You are correct, but the arguments are not entirely the same. While Elcomsoft's software is simply a tool, it is available for end users. Some users will use it for fair use, and others will inevitably use it in an illegal fashion.
However, Palladium is a tool that will likely remain in the hands of Microsoft. Sure, the "content owners" will be given limited toolkits that allow them to make Palladium-friendly software, but it will be Microsoft who says what is trusted or not.
That said, if Elcomsoft was (a) a US-based company and (b) required the users of its tools to seek approval from Elcomsoft for each and every use, then Elcomsoft SHOULD be held accountable for misuse of its tools, because they would know of specific violations.
Now the question here is this: "Will Microsoft use Palladium for illegal purposes?" Judging by Microsoft's past record... well... you be the judge.
What I'm looking for is the 'geek guy's guide to meeting geek girls that are ACTUALLY IN THE SAME FREAKIN CITY INSTEAD OF HALFWAY ACROSS THE COUNTRY!!!!'
No kidding! Ever try to go looking for a geeky girl in ARKANSAS? I don't think there are any...
obArkansas Joke: No, my mother and my sister are not geeks.
Copyrighted material can already (and is) sold digitally. DRM simply allows the "old business model" to be applied to a new, digital medium.
Copying a piece of copyrighted work for purposes other than personal fair use (which is an argument in of itself) is already illegal. I don't see the logic in making something "more illegal" when it already is illegal, or that it would help improve that situation. Adding DRM on top of copyright laws is redundant... unless of course, you are wanting to use DRM to enforce something other than copyright laws.
Actually it would be socialism. However, to most Americans, the words are synonymous and bring forth images of the "red commies" thanks to years and years of heavy government propaganda.
Ideally, socialism is far better than capitalism. However, both of these concepts suffer from the same problem. There will always be people that cheat... or simply want more for the sake of having more.
In the end, as you pointed out... we're a cash-ocracy.
I believe that would be a plutocracy... and indeed... the US is a thriving plutocracy living under a very thin veil of democracy.
- Twilight1
Re:The sad truth about "Cancer Cures'
on
Kills Tumors Dead
·
· Score: 1
So, American greed is the reason we haven't found a cure for cancer, eh? If this is the case, why hasn't a cure been discovered in another country, where everyone is so altruistic?
That wasn't quite the point. Sure, cancer (and many other terrible things) are complex and the why's and how's can't be summed up in a few paragraphs. However, if an American pharmaceutical corporation (and any company/country that follows the bogus IP laws that the US strong-arms upon them) discovered the cure, you can bet your booty that they will delay releasing such information as long as possible. After all, they make a lot of money from treating symptoms. If they cure their patients, quite a bit of their revenue stream has been cut off.
And, even if they did announce it... first it would be a cure for the rich upper class. Then, slowly over time will the rest of the population be allowed to have access to it. Poor third world countries... they'd have to wait a very long time unless someone decides to challenge the US and produce the drug in violation of the US IP extortion laws.
Just drop the USA-bashing mentality for a few minutes and realize that cancer is a very complex topic. Oversimplifying the problem to make a quick jab at America does a disservice to the reesearchers who are dedicating their lives to fighting cancer, as well as the millions suffering from the disease worldwide.
There are good people in the world, and that includes the US. But most good people in the US still end up working for the bad people... the people with the money, the power, and the monopolistic corporations that see treatment only as a revenue stream.
And this isn't a "USA-bashing" mentality... it's just an observation.
- Twilight1
Re:The sad truth about "Cancer Cures'
on
Kills Tumors Dead
·
· Score: 1
Unfortunately, the cure for cancer will forever be over the horizon as long as American pharmaceutical companies hold monopoly-enabling patents on drugs. As long as there is profit from treating symptoms, there will be no cure. This is the "golden rule" in America -- greed is the only motivation that most Americans can understand.
Actually, for someone who knows the command line, nearly everything can be achieved much faster than using any GUI.
Most things can be achieved with a few keystrokes instead of lots of pointing and clicking and navigating through menus. And no, typing speed is of no issue... most anyone who prefers the CLI can type rather quickly.
Both have their strengths and weaknesses.
But, you are absolutely wrong. The CLI is not forced upon anyone. KDE, GNOME, and even X itself... how would these have come to be if we the "linux elites" were forcing the CLI down everyone's throat?
The GUI is better for you, perhaps... but for me (and many others), the CLI will always remain the first, fastest way to do things.
And yes, all those things you mentioned... I do from the command line. It's too cumbersome for me to point and click. But, I realize this is not true for everyone.
Try not to be so antagonistic here, bud. The CLI and GUI (and both camps) can coexist.
In a few more years, we'll be able to simulate multiple, simultaneous explosions... and eventually entire wars will be able to be predicted by computer!
Just imagine... new treaties could be put into place to forbid "conventional" war altogether. (Yes, I think I just redefined conventional in this sense...) After all, nobody likes the loss of culture, relics, artifacts, and history due to the side pesky side effect of killing each other. We can simulate wars, and all the people caught in the simulations' destruction zones could simply report to government agencies to be put to sleep in a "humane" fashion. No messy rubble, no rebuilding, no loss of anything "important". This is progress, man... progress!
Oh... and don't mind that starship in orbit. In fact, don't even put them in the simulation. And for god sakes people, don't let them beam anyone down... they'll throw a wrench in the works, I'm just sure of it.
Twilight1
Re:The best he can build is a disintegration chamb
on
Time Travel
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Hey, I have one of these! Aparrently someone else built the thing and disguised it as my washing machine and dryer. I wonder if it was him... and if it was... why in the hell did he build it into a washer and dryer?
Somewhere... out there... in a parallel universe... people get free socks out of thin air. Of course, these socks are always half of a pair. It's not possible to send both socks in a pair into one of these parallel universes. I'm not sure which law of physics this would falls under.
I wonder... if I tied a string to a pair of socks... and one went into the parallel universe and the other remained in my dryer... where would the string lead to? Oh well... I'll leave the string theories to the experts.;)
This isn't quite the point. Big free email providers like hotmail and yahoo still cause lots of spam-related headaches due to the fact that they are big and free email providers.
Many sites have started checking for valid return email or envelope addresses. (This is known as SMTP callback.) As a result, this simple measure weeds a significant amount of spam from the loop, as spammers just love to make up or forge email addresses.
While yahoo (and hotmail) may be the unfortunate victim of email address forgeries, most of the spam problem comes from the fact that they do little to verify the legitimacy of users when they set up new accounts. So spammers, knowing that they need good, fresh email boxes for responses and SMTP callbacks go to these services and sign up with bogus info. Ta-da... they just circumvented SMTP callback by exploiting a weakness (I would consider a flaw) in yahoo's practices.
No, most spammers are not smart enough to realize such things need to be done to help get their spam through to the victims. Most spammers can't even tell you what an SMTP or an RFC is. But, there is a market for this spamming software... and somewhere out there... is some pimply faced loser using their knowledge to capitalize (exploit) this black market and creating the bigger/better/faster spam pumping engine... *sigh*
Personally, I block all mail from yahoo, hotmail, and msn because of this. While I run the risk of missing an occasional email by some poor sod who has to use this service, if they really want to reach me, they can... it's all in the bounce message. I would have liked to block these domains at my mail server... but alas, my users would scream bloody murder when they could no longer get emails from their friends/roomates/parents/dog/whatever who insists that they need this service to survive.
Fighting spam is such a terrible battle. Things like SpamCop do not help, either. In my opinion, SpamCop is almost is as bad as spam. I don't blame the software or the creators... but the ignorant users. When I worked for VA, I received more spam from SpamCop than from spammers... due to users blindly submitting SpamCop reports for things that had almost nothing to do with us. (Disclaimer: I do not endorse anything VA does or says... and in my opinion they have spammed in the past, and will spam again.) Even in the case where VA did send bulk unsolicited email through a third party spam^H^H^H^Hbulk mail service, the abuse reports still didn't compare to false SpamCop reports. Oh well..
"Olympia also demonstrated a mobile phone version of Soundbug, that will be aimed at business workers. The device can be stuck to a car windscreen, meaning that drivers can have a hands-free conversation without having to wear a headset. It could be on sale by the end of this summer, and May is aiming for a price of £49.99."
... and so anyone outside the car also gets to listen in... Well, at least half of the convestation.
I can just see it now... the noise of horns and engines replaced by the sounds of a large crowd in traffic jams.
This does sound cool, though. I wonder what the fidelity is... I wouldn't expect much. However, it would beat most portable speakers one might drag around with a laptop.:)
"...while I don't particularly like this any more then anyone else, I also don't think it's the huge deal that others are making of it. Especially considering projects aren't paying for the free service. You get what you pay for after all."
Ah, okay... thanks for clearing up your stance on the matter, Commander Taco. So as you see it, as long as your getting something for free, it's okay to sell out and become a marketing whore?
There is nothing wrong with this, if that's what you really want to do. However, I suspect that (like myself), most free software developers are not into the whole "you get what you pay for" mindset.
Use the means at hand to accomplish your goals... and if your goals including sacrificing ethics (again, a very relative point of view) then go for it. Odds are you may still be providing something good back to the community.
But... for people like me... we'd rather pay for good service rather than rely on the sales of our collected personal information to provide questionable space.
FWIW, my opinions are mine alone... and are probably biased in some strange ways... considering I work for VA Software too.
4. When Microsoft notices, refuse to sell out to them.
5. Be crushed under the weight of a mighty monopoly when they throw their machine at you and give away a product that does the same thing as yours for free.
6. Try to play the "release often" game against Microsoft.
Repeat steps five and six until desired failure is achieved, or until your stockholders turn into an angry mob, whichever happens first.
Yes they will! This will give them enough power to run their all new Windoze XPQRST at the same speeds as today's processors run today's Windoze products! This will give everyone the incentive to rush out and buy their latest and greatest with more bells and whistles than you can wave a wet noodle around with.
It will also improve crash times so people will have to spend less time working with productivity applications between crashes.
VA is *NOT* trying to show the open source community anything!
VA is no longer a Linux company, a hardware company, nor an open source company. Their focus is on proprietary software, and that is the final word.
Their only lingering interest in sourceforge.net is the fact that it's an amazingly large proof-of-concept demo for them to sell their enterprise edition with. They're not interested in promoting the community... they're only interested in more projects which are simply numbers to stuff their PowerPoint presentations with.
I'm from Arkansas, and now live in California. I thought Arkansans were bad drivers until I got out to California. I'm suprised most Californians survive their daily drive to work.:)
I agree with you... however for most people, it's not about fact but perception. A car is perceived to be a big investment, even though most of today's vehicles are designed with a planned obsolecense in mind. Computers, while much lower in price than they were say 5 years ago, are perceived to be cheap, disposable objects that will need to be replaced anyway in 1-2 years.
It would be nice to think that companies would learn from their mistakes because customers would "vote with their dollars" (sorry for using an overused statement) by not purchasing their product. However, most companies have effectively eliminated most, if not all the competition and product quality is not an issue.
It's an odd predicament we've worked ourselves into as a capitalist society. Sure, people should be allowed to profit from goods and services... but greed has contorted unrestrained capitalism to focus on making money not by producing quality, but by reducing the options available to people, either by legislation or through a monopoly.
They also require you to have a license to drive a car... but any old idiot can use (or attempt to use) a computer. Apples and oranges, unfortunately.
The downside of this greedy, over-capitalistic country (and society) is that one is rewarded for screwing as many people as possible for the most profit. On top of that, public "education" teaches that success is measured in financial gain.
Until these things change, I don't see people putting in real support behind their products. The automobile industry is none too happy to have to support lemon laws.
Slashdot Mirror
Person 1: (dials cellphone)
Person 2: Hello?
Person 1: Okay, they do have laptop modems. Just needed to check with you, though... does your laptop take NEWCARDs?
Person 2: What?!? Of course it takes new cards. I would have bought one off eBay otherwise.
Person 1: ?!? Okay... just wanted to make sure.
30 minutes later...
Person 2: What the hell is this?
Person 1: It's a NEWCARD modem!
Person 2: Of course it's a new card modem, but for what, a PDA? I wanted one for my LAPTOP!!
Apples and Oranges...
You are correct, but the arguments are not entirely the same. While Elcomsoft's software is simply a tool, it is available for end users. Some users will use it for fair use, and others will inevitably use it in an illegal fashion.
However, Palladium is a tool that will likely remain in the hands of Microsoft. Sure, the "content owners" will be given limited toolkits that allow them to make Palladium-friendly software, but it will be Microsoft who says what is trusted or not.
That said, if Elcomsoft was (a) a US-based company and (b) required the users of its tools to seek approval from Elcomsoft for each and every use, then Elcomsoft SHOULD be held accountable for misuse of its tools, because they would know of specific violations.
Now the question here is this: "Will Microsoft use Palladium for illegal purposes?" Judging by Microsoft's past record... well... you be the judge.
- Twilight1No kidding! Ever try to go looking for a geeky girl in ARKANSAS? I don't think there are any...
obArkansas Joke: No, my mother and my sister are not geeks.
- Twilight1
Copyrighted material can already (and is) sold digitally. DRM simply allows the "old business model" to be applied to a new, digital medium.
Copying a piece of copyrighted work for purposes other than personal fair use (which is an argument in of itself) is already illegal. I don't see the logic in making something "more illegal" when it already is illegal, or that it would help improve that situation. Adding DRM on top of copyright laws is redundant... unless of course, you are wanting to use DRM to enforce something other than copyright laws.
- Twilight1
Well, you would probably care if it happened to hit in your back yard...
...but not for long. ;)
- Twilight1
Hmm. What is this? Communism?
Actually it would be socialism. However, to most Americans, the words are synonymous and bring forth images of the "red commies" thanks to years and years of heavy government propaganda.
Ideally, socialism is far better than capitalism. However, both of these concepts suffer from the same problem. There will always be people that cheat... or simply want more for the sake of having more.
- Twilight1
In the end, as you pointed out... we're a cash-ocracy.
I believe that would be a plutocracy... and indeed... the US is a thriving plutocracy living under a very thin veil of democracy.
- Twilight1
That wasn't quite the point. Sure, cancer (and many other terrible things) are complex and the why's and how's can't be summed up in a few paragraphs. However, if an American pharmaceutical corporation (and any company/country that follows the bogus IP laws that the US strong-arms upon them) discovered the cure, you can bet your booty that they will delay releasing such information as long as possible. After all, they make a lot of money from treating symptoms. If they cure their patients, quite a bit of their revenue stream has been cut off.
And, even if they did announce it... first it would be a cure for the rich upper class. Then, slowly over time will the rest of the population be allowed to have access to it. Poor third world countries... they'd have to wait a very long time unless someone decides to challenge the US and produce the drug in violation of the US IP extortion laws.
Just drop the USA-bashing mentality for a few minutes and realize that cancer is a very complex topic. Oversimplifying the problem to make a quick jab at America does a disservice to the reesearchers who are dedicating their lives to fighting cancer, as well as the millions suffering from the disease worldwide.
There are good people in the world, and that includes the US. But most good people in the US still end up working for the bad people... the people with the money, the power, and the monopolistic corporations that see treatment only as a revenue stream.
And this isn't a "USA-bashing" mentality... it's just an observation.
- Twilight1
Unfortunately, the cure for cancer will forever be over the horizon as long as American pharmaceutical companies hold monopoly-enabling patents on drugs. As long as there is profit from treating symptoms, there will be no cure. This is the "golden rule" in America -- greed is the only motivation that most Americans can understand.
- Twilight1
Actually, for someone who knows the command line, nearly everything can be achieved much faster than using any GUI.
Most things can be achieved with a few keystrokes instead of lots of pointing and clicking and navigating through menus. And no, typing speed is of no issue... most anyone who prefers the CLI can type rather quickly.
Both have their strengths and weaknesses.
But, you are absolutely wrong. The CLI is not forced upon anyone. KDE, GNOME, and even X itself... how would these have come to be if we the "linux elites" were forcing the CLI down everyone's throat?
The GUI is better for you, perhaps... but for me (and many others), the CLI will always remain the first, fastest way to do things.
And yes, all those things you mentioned... I do from the command line. It's too cumbersome for me to point and click. But, I realize this is not true for everyone.
Try not to be so antagonistic here, bud. The CLI and GUI (and both camps) can coexist.
Cheers,
Twilight1
In a few more years, we'll be able to simulate multiple, simultaneous explosions... and eventually entire wars will be able to be predicted by computer!
Just imagine... new treaties could be put into place to forbid "conventional" war altogether. (Yes, I think I just redefined conventional in this sense...) After all, nobody likes the loss of culture, relics, artifacts, and history due to the side pesky side effect of killing each other. We can simulate wars, and all the people caught in the simulations' destruction zones could simply report to government agencies to be put to sleep in a "humane" fashion. No messy rubble, no rebuilding, no loss of anything "important". This is progress, man... progress!
Oh... and don't mind that starship in orbit. In fact, don't even put them in the simulation. And for god sakes people, don't let them beam anyone down... they'll throw a wrench in the works, I'm just sure of it.
Twilight1
Hey, I have one of these! Aparrently someone else built the thing and disguised it as my washing machine and dryer. I wonder if it was him... and if it was... why in the hell did he build it into a washer and dryer?
;)
Somewhere... out there... in a parallel universe... people get free socks out of thin air. Of course, these socks are always half of a pair. It's not possible to send both socks in a pair into one of these parallel universes. I'm not sure which law of physics this would falls under.
I wonder... if I tied a string to a pair of socks... and one went into the parallel universe and the other remained in my dryer... where would the string lead to? Oh well... I'll leave the string theories to the experts.
-Twilight1
Well, shit happens. I was recently pardoned though...
Cheers,
Twilight1
Don't underestimate the power of the corporation-funded democracy of America.
America is not a democracy. The form of government proacticed in the US is referred to as a plutocracy.
The plutocrats just want you to think it's still a democracy. I think it helps them sleep better at night.
Cheers,
Twilight1
This isn't quite the point. Big free email providers like hotmail and yahoo still cause lots of spam-related headaches due to the fact that they are big and free email providers.
Many sites have started checking for valid return email or envelope addresses. (This is known as SMTP callback.) As a result, this simple measure weeds a significant amount of spam from the loop, as spammers just love to make up or forge email addresses.
While yahoo (and hotmail) may be the unfortunate victim of email address forgeries, most of the spam problem comes from the fact that they do little to verify the legitimacy of users when they set up new accounts. So spammers, knowing that they need good, fresh email boxes for responses and SMTP callbacks go to these services and sign up with bogus info. Ta-da... they just circumvented SMTP callback by exploiting a weakness (I would consider a flaw) in yahoo's practices.
No, most spammers are not smart enough to realize such things need to be done to help get their spam through to the victims. Most spammers can't even tell you what an SMTP or an RFC is. But, there is a market for this spamming software... and somewhere out there... is some pimply faced loser using their knowledge to capitalize (exploit) this black market and creating the bigger/better/faster spam pumping engine... *sigh*
Personally, I block all mail from yahoo, hotmail, and msn because of this. While I run the risk of missing an occasional email by some poor sod who has to use this service, if they really want to reach me, they can... it's all in the bounce message. I would have liked to block these domains at my mail server... but alas, my users would scream bloody murder when they could no longer get emails from their friends/roomates/parents/dog/whatever who insists that they need this service to survive.
Fighting spam is such a terrible battle. Things like SpamCop do not help, either. In my opinion, SpamCop is almost is as bad as spam. I don't blame the software or the creators... but the ignorant users. When I worked for VA, I received more spam from SpamCop than from spammers... due to users blindly submitting SpamCop reports for things that had almost nothing to do with us. (Disclaimer: I do not endorse anything VA does or says... and in my opinion they have spammed in the past, and will spam again.) Even in the case where VA did send bulk unsolicited email through a third party spam^H^H^H^Hbulk mail service, the abuse reports still didn't compare to false SpamCop reports. Oh well..
This is a tough pickle.
Cheers,
Twilight1
"Olympia also demonstrated a mobile phone version of Soundbug, that will be aimed at business workers. The device can be stuck to a car windscreen, meaning that drivers can have a hands-free conversation without having to wear a headset. It could be on sale by the end of this summer, and May is aiming for a price of £49.99."
I can just see it now... the noise of horns and engines replaced by the sounds of a large crowd in traffic jams.
This does sound cool, though. I wonder what the fidelity is... I wouldn't expect much. However, it would beat most portable speakers one might drag around with a laptop. :)
Cheers,
Twilight1
"Don't forget that the first victim or relaying SPAM is the open mailserver itself
No, the first victim is whoever receives the first piece of spam as a result of your misconfigured server. Ignorance is no excuse.
Open relays are just as much a part of the problem as the people sending the spam.
Regards,
Twilight1
"...while I don't particularly like this any more then anyone else, I also don't think it's the huge deal that others are making of it. Especially considering projects aren't paying for the free service. You get what you pay for after all."
Ah, okay... thanks for clearing up your stance on the matter, Commander Taco. So as you see it, as long as your getting something for free, it's okay to sell out and become a marketing whore?
There is nothing wrong with this, if that's what you really want to do. However, I suspect that (like myself), most free software developers are not into the whole "you get what you pay for" mindset.
Use the means at hand to accomplish your goals... and if your goals including sacrificing ethics (again, a very relative point of view) then go for it. Odds are you may still be providing something good back to the community.
But... for people like me... we'd rather pay for good service rather than rely on the sales of our collected personal information to provide questionable space.
FWIW, my opinions are mine alone... and are probably biased in some strange ways... considering I work for VA Software too.
Regards,
Twilight1
Hmm, you sound like you work for VA Software... ;^)
1. Come up with a really cool and useful idea.
:)
2. Implement said idea, and tell others about it.
3. Build a solid piece of software and test it.
4. When Microsoft notices, refuse to sell out to them.
5. Be crushed under the weight of a mighty monopoly when they throw their machine at you and give away a product that does the same thing as yours for free.
6. Try to play the "release often" game against Microsoft.
Repeat steps five and six until desired failure is achieved, or until your stockholders turn into an angry mob, whichever happens first.
Wheee!
-- Twilight1
Yes they will! This will give them enough power to run their all new Windoze XPQRST at the same speeds as today's processors run today's Windoze products! This will give everyone the incentive to rush out and buy their latest and greatest with more bells and whistles than you can wave a wet noodle around with.
It will also improve crash times so people will have to spend less time working with productivity applications between crashes.
-- Twilight1
VA is *NOT* trying to show the open source community anything!
VA is no longer a Linux company, a hardware company, nor an open source company. Their focus is on proprietary software, and that is the final word.
Their only lingering interest in sourceforge.net is the fact that it's an amazingly large proof-of-concept demo for them to sell their enterprise edition with. They're not interested in promoting the community... they're only interested in more projects which are simply numbers to stuff their PowerPoint presentations with.
-- Twilight1
Surely you jest... hehehe...
I'm from Arkansas, and now live in California. I thought Arkansans were bad drivers until I got out to California. I'm suprised most Californians survive their daily drive to work. :)
I agree with you... however for most people, it's not about fact but perception. A car is perceived to be a big investment, even though most of today's vehicles are designed with a planned obsolecense in mind. Computers, while much lower in price than they were say 5 years ago, are perceived to be cheap, disposable objects that will need to be replaced anyway in 1-2 years.
It would be nice to think that companies would learn from their mistakes because customers would "vote with their dollars" (sorry for using an overused statement) by not purchasing their product. However, most companies have effectively eliminated most, if not all the competition and product quality is not an issue.
It's an odd predicament we've worked ourselves into as a capitalist society. Sure, people should be allowed to profit from goods and services... but greed has contorted unrestrained capitalism to focus on making money not by producing quality, but by reducing the options available to people, either by legislation or through a monopoly.
Wheee... what a strange ride.
--Twilight1
They also require you to have a license to drive a car... but any old idiot can use (or attempt to use) a computer. Apples and oranges, unfortunately.
The downside of this greedy, over-capitalistic country (and society) is that one is rewarded for screwing as many people as possible for the most profit. On top of that, public "education" teaches that success is measured in financial gain.
Until these things change, I don't see people putting in real support behind their products. The automobile industry is none too happy to have to support lemon laws.
--Twilight1