buzzed, I couldn't see how the standard particle/un-particle explanation fit. However, I also couldn't see any 'real world' explanation that fits either.
Virtual particles are tricky bastards.
---
The thing is hackable, you know. It runs Linux. If you're worried about what it's sending back, did it occur to nobody to just look?
Three files are uploaded to TiVo daily: tivoLog.pub, tivoLog.prv, and a log for 'myworld', the program that runs the machine.
tivoLog.pub appears to contain info on internal errors that have occured, but is usually empty.
tivoLog.prv is the issue here, it contains a log of every program watched and every button pressed on the remote.
Now, looking at the dialup scripts (Yes! It's all scripted!) You can see how it RANDOMIZES the name of the file before uploading it. No identifying information at all is in the file itself, the serial number isn't there. The serial number is used as the filename for upload, after being randomized. It appears possible for TiVo to change a setting and have the serial as the file name not randomized, but this is not set. It seems to be for debug purposes.
Sheesh.
Now the kicker: why shouldn't they have this info? It says it's taken in the manual. It says so on the site. Call up customer service and ask, they won't deny that they get it. One thing they do claim is that it's totally anonymous (true) and if you still don't want it, you can tell them to turn it off and it's done (also true, there's a setting in the box for it).
One final word (to correct a bad assumption): The TiVo Suggestions are computed entirely on your personal TiVo. No TiVo servers are used to compile this info, none of your thumbs ratings for shows are sent back to TiVo for this purpose. It's all local.
From now, before you bash something, learn what's really happening. It's fine to argue in the abstract, but a computer is not abstract, it's a real physical device. It's simpler to actually hack the thing and find the real story.
---
When was the last time an employer asked anyone a theoretical question of this kind?
:)
I deal with stuff like this on a daily basis. You know what I program? Heavy duty CGI stuff mostly. but I have to be able to handle thousands upon thousands of users. Your script-kiddie written perl script may work most of the time. My program is guaranteed to by both theory and practice. That's the difference.
95% of the time my employer is asking for a new script to be written or a more stable database design, the other 5% we're discussing where to go for beers at the end of the day.
Funny, I discuss beer a lot more than 5% of the time. Why? Because the programming doesn't take all my time. I know what I'm doing, because I've been educated on all aspects of the system. That's another difference.
The questions you're suggesting are fine for the theoretical set, but when it comes down to putting a product together I'll take an experienced high school educated coder over a wet behind the ears college punk any day.
Ah, so you want a kid who doesn't have the slightest clue about mission-critical systems. In other words, you want it to work. Who cares if it breaks, he'll always work for us! Yeah, right.
Don't even get me started about how much I prefer military educated folks over any of the above...
Ahhh, you've just lost all credibility. Good job!
---
www.webcertificate.com
Put in the cash you want when you want. It works like a mastercard, at any store that takes mastercard. Simple. Easy. Effective.
---