"They can't have fictional and real robots in the same category."
They aren't in the same category. If you read the actual inductees page, you'll see that they've grouped the two real-world robots together, and they've grouped the two fictional robots together.
"The Star Wars universe is too strongly focused on a few characters and stories, and people playing a Star Wars game often want to be those characters. Far more people want to play Han Solo than play the guy Han Solo buys his guns or beer or hairstyling from."
You make a good point. In the Star Wars universe, the three "coolest" professions have traditionally been Smuggler, Jedi, and Bounty Hunter -- as represented by Han Solo, Luke Skywalker (or Darth Vader for the evil crowd), and Boba Fett respectively. Of these professions in SWG, one seems silly without space ships (which aren't implemented yet), one is artificially rare because the movies say only 4 were around at the time, and one is possible but requires that you dedicate virtually all of your skills to the task and ignore a lot of the extra flavor.
The Matrix, on the other hand, seems like it'll be more conducive to a MMORPG. The important thing is that the world is set up so that anyone who takes the red pill has the potential to be a badass. In essence, it'd be like SWG if the Jedi class were unrestricted. Sure, players wouldn't be able to become comparable to Neo, but they would be able to match the skills of Trinity and Morpheus.
"The answer you gave simply explains when the game will be released, not where in time the game will be set."
Reread the quote -- they say that the timeline takes place after the third movie. So they're saying that the in-game story is after Revolutions. I think you're getting confused because they also tacked the real world release date of Revolutions on to the end of the sentence. But they're still talking about when the game takes place, rather than when it'll be available.
"Probably so they can suck up to M$ and so they can claim they're using a more secure format if anyone yells at them."
I think they're also looking for the equivalent of a fence. In the real world, a fence isn't going to stop anyone from getting on to your property. Almost anyone who's determined can climb it in 10 seconds or so. But it does serve to make it clear that the person has taken an active role in breaching the token security.
"Now, instead of 50 rips from clueless users, there'll be 5 rips from smart ones."
Except that the problem they're trying to avoid is having the authorized version treated as a single, popular, high-quality rip.
"Besides, Ogg streams have serial numbers. So by changing the serial number for each download (rudimentary watermarking), they'd also be able to reduce P2P efficiency."
That's a good point. The only downside is that it isn't that hard to make P2P software ignore meta-data when determining which files are identical. Kazaa is already at least somewhat meta-data aware, so it wouldn't be that much more work.
"a) the same type and number (probably) of people who hassle with ripping a CD will hassle with ripping wmas (ripping a wma is easier, actually: it doesn't involve even moving your hands away from the keyboard to move around a polycarbonate disc)"
As long as the user has to go from WMA->raw audio->mp3/ogg, they're going to wind up with different encodings depending on what software they use. This at least somewhat mitigates the situation where all the people who've bought the music from the authorized source have identical copies, which goes back to the whole P2P efficiency argument.
"It can't be because of a fear of pirating -- this isn't going to help keep new (downloadable) music from Kazaa and the like because there are still too many simple ways to circumvent it, starting with looping your analog output back into your line input"
Yes, but it's still an extra hassle. If a user has to go through all that trouble just to share their music on Kazaa, they're less likely to bother. At the very least, the music isn't going to get auto-shared when the user first installs Kazaa and gives it permission to scan their system for mp3s.
Also, P2P works the best when lots of people have identical copies of a given file. By forcing people to reencode the song to make it shareable, they're reducing the efficiency of getting the song via Kazaa.
"On a serious note, suppose somebody actually cracks their server, and they hold the information secret, will they be an accesory to crime ? Surely enough , just because nobody compained about a murder it does not become a non-crime."
I don't think you understand computer crime. The person who owns the computers is providing authorization for other people to gain access to them. Just because the computer isn't letting them in without being tricked does not in any way change the fact that they still have permission from the person who gets to determine who is and isn't allowed to use these machines. A better analogy than murder would be to trespassing -- it's not trespassing if the property owner tells you that you're allowed to climb his backyard fence.
"I really can't think of anyone other than the RIAA/MPAA who would find use in baiting mp3 traders with a new "safe" trading system, only to have it begin nuking their computers..."
How many destructive viruses, worms, and trojans have been written prior to the RIAA and MPAA getting upset at online copyright infringement? There're lots of people who'll be destructive just for the sake of being destructive, and a "safe" file trading system is a pretty obvious way for someone who wants to be destructive to sucker lots of people into running their code.
"True, and doesn't the fact that this has already occured throw a big question mark against all of the other cases?"
Yes. However, at the same time, I'm reluctant for the ISP's (potential) incompetence to serve to absolve copyright infringers in a despute like this. I'm honestly not sure what should be done.
On the RIAA's part, I suppose they could attempt to reduce the chance of mistakes by gathering as much information on each infringer as possible. For example, in the case of someone who isn't using KaZaA lite (and thus has a regular KaZaA username), they could collect several different IP/time pairs for that user over a span of days or weeks. Then they could verify that the ISP lists the same customer each time. They could also start using a time-range instead of a single time-stamp for the IP/time pair itself in order to minimize problems from poorly synchronized clocks. Still, that seems a less than ideal way of doing things.
At the other end of the spectrum, you could authorize the subpoenaing of data on the defendent's computer itself. Unfortunately, that would be overly invasive ("Hey look at all the scat porn we found"), disruptive (give us your computer, even though you aren't convicted of anything yet), and subject to use as an extortion tool ("If you accept our settlement, you won't have to have us digging through your computer.").
Overall, it's a shitty situation all around, and having it get "solved" in this ad hoc manner of RIAA-fueled case law isn't the best way of going about things.
"This case alone is the ultimate mistake the RIAA could have made."
The mistake wasn't necessarily on the RIAA's part. It's equally possible that the ISP provided the wrong customer's information after the RIAA submitted the IP address and connection time to them. Either one of them could have screwed up and transposed some digits in the IP. Either one of them could have failed to use logs synchronized to a standard clock. Without more details, it's impossible to say which one is at fault.
"It would be a guess and, more importantly, the hapless user doesn't know what would happen if the wrong guess was made. Maybe the PC would explode -- they have no idea. So from the user's point of view checking first is exactly the right thing to do."
Yeah, it's generally a good idea to be safe rather than sorry. However, I think that people have to be willing to take a few minor risks if they're interested in ever learning to figure things out on their own. Making an educated guess as to how things work and then carefully confirming it is the only way to truly get comfortable with computers. Books and classes and asking other people for advice are all useful supplements, but nothing beats internal problem solving abilities.
So while I agree with you that we can't quite fault the user for double-checking (especially since putting the wrong media in the wrong slot has been known to cause serious problems), it's still worth noting that cautious experimentation in this case was biased in favor of the user discovering the correct solution.
Re:Don't confuse stupid with unfamiliar
on
Where is the Any Key?
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· Score: 0, Redundant
"Why shouldn't the bigger one be able to hold either?"
I'd agree with that line of reasoning if the machine didn't have a 3.5" drive. However, on a machine with both drives (as in the example), it should be obvious that one of the two slots is a just about perfect fit, while the other slot is an oversized fit. Thus, you could make a fairly reasonable guess as to which one it should go in.
"As a hobbyist musician, I also have need of cheap (as in free) bandwidth for my works, so if I can do that by being a good node, then hell yeah, bring on the true net revolution."
You might want to consider using Bit Torrent. On the plus side, it's open-source and written in Python, so you should have no problem running it on a Unix-based system.
On the minus side, it's P2P but it's not file sharing -- there's no index of all Bit Torrents where someone can type in your name and have it pop up the torrents you're serving. One way around this is by uploading your torrent to a public, searchable tracker. You can also try running your own tracker and then referencing the torrent on your web site. People would find your music the same way they would if it were hosted on your webserver regularly, but you get the bandwidth advantages of P2P when they go to download it.
"Without the DMCA, the relationship between the ISP and the individual citizen is confidential and without the confidential records from the ISP, there is nothing but heresay evidence from questionable enforcement agencies who would have to defend themselves from the accusation that they simply made up the data."
Even without the DMCA, it should be possible for the ISP records to be subpoenaed if the copyright holder can convince a judge that there's sufficient evidence to support it. The DMCA just provides the quick and easy, judge-free process that was the point of contention in the recent Verizon case.
"There were those short-range missiles which were designed to be within the permitted specs, but were capable of flying beyond their nominal range"
If I'm not mistaken, there were a few other minor missile violations beyond the range. I believe it was something along the lines that the diameter of some of the missiles was significantly over one of the limits set by the UN. Of course that's still not the smoking gun that nukes would be, and I'm not saying it justified war, but it's at least something of a more delibrate violation than missiles that would occasional exceed the range-limit set by the UN.
"As far as i know, i read in an earlier RIAA story that no AOL users have been handed subopenas. Are they trying to scare people to switching to an "isp" in which they have an interest."
I think it's probably a bit simpler than that -- the people most likely to be sharing lots of stuff are going to be the ones with the fastest internet connections, and AOL dialup is a far cry from DSL, Cable, and the dedicated connections available at college.
Yeah, there's an "AOL for broadband" option, but I believe you use a regular, non-AOL broadband connection and then just access AOL's own content via the service. So a KaZaA user with that setup would still show up as being from their broadband provider.
"But whoever wrote this virus will no doubt learn from this, which was likely the whole point of the exercise, and do something even sneakier, or just bigger (more than 20 hosts), next time."
According to the Symantec write-up, the worm had at least one more trick up its sleeve with regard to the 20 hosts. It seems that if an infected machine receives a properly signed packet on UDP ports 995-999, it'll update the list of 20 hosts.
Of course the trick is finding a way to get that update out to all the infected machines. But really, all the virus writer has to do is update one machine (say by spamming a few IP ranges with likely victims *cough*homeDSLusers*cough*). The updated IP list will point to hosts that refer the infected machine to download an executable that cause the infected machine to start spamming out the master list update to random IP addresses. After that, the update should spread similar to a typical non-email network worm.
Oops. You're right -- that's what I get for reading Slashdot first thing in the morning. Sorry about that.
Your system would certainly solve a number of common gotchas related to IP, such as trying to get an "at cost" replacement copy when your current legitimate copy is damaged. It would also help services like BeamIt that mp3.com tried to offer, where you ran a program that would verify you had a physical CD and, after that, it would let you stream music from that CD wherever you went.
However, I think that the way you propose things has too many problems. First, it sounds like you're killing off the library (or at least the non-public domain parts), as your licenses to a given work are non-transferrable. I think the current system, where the physical copy serves as the defacto license and it can be passed around but can't exist in two places at once, is a pretty nice compromise between the rights of the copyright holder and the rights of the public.
Second, I think there are too many practical concerns relating to managing the licensing rights. I know I'd love it if the sum of all the IP I purchased were virtually attached to my identity and always at hand, but I'm not willing to make the sacrifices necessary for a DRM implementation that would securely do this.
There's also an issue of IP effort sometimes being related to the physical format rather than the more intangible creative work. For example, getting a movie from film form into DVD form and VHS form isn't as automated as you'd expect. There's enough room for error that screwups have happened (such as with the Back to the Future DVDs). For higher quality releases, you'll have someone like the movie's cinematographer supervising the transfer.
"But, copyright is still a control of making a copy, which is getting to be almost farcical in a world where most creative output can be easily and near-freely copied."
I think you're missing the point of copyright. Copyright allows the creator of a work to be able to potentially sell it despite the huge disparity in cost/effort between producing a work (writing a book, recording an album, and so on) and reproducing the work (printing out thousands of copies on a press, stamping out CDs in near AOL-like quantities, and so on). The fact that reproduction has gotten cheaper doesn't change things beyond making it easier for regular consumers to engage in levels of copyright infringement that were previously limited to just the for-profit copyright infringement enterprises.
If, on the other hand, it was creative output that had become easy and free to produce, I think you'd have a point. If your average joe could produce a new, unique, quality novel in the same amount of time it took to produce a plain old widget in a factory, then copyright would be short-lived. But barring a revolution in AI, the difference in effort between production and reproduction is going to stay the way it is.
"While Napster was online, CD sales were up. This is beyond dispute."
And back when using KaZaA was still considered safe, CD sales were down. Clearly, the problem is that CD sales require file sharing services to have a cute logo.
Seriously though, correlation is not equal to causation. At the same time that Napster was affecting CD sales (both positively through wider exposure and negatively through providing the customer with what they would have bought -- the actual net effect is anyone's guess), you also had a really strong economy (or at least the illusion of one, since we were on the dot-com bubble). A strong economy means extra spending money, and extra spending money means more purchases of luxury goods, and more purchases of luxury goods means more CD sales.
So yes, you're correct in that the fact you provide is beyond dispute. What is up for dispute, however, is the significance of that fact and whether or not the relation is as simple as you make it out to be.
The phrase "reverse discrimination" is the same sort of language construct as "reverse psychology". In both cases, "reverse" does not mean the opposite of the second word in the phrase. Instead, it's the reverse of what's expected -- in the discrimination case, discrimination in favor of a minority is certainly opposite the traditional view, and in the psychology case, the person employing the psychology is expressing interest opposite of what they expect/desire the subject to do.
"Okay you may argue R&D needs to be recouped, but as simulations become more accurate R&D costs will plummet, rendering such arguments moot."
I think you just attempted to hand-wave away the entire field of science. Simulations or no, it still takes considerable time, money, and effort to create new products whether they're new medicines, more efficient automobile engines, or new fabrics. Computers don't magically obviate the need for degreed chemists, engineers, or architects.
"Given that Firefly is basically Blake's 7 with a budget but without the plot (rag tag bunch of renegades on a mission to, uh, uh...),"
...figure out just what the hell a secret government organization did to River and why they wanted her back?
Beyond that, yeah they were just your typical space rogues doing anything for a buck. However, I think there was a good balance between episodic stories and long-running story arcs. The problem is that the longer plots didn't get a chance to play out before the series got cancelled.
Slashdot Mirror
They aren't in the same category. If you read the actual inductees page, you'll see that they've grouped the two real-world robots together, and they've grouped the two fictional robots together.
You make a good point. In the Star Wars universe, the three "coolest" professions have traditionally been Smuggler, Jedi, and Bounty Hunter -- as represented by Han Solo, Luke Skywalker (or Darth Vader for the evil crowd), and Boba Fett respectively. Of these professions in SWG, one seems silly without space ships (which aren't implemented yet), one is artificially rare because the movies say only 4 were around at the time, and one is possible but requires that you dedicate virtually all of your skills to the task and ignore a lot of the extra flavor.
The Matrix, on the other hand, seems like it'll be more conducive to a MMORPG. The important thing is that the world is set up so that anyone who takes the red pill has the potential to be a badass. In essence, it'd be like SWG if the Jedi class were unrestricted. Sure, players wouldn't be able to become comparable to Neo, but they would be able to match the skills of Trinity and Morpheus.
Reread the quote -- they say that the timeline takes place after the third movie. So they're saying that the in-game story is after Revolutions. I think you're getting confused because they also tacked the real world release date of Revolutions on to the end of the sentence. But they're still talking about when the game takes place, rather than when it'll be available.
I think they're also looking for the equivalent of a fence. In the real world, a fence isn't going to stop anyone from getting on to your property. Almost anyone who's determined can climb it in 10 seconds or so. But it does serve to make it clear that the person has taken an active role in breaching the token security.
Except that the problem they're trying to avoid is having the authorized version treated as a single, popular, high-quality rip.
"Besides, Ogg streams have serial numbers. So by changing the serial number for each download (rudimentary watermarking), they'd also be able to reduce P2P efficiency."
That's a good point. The only downside is that it isn't that hard to make P2P software ignore meta-data when determining which files are identical. Kazaa is already at least somewhat meta-data aware, so it wouldn't be that much more work.
As long as the user has to go from WMA->raw audio->mp3/ogg, they're going to wind up with different encodings depending on what software they use. This at least somewhat mitigates the situation where all the people who've bought the music from the authorized source have identical copies, which goes back to the whole P2P efficiency argument.
Yes, but it's still an extra hassle. If a user has to go through all that trouble just to share their music on Kazaa, they're less likely to bother. At the very least, the music isn't going to get auto-shared when the user first installs Kazaa and gives it permission to scan their system for mp3s.
Also, P2P works the best when lots of people have identical copies of a given file. By forcing people to reencode the song to make it shareable, they're reducing the efficiency of getting the song via Kazaa.
I don't think you understand computer crime. The person who owns the computers is providing authorization for other people to gain access to them. Just because the computer isn't letting them in without being tricked does not in any way change the fact that they still have permission from the person who gets to determine who is and isn't allowed to use these machines. A better analogy than murder would be to trespassing -- it's not trespassing if the property owner tells you that you're allowed to climb his backyard fence.
How many destructive viruses, worms, and trojans have been written prior to the RIAA and MPAA getting upset at online copyright infringement? There're lots of people who'll be destructive just for the sake of being destructive, and a "safe" file trading system is a pretty obvious way for someone who wants to be destructive to sucker lots of people into running their code.
Yes. However, at the same time, I'm reluctant for the ISP's (potential) incompetence to serve to absolve copyright infringers in a despute like this. I'm honestly not sure what should be done.
On the RIAA's part, I suppose they could attempt to reduce the chance of mistakes by gathering as much information on each infringer as possible. For example, in the case of someone who isn't using KaZaA lite (and thus has a regular KaZaA username), they could collect several different IP/time pairs for that user over a span of days or weeks. Then they could verify that the ISP lists the same customer each time. They could also start using a time-range instead of a single time-stamp for the IP/time pair itself in order to minimize problems from poorly synchronized clocks. Still, that seems a less than ideal way of doing things.
At the other end of the spectrum, you could authorize the subpoenaing of data on the defendent's computer itself. Unfortunately, that would be overly invasive ("Hey look at all the scat porn we found"), disruptive (give us your computer, even though you aren't convicted of anything yet), and subject to use as an extortion tool ("If you accept our settlement, you won't have to have us digging through your computer.").
Overall, it's a shitty situation all around, and having it get "solved" in this ad hoc manner of RIAA-fueled case law isn't the best way of going about things.
The mistake wasn't necessarily on the RIAA's part. It's equally possible that the ISP provided the wrong customer's information after the RIAA submitted the IP address and connection time to them. Either one of them could have screwed up and transposed some digits in the IP. Either one of them could have failed to use logs synchronized to a standard clock. Without more details, it's impossible to say which one is at fault.
Yeah, it's generally a good idea to be safe rather than sorry. However, I think that people have to be willing to take a few minor risks if they're interested in ever learning to figure things out on their own. Making an educated guess as to how things work and then carefully confirming it is the only way to truly get comfortable with computers. Books and classes and asking other people for advice are all useful supplements, but nothing beats internal problem solving abilities.
So while I agree with you that we can't quite fault the user for double-checking (especially since putting the wrong media in the wrong slot has been known to cause serious problems), it's still worth noting that cautious experimentation in this case was biased in favor of the user discovering the correct solution.
I'd agree with that line of reasoning if the machine didn't have a 3.5" drive. However, on a machine with both drives (as in the example), it should be obvious that one of the two slots is a just about perfect fit, while the other slot is an oversized fit. Thus, you could make a fairly reasonable guess as to which one it should go in.
You might want to consider using Bit Torrent. On the plus side, it's open-source and written in Python, so you should have no problem running it on a Unix-based system.
On the minus side, it's P2P but it's not file sharing -- there's no index of all Bit Torrents where someone can type in your name and have it pop up the torrents you're serving. One way around this is by uploading your torrent to a public, searchable tracker. You can also try running your own tracker and then referencing the torrent on your web site. People would find your music the same way they would if it were hosted on your webserver regularly, but you get the bandwidth advantages of P2P when they go to download it.
Even without the DMCA, it should be possible for the ISP records to be subpoenaed if the copyright holder can convince a judge that there's sufficient evidence to support it. The DMCA just provides the quick and easy, judge-free process that was the point of contention in the recent Verizon case.
You can see Tivo's GPL compliance efforts for yourself: http://www.tivo.com/linux/index.html
If I'm not mistaken, there were a few other minor missile violations beyond the range. I believe it was something along the lines that the diameter of some of the missiles was significantly over one of the limits set by the UN. Of course that's still not the smoking gun that nukes would be, and I'm not saying it justified war, but it's at least something of a more delibrate violation than missiles that would occasional exceed the range-limit set by the UN.
I think it's probably a bit simpler than that -- the people most likely to be sharing lots of stuff are going to be the ones with the fastest internet connections, and AOL dialup is a far cry from DSL, Cable, and the dedicated connections available at college.
Yeah, there's an "AOL for broadband" option, but I believe you use a regular, non-AOL broadband connection and then just access AOL's own content via the service. So a KaZaA user with that setup would still show up as being from their broadband provider.
According to the Symantec write-up, the worm had at least one more trick up its sleeve with regard to the 20 hosts. It seems that if an infected machine receives a properly signed packet on UDP ports 995-999, it'll update the list of 20 hosts.
Of course the trick is finding a way to get that update out to all the infected machines. But really, all the virus writer has to do is update one machine (say by spamming a few IP ranges with likely victims *cough*homeDSLusers*cough*). The updated IP list will point to hosts that refer the infected machine to download an executable that cause the infected machine to start spamming out the master list update to random IP addresses. After that, the update should spread similar to a typical non-email network worm.
Oops. You're right -- that's what I get for reading Slashdot first thing in the morning. Sorry about that.
Your system would certainly solve a number of common gotchas related to IP, such as trying to get an "at cost" replacement copy when your current legitimate copy is damaged. It would also help services like BeamIt that mp3.com tried to offer, where you ran a program that would verify you had a physical CD and, after that, it would let you stream music from that CD wherever you went.
However, I think that the way you propose things has too many problems. First, it sounds like you're killing off the library (or at least the non-public domain parts), as your licenses to a given work are non-transferrable. I think the current system, where the physical copy serves as the defacto license and it can be passed around but can't exist in two places at once, is a pretty nice compromise between the rights of the copyright holder and the rights of the public.
Second, I think there are too many practical concerns relating to managing the licensing rights. I know I'd love it if the sum of all the IP I purchased were virtually attached to my identity and always at hand, but I'm not willing to make the sacrifices necessary for a DRM implementation that would securely do this.
There's also an issue of IP effort sometimes being related to the physical format rather than the more intangible creative work. For example, getting a movie from film form into DVD form and VHS form isn't as automated as you'd expect. There's enough room for error that screwups have happened (such as with the Back to the Future DVDs). For higher quality releases, you'll have someone like the movie's cinematographer supervising the transfer.
I think you're missing the point of copyright. Copyright allows the creator of a work to be able to potentially sell it despite the huge disparity in cost/effort between producing a work (writing a book, recording an album, and so on) and reproducing the work (printing out thousands of copies on a press, stamping out CDs in near AOL-like quantities, and so on). The fact that reproduction has gotten cheaper doesn't change things beyond making it easier for regular consumers to engage in levels of copyright infringement that were previously limited to just the for-profit copyright infringement enterprises.
If, on the other hand, it was creative output that had become easy and free to produce, I think you'd have a point. If your average joe could produce a new, unique, quality novel in the same amount of time it took to produce a plain old widget in a factory, then copyright would be short-lived. But barring a revolution in AI, the difference in effort between production and reproduction is going to stay the way it is.
And back when using KaZaA was still considered safe, CD sales were down. Clearly, the problem is that CD sales require file sharing services to have a cute logo.
Seriously though, correlation is not equal to causation. At the same time that Napster was affecting CD sales (both positively through wider exposure and negatively through providing the customer with what they would have bought -- the actual net effect is anyone's guess), you also had a really strong economy (or at least the illusion of one, since we were on the dot-com bubble). A strong economy means extra spending money, and extra spending money means more purchases of luxury goods, and more purchases of luxury goods means more CD sales.
So yes, you're correct in that the fact you provide is beyond dispute. What is up for dispute, however, is the significance of that fact and whether or not the relation is as simple as you make it out to be.
The phrase "reverse discrimination" is the same sort of language construct as "reverse psychology". In both cases, "reverse" does not mean the opposite of the second word in the phrase. Instead, it's the reverse of what's expected -- in the discrimination case, discrimination in favor of a minority is certainly opposite the traditional view, and in the psychology case, the person employing the psychology is expressing interest opposite of what they expect/desire the subject to do.
I think you just attempted to hand-wave away the entire field of science. Simulations or no, it still takes considerable time, money, and effort to create new products whether they're new medicines, more efficient automobile engines, or new fabrics. Computers don't magically obviate the need for degreed chemists, engineers, or architects.
Beyond that, yeah they were just your typical space rogues doing anything for a buck. However, I think there was a good balance between episodic stories and long-running story arcs. The problem is that the longer plots didn't get a chance to play out before the series got cancelled.