> instead of trying to fight it in a juvenile
> manner ("Well, if I can't stop them from
> listening to my music, I'll break it first!")
This isn't juvenile. It's an absolutely perfect and insightful way of fighting Napster. The very feature which makes Napster the file-sharing tool for so many people, namely anonymity, is its worst enemy. Where no one is accountable for distributing stuff, no one can be blamed for distributing misinformation. So, if you want quality, you will need to join smaller (closed) groups without anonymity, thus losing the huge base of files that is Napster.
Change is the basis of survival. Adapting to the changing situation is essential and any form of life which denies this, is a dead end on the tree of evolution.
Progress means exactly that type of change. No one is actively deciding where we as a species are progressing to and this is probably a good thing. We are just adapting to changing needs. Bored (and thus prone to doing stupid things and/or becoming unproductive)? We'll do something about that. Can't solve a problem, because lack of communication stalls the project? Invent a new way of communicating. And always: Create (read: modify), test, repeat.
The reason people don't see programming as part of required general knowledge is that they think it is an awfully complex skill. What I am talking about is iteration, variables and structure. The "user" has to wait for someone to design a special user interface for the task. Someone with basic programming skills can just "script" his way through it. You have almost written the program when you have understood the problem. From that point on, formalization is all that is left to do. Maybe people shouldn't learn C++ or Java or whatever classic programming language you prefer, but graphical programming is still programming.
You don't have to be an expert at programming, but having an idea about how a computer does its job certainly helps using it. When you're really good at using a computer, you've necessarily understood the basic principles of programming. Future computer users will probably use them almost everywhere and any time. There will be no "just need to know Word" users, and even those better know about scripting to get simple repetitive jobs done quick. The difference between a user and a programmer is that a user memorizes all the stuff he uses, while a programmer understands it and generalizes. With ever growing computer use, tell me which way is more efficient...
While I agree that setting up the system with secure default should be the number one priority for a linux distribution, many of the security flaws described in that article are the result of a multi-user, multi-machine philosophy behind linux. The print system, X and email are good examples of this. Sure, your average Joe doesn't need network printing and is probably not at all angry about having to poll for mail. Remote display is probably not what he needs, either. But some people do. And those people have a background of running *nix operating systems while average Joe has a history of running MS operating systems or TV-sets. Asking for everything to be stripped down to the bare minimum required for single user operation is asking for Linux to become a better Windows. That is obviously what people want but I doubt that Linux is a good starting point for such an undertaking, despite its popularity and support in the developer world. Multi-user aspects are scattered all over linux. Just like the author of the rootprompt article doesn't like the fact that software has been changed and added to without it ever being rewritten from scratch, I don't like the idea of taking an operating system which has been built with multi-user operation in mind and turning it into a desktop single user system without rewriting (most of) it from scratch.
There are more reasons for system security than just prevent your private data from being stolen. One of the more unpleasant effects of operating an "opened" system is that your system is likely going to be the source of some bigger attack. Ping floods come to mind. Shell hops for cracks could put you in the position to explain why *you* hacked a system. Compromised systems allow for spamming and warez trading. You really should not suggest to run insecure systems on the internet just because you don't care about the data that is on them.
This is the "Politicians don't read Slashdot" argument. It's true in some way but misses the point in some other way. Here is why:
No politician is going to legalise MP3-trading of copyrighted music, no matter how much lobbying you/we do. He would have to essentially give up copyright for that and it's obvious that in a time also known as the dawning age of information society there is no way to screw copyright.
Fair use is a concept which was devised in times when copying music wasn't possible without loss of quality. A third generation copy just didn't sound like it was worth the work. Instead you bought the record/tape. So maybe a record got copied a few times but that was ok, because it didn't get copied a zillion times and after all, music is a cultural thing and, what the heck, we can't control it anyway.
Then came cd-burners and things started to get ugly. With these a copy of a copy was as good as the original. But still distribution was limited somehow by the necessity to move physical media around and lending your cd to total strangers doesn't sound like too good an idea.
Then came Napster. A copy of a copy is still as good as the original but now distribution is limited only by network bandwith, which is increasing every day. There are still reasons for a fair use concept: Music is still a cultural thing and there is still no way to control individual copying. But copying will get out of hand with ever growing network availability and bandwith, so it can't be allowed from a copyright owner's perspective. Fair use as a selfregulated loophole has lost its regulating factors which were loss of quality and need for physical and thus limited distribution.
What is a politician to do in a situation like this? Programmers and technicians tell you that copying can't be stopped technologically. RIAA et al tell you that there are millions of people earning their income in the music industry who are in danger of losing their jobs because of all these freeloaders. The anser is: delegate. Let others handle the problem. For now we make sure the industry is staying healthy and the people don't lose their jobs. In order to do that, the fair use loophole obviously has to be closed. This is were we got the DMCA from. Next the industry makes sure that the technology which enables mass copying for the average consumer goes away. Napster, bye bye. They are legally and morally in the position to shut down Napster. Napster is a company which hopes to make money by providing a system which even in good-will terms is a means for mass copyright infringement.
Can you do something about that through lobbying? I doubt it. There are few reasons why copying music should be allowed and most of them revolve about the music industry being a big bad monster and artists not getting their fair amount of money anyway. That is, pardon my french, bullshit. The music industry is the direct result of a free market situation and if artists don't get paid enough, well, that's their problem.
But there are still those damn programmers who insist that copying can't be stopped technologically. What can we do about them? Nothing, they are right. With fast networks available to everyone, the copying will continue. Programs are just waiting for Napster to die so they can take its place. With laws becoming stricter, technology will adapt to provide what people want anyway. Geeks are not into lobbying because they know that technology wins in the long run. The time of the music industry as we know it is fading. Copyright laws are prolonging its life but eventually it will die (or transform into something different, as some people might put it).
There is still a long road to walk before you can legally copy all the music you want. You'll see the town of restricted internet access on the way. The city of forbidden encryption can be seen on the horizon, but we still don't know if we have to go through it. Privacy invaders have their huts ligned up near the road all the way. But we will get past these obstacles with our without lobbying, sooner or later. Right now, lobbying will only make people laugh at us for demanding the right to pirate. Give people fascinating technology and they'll walk with you.
Since the webserver must verify the CC-numbers, it has to have a connection to a system where these are stored. While it is easier to secure a simple API which implements only verification, this way of separating the database from the webserver is not automatically secure. You could still hack the webserver and move on from there to hack the verification API. That is theoretically possible even if there is no direct return channel (data can only be sent to the database-server). See ->IP-Spoofing for an example of what you can do without getting any replies just by knowing exactly how the other system will behave.
> However, intelligent life in a galaxy a gigaparsec from us is not terribly interesting; if that's our closest neighbor, then we might as well be alone.
That is not true. If we find any life no matter how far it is away from us, that will change our view of the world and possibly ruin our respect for earth as something very special. I hope we don't get to know about extraterrestrial life before we at least have the means to put colonies on other planets or into space.
And adding to that, this hallucination isn't exactly mindblowing: If I am stuck with a single terabyte of storage in 2010 that will be a true showstopper. Even simple extrapolation gets us 100 TB ten years from now.
And there are more insufficiencies: Why is it that I have to plug my computer into the wall at home to make my house come to life? If there's anything obvious about the future then it's networks everywhere connecting computers everywhere.
RAM doesn't match harddisk capacity. 256 GB of holographic RAM and only 1 TB of harddisk space?
Take the mouse away and you destroy the next big market that is First-Person-Shooters-on-Laptops. Same goes for keyboards, of course. I can't imagine running around and shooting by drawing lines on a touch screen or digitizer. Give me direct neural access and we can talk about trashing mice and keyboards, but no sooner.
The day will come on which people will start ignoring law completely and then there will be too much truth in this joke to laugh about it: What are thousand lawyers on the bottom of the sea? A good start...
Re:There is no one to blame: It's fiction.
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 1
Some people don't even notice when they shoot themselves in the foot. Rethink your logic here, please.
Re:There is no one to blame: It's fiction.
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 1
It doesn't work that way. Instead it goes more like this:
Your system does a sanity check on the entered key and kicks you out of the game if that check fails.
Your system sends the key directly to the key server, which then verifies, that the key is valid and stores the result of the check with your IP
Your system then connects to the game server and does not talk about keys at all to that server.
The game server asks the key server if your IP may participate in a game. Depending on the answer, you're kicked out or allowed to play.
Every now and then, your system refreshes its OK-status with the key server. It never sends the key to any other system than the key server.
Should you pull the trick you described, this is what happens:
Your system does the sanity check. No network involved, no change. Your key has to have the correct syntax and checksum for the game to work (unless you hack that part, too)
Your system tries to register with the key server. This attempt gets you a "key server sais ok", but the real key server never hears about you, thus your IP is still marked as "must not be allowed to play".
Your system connects to the game server. No change here.
The game server asks the key server about the status of your IP. Key server sais: "Kick". Game server kicks. This is the place where the only working hack makes the change: The game servers are modified so that they don't check with the key server. Since game servers are public by nature, that is a risky thing to do.
Re:About Quake3's serial numbers....
on
Copyrant
·
· Score: 1
First: I have bought Q3A. Second: I am really annoyed by the CD check. I usually play online, so when someone wanted me to give him a little demonstration of how the bots act, I had to dig for the CD. That would not have been too much of a nuisance, IF I didn't know that the check can be removed quite easily from the warezed version.
The online key check appears to be an effective way of protecting the game. But I think there should be a solution that does not require storing the key on your harddrive. That makes your system more interesting for intruders and the key can easily be given out by accident (that happened a lot, when the key was still in the config). I would prefer a smartcard approach. The smartcard would store and verify the key and also have some storage space for configuration data. That way you could take your "personality" with you, when you leave your system unattended at a LAN party or when you switch systems just to prove that you are not winning because of P3/1000+Geforce2.
Someone find a way to put smartcard readers next to each and every computer, please... Is having a really simple smartcard reader delivered for free with a game too far out?
Don't take photos, just send in 50 people in and have each one remember a small part of the information. No notes, no photos, no trouble. If you didn't get all the information, send them in again. The supermarket would have to require customers to "log on" and "block" those who never buy stuff (Would that be legal?). Otherwise there is no stopping them.
Since EBay is offering its website to the public, there is no way that they can claim anybody is stealing their network bandwith / cpu time / whatever, as long as the requesting party does not obviously intend to DoS them.
They brought the system up for having its system resources used by other people. There really is no difference between my "I load ten pages in advance" proxy and a search engine. Both are bots gathering information which is presented to the public.
About the robots.txt: That is a mere recommendation. If I don't care about it, you can't force me to abide by it. Remember that just because you follow the standard, I don't have to. There is no law requiring anybody to follow standards or shut up.
If EBay needs to protect itself from search engines, then they should just deploy some anti-robot measures. How about delivering no more than one page every three seconds to a client?
What are those people thinking? You just can't trap capable coders with money and hardware. They have that already (or know how to get it if desired). If you are really interested in getting the job done, change the offer:
"Port the DivX codecs to the Mac and meet a spice girl of your choice... err... meet Britney Spears!" (need to match the subject line...)
It's technically possible to create a file-sharing system which does not expose a file's sender to the receiving party or intermediary systems. (For the technically inclined: "Mixes" are used today to provide this functionality for email. Combine with gnutella, enhance, done.) Such a file-sharing system would definitely mark the end of third party control over sharing activity. It is thus arguable that - despite the current lawsuits - the copying will continue. In your opinion, is it a good idea to criminalize an increasing number of people although it is impossible to enforce the copyright law? Shouldn't you instead give people an incentive to give their money to you other than "be good, go buy it"? Some say "copyright is dead" and seeing the faster networks and better programs on the horizon, I feel they have a point. "Copyright is unenforcable as far as personal use goes" would be my way of phrasing it. I do understand that copying copyrighted MP3s means breaking the law and I agree that artists have to have an income, too, but aren't you trying to resist the inevitable?
D.I.R.C. provides a relay network that made of just end-user nodes: It doesn't need any central authority or installation to enable communication within the network. Gateways (installation and operation) to other networks have to be paid for if you use them, but other than that, a personal relay point can be bought and operated without running costs except for electricity. AFAIK there have been talks to integrate the technology into cars to create ad-hoc networks through which traffic information can be propagated.
Slashdot Mirror
> manner ("Well, if I can't stop them from
> listening to my music, I'll break it first!")
This isn't juvenile. It's an absolutely perfect and insightful way of fighting Napster. The very feature which makes Napster the file-sharing tool for so many people, namely anonymity, is its worst enemy. Where no one is accountable for distributing stuff, no one can be blamed for distributing misinformation. So, if you want quality, you will need to join smaller (closed) groups without anonymity, thus losing the huge base of files that is Napster.
Change is the basis of survival. Adapting to the changing situation is essential and any form of life which denies this, is a dead end on the tree of evolution.
Progress means exactly that type of change. No one is actively deciding where we as a species are progressing to and this is probably a good thing. We are just adapting to changing needs. Bored (and thus prone to doing stupid things and/or becoming unproductive)? We'll do something about that. Can't solve a problem, because lack of communication stalls the project? Invent a new way of communicating. And always: Create (read: modify), test, repeat.
The reason people don't see programming as part of required general knowledge is that they think it is an awfully complex skill. What I am talking about is iteration, variables and structure. The "user" has to wait for someone to design a special user interface for the task. Someone with basic programming skills can just "script" his way through it. You have almost written the program when you have understood the problem. From that point on, formalization is all that is left to do. Maybe people shouldn't learn C++ or Java or whatever classic programming language you prefer, but graphical programming is still programming.
You don't have to be an expert at programming, but having an idea about how a computer does its job certainly helps using it. When you're really good at using a computer, you've necessarily understood the basic principles of programming. Future computer users will probably use them almost everywhere and any time. There will be no "just need to know Word" users, and even those better know about scripting to get simple repetitive jobs done quick. The difference between a user and a programmer is that a user memorizes all the stuff he uses, while a programmer understands it and generalizes. With ever growing computer use, tell me which way is more efficient...
As soon as the gateway machine is hacked, your local network is wide open.
While I agree that setting up the system with secure default should be the number one priority for a linux distribution, many of the security flaws described in that article are the result of a multi-user, multi-machine philosophy behind linux. The print system, X and email are good examples of this. Sure, your average Joe doesn't need network printing and is probably not at all angry about having to poll for mail. Remote display is probably not what he needs, either. But some people do. And those people have a background of running *nix operating systems while average Joe has a history of running MS operating systems or TV-sets. Asking for everything to be stripped down to the bare minimum required for single user operation is asking for Linux to become a better Windows. That is obviously what people want but I doubt that Linux is a good starting point for such an undertaking, despite its popularity and support in the developer world. Multi-user aspects are scattered all over linux. Just like the author of the rootprompt article doesn't like the fact that software has been changed and added to without it ever being rewritten from scratch, I don't like the idea of taking an operating system which has been built with multi-user operation in mind and turning it into a desktop single user system without rewriting (most of) it from scratch.
There are more reasons for system security than just prevent your private data from being stolen. One of the more unpleasant effects of operating an "opened" system is that your system is likely going to be the source of some bigger attack. Ping floods come to mind. Shell hops for cracks could put you in the position to explain why *you* hacked a system. Compromised systems allow for spamming and warez trading. You really should not suggest to run insecure systems on the internet just because you don't care about the data that is on them.
No politician is going to legalise MP3-trading of copyrighted music, no matter how much lobbying you/we do. He would have to essentially give up copyright for that and it's obvious that in a time also known as the dawning age of information society there is no way to screw copyright.
Fair use is a concept which was devised in times when copying music wasn't possible without loss of quality. A third generation copy just didn't sound like it was worth the work. Instead you bought the record/tape. So maybe a record got copied a few times but that was ok, because it didn't get copied a zillion times and after all, music is a cultural thing and, what the heck, we can't control it anyway.
Then came cd-burners and things started to get ugly. With these a copy of a copy was as good as the original. But still distribution was limited somehow by the necessity to move physical media around and lending your cd to total strangers doesn't sound like too good an idea.
Then came Napster. A copy of a copy is still as good as the original but now distribution is limited only by network bandwith, which is increasing every day. There are still reasons for a fair use concept: Music is still a cultural thing and there is still no way to control individual copying. But copying will get out of hand with ever growing network availability and bandwith, so it can't be allowed from a copyright owner's perspective. Fair use as a selfregulated loophole has lost its regulating factors which were loss of quality and need for physical and thus limited distribution.
What is a politician to do in a situation like this? Programmers and technicians tell you that copying can't be stopped technologically. RIAA et al tell you that there are millions of people earning their income in the music industry who are in danger of losing their jobs because of all these freeloaders. The anser is: delegate. Let others handle the problem. For now we make sure the industry is staying healthy and the people don't lose their jobs. In order to do that, the fair use loophole obviously has to be closed. This is were we got the DMCA from. Next the industry makes sure that the technology which enables mass copying for the average consumer goes away. Napster, bye bye. They are legally and morally in the position to shut down Napster. Napster is a company which hopes to make money by providing a system which even in good-will terms is a means for mass copyright infringement.
Can you do something about that through lobbying? I doubt it. There are few reasons why copying music should be allowed and most of them revolve about the music industry being a big bad monster and artists not getting their fair amount of money anyway. That is, pardon my french, bullshit. The music industry is the direct result of a free market situation and if artists don't get paid enough, well, that's their problem.
But there are still those damn programmers who insist that copying can't be stopped technologically. What can we do about them? Nothing, they are right. With fast networks available to everyone, the copying will continue. Programs are just waiting for Napster to die so they can take its place. With laws becoming stricter, technology will adapt to provide what people want anyway. Geeks are not into lobbying because they know that technology wins in the long run. The time of the music industry as we know it is fading. Copyright laws are prolonging its life but eventually it will die (or transform into something different, as some people might put it).
There is still a long road to walk before you can legally copy all the music you want. You'll see the town of restricted internet access on the way. The city of forbidden encryption can be seen on the horizon, but we still don't know if we have to go through it. Privacy invaders have their huts ligned up near the road all the way. But we will get past these obstacles with our without lobbying, sooner or later. Right now, lobbying will only make people laugh at us for demanding the right to pirate. Give people fascinating technology and they'll walk with you.
Since the webserver must verify the CC-numbers, it has to have a connection to a system where these are stored. While it is easier to secure a simple API which implements only verification, this way of separating the database from the webserver is not automatically secure. You could still hack the webserver and move on from there to hack the verification API. That is theoretically possible even if there is no direct return channel (data can only be sent to the database-server). See ->IP-Spoofing for an example of what you can do without getting any replies just by knowing exactly how the other system will behave.
> However, intelligent life in a galaxy a gigaparsec from us is not terribly interesting; if that's our closest neighbor, then we might as well be alone. That is not true. If we find any life no matter how far it is away from us, that will change our view of the world and possibly ruin our respect for earth as something very special. I hope we don't get to know about extraterrestrial life before we at least have the means to put colonies on other planets or into space.
And adding to that, this hallucination isn't exactly mindblowing: If I am stuck with a single terabyte of storage in 2010 that will be a true showstopper. Even simple extrapolation gets us 100 TB ten years from now. And there are more insufficiencies: Why is it that I have to plug my computer into the wall at home to make my house come to life? If there's anything obvious about the future then it's networks everywhere connecting computers everywhere. RAM doesn't match harddisk capacity. 256 GB of holographic RAM and only 1 TB of harddisk space?
We are the borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. Sound familiar?
Take the mouse away and you destroy the next big market that is First-Person-Shooters-on-Laptops. Same goes for keyboards, of course. I can't imagine running around and shooting by drawing lines on a touch screen or digitizer. Give me direct neural access and we can talk about trashing mice and keyboards, but no sooner.
The day will come on which people will start ignoring law completely and then there will be too much truth in this joke to laugh about it: What are thousand lawyers on the bottom of the sea? A good start...
Some people don't even notice when they shoot themselves in the foot. Rethink your logic here, please.
- Your system does a sanity check on the entered key and kicks you out of the game if that check fails.
- Your system sends the key directly to the key server, which then verifies, that the key is valid and stores the result of the check with your IP
- Your system then connects to the game server and does not talk about keys at all to that server.
- The game server asks the key server if your IP may participate in a game. Depending on the answer, you're kicked out or allowed to play.
- Every now and then, your system refreshes its OK-status with the key server. It never sends the key to any other system than the key server.
Should you pull the trick you described, this is what happens:First: I have bought Q3A. Second: I am really annoyed by the CD check. I usually play online, so when someone wanted me to give him a little demonstration of how the bots act, I had to dig for the CD. That would not have been too much of a nuisance, IF I didn't know that the check can be removed quite easily from the warezed version.
The online key check appears to be an effective way of protecting the game. But I think there should be a solution that does not require storing the key on your harddrive. That makes your system more interesting for intruders and the key can easily be given out by accident (that happened a lot, when the key was still in the config). I would prefer a smartcard approach. The smartcard would store and verify the key and also have some storage space for configuration data. That way you could take your "personality" with you, when you leave your system unattended at a LAN party or when you switch systems just to prove that you are not winning because of P3/1000+Geforce2.
Someone find a way to put smartcard readers next to each and every computer, please...
Is having a really simple smartcard reader delivered for free with a game too far out?
Don't take photos, just send in 50 people in and have each one remember a small part of the information. No notes, no photos, no trouble. If you didn't get all the information, send them in again. The supermarket would have to require customers to "log on" and "block" those who never buy stuff (Would that be legal?). Otherwise there is no stopping them.
They brought the system up for having its system resources used by other people. There really is no difference between my "I load ten pages in advance" proxy and a search engine. Both are bots gathering information which is presented to the public.
About the robots.txt: That is a mere recommendation. If I don't care about it, you can't force me to abide by it. Remember that just because you follow the standard, I don't have to. There is no law requiring anybody to follow standards or shut up.
If EBay needs to protect itself from search engines, then they should just deploy some anti-robot measures. How about delivering no more than one page every three seconds to a client?
"Port the DivX codecs to the Mac and meet a spice girl of your choice... err ... meet Britney Spears!" (need to match the subject line...)
I want
- 10 times the loot
- written permission from all patent and copyright owners
- all the money and support needed to cover my ass in case someone lied to me about required permissions
- something to port other than binary code
If you can't provide all that, think of possible substitutes and explain them here.It's technically possible to create a file-sharing system which does not expose a file's sender to the receiving party or intermediary systems. (For the technically inclined: "Mixes" are used today to provide this functionality for email. Combine with gnutella, enhance, done.)
Such a file-sharing system would definitely mark the end of third party control over sharing activity. It is thus arguable that - despite the current lawsuits - the copying will continue. In your opinion, is it a good idea to criminalize an increasing number of people although it is impossible to enforce the copyright law? Shouldn't you instead give people an incentive to give their money to you other than "be good, go buy it"?
Some say "copyright is dead" and seeing the faster networks and better programs on the horizon, I feel they have a point. "Copyright is unenforcable as far as personal use goes" would be my way of phrasing it. I do understand that copying copyrighted MP3s means breaking the law and I agree that artists have to have an income, too, but aren't you trying to resist the inevitable?
D.I.R.C. provides a relay network that made of just end-user nodes: It doesn't need any central authority or installation to enable communication within the network. Gateways (installation and operation) to other networks have to be paid for if you use them, but other than that, a personal relay point can be bought and operated without running costs except for electricity. AFAIK there have been talks to integrate the technology into cars to create ad-hoc networks through which traffic information can be propagated.