>I'd sure like to see their algorithm for determining which music files are illegal.
The technology already exists to do this. If you need proof, try this: Download the program MoodLogic and rename a bunch of your MP3 files bogus names like sfddsk.mp3 and change the ID3 tags info to blank. Install and run Moodlogic. "Add Music" in the directory you put the bogus named MP3s in and if they are not completely obscure groups and songs then Moodlogic will most likely identify them. Access to a database like this could allow a RIAA program to identify whether an MP3 belonged to a "copyrighted and therefore not legally shareable" group of songs or not. The identification process is rather quick in the case of MoodLogic. Of course, the database probably isn't very big at the moment but I'd say if the RIAA was on top of it, they'd have such a method to determine whether a shared MP3 is copyrighted or not. Whether the sharer bought the CD or not would be moot because the sharer is still sharing the MP3s to the world.
I agree especially with the last part. Most stores put some pretty pictures of flowers or have some movie playing on the screen. All of the monitors can display that well so it's hardly much of a test. The last time I went monitor shopping, the guy in the department that sold monitors tried to push the biggest, most expensive monitor on me. All the monitors were hooked up to the same source so I asked him to turn off the DVD player and set it up so the monitors all displayed the same Windows desktop. I then opened a Word document and selected the smallest possible font size - I believe it was 8 - and typed out a bit of text. Amazing how so many of the high priced monitors were not displaying the text as sharp as a cheaper priced Futura that I ended up buying. I'm not saying anyone should get a Futura - it just displayed the text better than all the other types of monitors they happened to have there. Anyhow, I spend much more time reading text than playing the latest FPS or watching DVDs on my computer so this was a very important criteria in a monitor for me. As always, YMMV.
I was at a certain computer hardware company yesterday and was able to observe their security at work while I waited in the lobby for the person I was there to see. They had one entrance with an airport-type gate everyone had to walk through. No one could leave without walking through it and being checked with a hand-held device if they set the gate beeping. Also, any employee taking out a laptop or any other type of computer equipment had to sign it out. Yesterday I thought it was rather extreme but after reading this Slashdot entry today I understand now. Of course, not every company can afford this type of setup, but if there is sensitive information to be protected then the company ought to invest just a little more in security, n'est ce pas? Even if it IS a minimum wage guard at the door making sure nobody is walking out with
the company's computer equipment without being authorized to do so.
1) First of all, is this hardware something you couldn't buy in Russia? It may be better to just wire your friend money (Western Union is one good way.... another is getting a one time bank account and just send them an ATM card to fish out the money) to get it rather than go through the hassle of sending heavy packages to Russia. If the hardware requires any sort of electrical power (as in external hardware) they would have to get an electrical adaptor to use it anyway so they're better off getting money to buy it themselves.
2) Did you try FedEx? I've used it on occasion and
everything made it through intact. Of course, I wasn't shipping anything of high value, but everything made it through just fine. The box was opened by customs (as everything is), but since the person I was sending it to was in St. Pete, they just had to go to a local FedEx office and it was there waiting for them. If you send it through regular mail there is no guarantee there would be anything IN the box once they got it - I'd say FedEx is more trustworthy than their local postmen
and with FedEx it never enters the wretched local post office system. Only thing is I'm not sure if they have a location in Khabarovsk. But does UPS actually have a LOCAL office there????
3) I don't know if there is any large Russian population in Louisville, but if there is, you might be able to network a deal with some people if you feel you can trust them to act as couriers in an 'underground railway' sort of delivery method. This is something I've used on occasion as well if I knew someone actually going to Russia. Khabarovsk is probably not the most likely destination but you never know...
4) Perhaps you can find some way to get it through
to Khabarovsk from someplace in the Far East like Japan - they have much more direct traffic to Khabarovsk than most European countries and the US and there might even be a service that does that.
Whatever you do, don't send it through USPS. Anything heavier than a letter gets opened - especially around the time of any type of holidays when the postal people can expect relatives from abroad to be sending gifts via mail...
I remember about ten years ago or so you could make your own compilation tapes from a pool of popular songs by popular artists. Something like a buck or so per song. It was called the Personics System and while I thought it was a cool idea I don't think it lasted very long.
I think the "Gift Suggestions" they make are the same for every person living in the same zip code. The suggestions they make seem to be based only on the geographic location of the person. I also know that I am not in their database (even though I have ordered things from Amazon before) yet friends and relatives who do not even have internet access are in it. I think it is some sort of public record that is not a one-time thing like a birth certificate since some people I know have up to three different records. Perhaps some sort of registration of property like motor vehicle or real estate? Still, that would not make for a very complete database as not everyone owns a car or a house. Has me wondering...
An interesting thing to do next time you register software or give information to a web site is to misspell your name slightly and keep a record of how it was misspelled. Make a list of variations and which site you submitted to. In a few weeks/months when you get junk mail addressed to you with a variation of your misspelled name, you will know which site is giving away your info to others. Probably a good reason to NEVER give out your real info ever again unless absolutely necessary. Bored? You can spend hours at Nedsite looking for info on yourself and long lost buddies. I imagine trying to opt out of being in all these different databases would take more effort than it's worth. Might as well get used to the idea that there will always be ways for people to find you on the net if they know how/where to search. People in certain professions don't even have an option of opting out - take a look at Lawyer Search or Doctor Search. I also wonder where these guys: Birthday Search got their data from. Information is indeed begging to be set free - including your own.
Perhaps it's time to brush off the dust on some documentation of one of hundreds of dying/dead languages of say, Brazil, and teach the very basics to your co-conspirators/drug industry business associates/fellow human time-bombs/etc to much more effectively avoid snooping eyes. By the time "they" figure out which language it is, dictator x will be dead or y's embassy will be rubble or n tons of cocaine will already be in the US. Not that I advocate such behavior but I can see why the CIA feels the need to monitor the internet for such things - they need to have an advantage over any competition.
Exactly what actions on the part of Bidder's Edge are considered "trespassing"?? Were they spidering eBay and storing all the relevant data into their OWN database x amount of times a day to be accessed by users' queries throughout the day? Or were they just using some cgi-string hack to access eBay's database and show the most current prices? If it is the latter, then I could see where they could consider that "unauthorized access" to their database. It would be a question not of whether it is okay to mine someone's site for data but HOW it is done.
here's a guy in San Francisco that has been doing more than just making movies about it. Interview with Nestor Makhno and also an article about the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project
You didn't specify which OS... but if it happens to be Win 95/98, then here is a site I thought excellent for a beginner trying to put together a simple home network.... http://network.fament.com/helmig/j_helmig/faq.htm
In your chat transcript, you mentioned: "setting up police monitors to see who's trading. some kind of monitoring or policing of the internet..." Have you considered renting the NSA's Echelon system for a weekend to do a little monitoring of global communications in order to find out how many people are even CONSIDERING trading Metallica MP3s?
Slashdot Mirror
>I'd sure like to see their algorithm for determining which music files are illegal.
The technology already exists to do this. If you need proof, try this:
Download the program MoodLogic and rename a bunch of your MP3 files bogus names like sfddsk.mp3 and change the ID3 tags info to blank. Install and run Moodlogic. "Add Music" in the directory you put the bogus named MP3s in and if they are not completely obscure groups and songs then Moodlogic will most likely identify them. Access to a database like this could allow a RIAA program to identify whether an MP3 belonged to a "copyrighted and therefore not legally shareable" group of songs or not. The identification process is rather quick in the case of MoodLogic. Of course, the database probably isn't very big at the moment but I'd say if the RIAA was on top of it, they'd have such a method to determine whether a shared MP3 is copyrighted or not. Whether the sharer bought the CD or not would be moot because the sharer is still sharing the MP3s to the world.
-
Ok... here it is:
Madonna cursing
and then there's the DANCE REMIX
--
I agree especially with the last part. Most stores put some pretty pictures of flowers or have some movie playing on the screen. All of the monitors can display that well so it's hardly much of a test. The last time I went monitor shopping, the guy in the department that sold monitors tried to push the biggest, most expensive monitor on me. All the monitors were hooked up to the same source so I asked him to turn off the DVD player and set it up so the monitors all displayed the same Windows desktop. I then opened a Word document and selected the smallest possible font size - I believe it was 8 - and typed out a bit of text. Amazing how so many of the high priced monitors were not displaying the text as sharp as a cheaper priced Futura that I ended up buying. I'm not saying anyone should get a Futura - it just displayed the text better than all the other types of monitors they happened to have there. Anyhow, I spend much more time reading text than playing the latest FPS or watching DVDs on my computer so this was a very important criteria in a monitor for me. As always, YMMV.
with a slightly higher budget: Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam
1) Epitonic good selection of well known artists and lots of information about each artist so you can read up before you decide to download.
2) ArtistDirect a small selection of electronic artists
3) Amazon has a number of MP3s to download.
4) IUMA has many lesser known acts
5) MP3.COM for the really adventurous with lots of time and patience you might find some gems mixed among the numerous less-inspired artists...
All backdoor passwords were changed to "Microsoft engineers are weenies!"
reminds me of that joke:
On a Japanese food processor:
Not to be used for the other purpose.
Soon to be a standard warning on some NuMega products...
I was at a certain computer hardware company yesterday and was able to observe their security at work while I waited in the lobby for the person I was there to see. They had one entrance with an airport-type gate everyone had to walk through. No one could leave without walking through it and being checked with a hand-held device if they set the gate beeping. Also, any employee taking out a laptop or any other type of computer equipment had to sign it out. Yesterday I thought it was rather extreme but after reading this Slashdot entry today I understand now. Of course, not every company can afford this type of setup, but if there is sensitive information to be protected then the company ought to invest just a little more in security, n'est ce pas? Even if it IS a minimum wage guard at the door making sure nobody is walking out with the company's computer equipment without being authorized to do so.
1) First of all, is this hardware something you couldn't buy in Russia? It may be better to just wire your friend money (Western Union is one good way.... another is getting a one time bank account and just send them an ATM card to fish out the money) to get it rather than go through the hassle of sending heavy packages to Russia. If the hardware requires any sort of electrical power (as in external hardware) they would have to get an electrical adaptor to use it anyway so they're better off getting money to buy it themselves.
2) Did you try FedEx? I've used it on occasion and everything made it through intact. Of course, I wasn't shipping anything of high value, but everything made it through just fine. The box was opened by customs (as everything is), but since the person I was sending it to was in St. Pete, they just had to go to a local FedEx office and it was there waiting for them. If you send it through regular mail there is no guarantee there would be anything IN the box once they got it - I'd say FedEx is more trustworthy than their local postmen and with FedEx it never enters the wretched local post office system. Only thing is I'm not sure if they have a location in Khabarovsk. But does UPS actually have a LOCAL office there????
3) I don't know if there is any large Russian population in Louisville, but if there is, you might be able to network a deal with some people if you feel you can trust them to act as couriers in an 'underground railway' sort of delivery method. This is something I've used on occasion as well if I knew someone actually going to Russia. Khabarovsk is probably not the most likely destination but you never know...
4) Perhaps you can find some way to get it through to Khabarovsk from someplace in the Far East like Japan - they have much more direct traffic to Khabarovsk than most European countries and the US and there might even be a service that does that.
Whatever you do, don't send it through USPS. Anything heavier than a letter gets opened - especially around the time of any type of holidays when the postal people can expect relatives from abroad to be sending gifts via mail...
Just my two kopecks...
I remember about ten years ago or so you could make your own compilation tapes from a pool of popular songs by popular artists. Something like a buck or so per song. It was called the Personics System and while I thought it was a cool idea I don't think it lasted very long.
I think the "Gift Suggestions" they make are the same for every person living in the same zip code. The suggestions they make seem to be based only on the geographic location of the person. I also know that I am not in their database (even though I have ordered things from Amazon before) yet friends and relatives who do not even have internet access are in it. I think it is some sort of public record that is not a one-time thing like a birth certificate since some people I know have up to three different records. Perhaps some sort of registration of property like motor vehicle or real estate? Still, that would not make for a very complete database as not everyone owns a car or a house. Has me wondering...
An interesting thing to do next time you register software or give information to a web site is to misspell your name slightly and keep a record of how it was misspelled. Make a list of variations and which site you submitted to. In a few weeks/months when you get junk mail addressed to you with a variation of your misspelled name, you will know which site is giving away your info to others. Probably a good reason to NEVER give out your real info ever again unless absolutely necessary.
Bored? You can spend hours at Nedsite looking for info on yourself and long lost buddies. I imagine trying to opt out of being in all these different databases would take more effort than it's worth. Might as well get used to the idea that there will always be ways for people to find you on the net if they know how/where to search. People in certain professions don't even have an option of opting out - take a look at Lawyer Search or Doctor Search. I also wonder where these guys: Birthday Search got their data from.
Information is indeed begging to be set free - including your own.
Perhaps it's time to brush off the dust on some documentation of one of hundreds of dying/dead languages of say, Brazil, and teach the very basics to your co-conspirators/drug industry business associates/fellow human time-bombs/etc to much more effectively avoid snooping eyes. By the time "they" figure out which language it is, dictator x will be dead or y's embassy will be rubble or n tons of cocaine will already be in the US. Not that I advocate such behavior but I can see why the CIA feels the need to monitor the internet for such things - they need to have an advantage over any competition.
Exactly what actions on the part of Bidder's Edge are considered "trespassing"?? Were they spidering eBay and storing all the relevant data into their OWN database x amount of times a day to be accessed by users' queries throughout the day? Or were they just using some cgi-string hack to access eBay's database and show the most current prices? If it is the latter, then I could see where they could consider that "unauthorized access" to their database. It would be a question not of whether it is okay to mine someone's site for data but HOW it is done.
here's a guy in San Francisco that has been doing more than just making movies about it.
Interview with Nestor Makhno and also an article about the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project
You didn't specify which OS... but if it happens to be Win 95/98, then here is a site I thought excellent for a beginner trying to put together a simple home network.... http://network.fament.com/helmig/j_helmig/faq.htm
In your chat transcript, you mentioned: "setting up police monitors to see who's trading. some kind of monitoring or policing of the internet..." Have you considered renting the NSA's Echelon system for a weekend to do a little monitoring of global communications in order to find out how many people are even CONSIDERING trading Metallica MP3s?