A couple of special interest groups. They coordinate. They have to, because no company considers Enough is Enough to be worthy of notice on their own, and NCoSE is still routinely making claims that exposure to pornography causes the brain to physically shrink.
It's not just Enough is Enough, the organisation mentioned in the article. The anti-pornography organisation National Campign on Sexual Exploitation (Formerly Morality in Media) has been trying to push Starbucks (and other companies) to block pornography for years.
I can't see any reason for starbucks not to block porn, really. It doesn't cost much, and even if it's totally ineffective, it lets them save face any time a customer complains about seeing something they would rather not have. It probably just took a few petitions before the issue was considered important enough for the board to pay any regard to it at all.
In libertarianland, you would be able to fly in modest comfort and for a very low cost. You'd just have to accept that your plane is likely to be held together with duct tape and rubber bands because there are no safety regulations. But it's ok - the airline would get you to sign a waiver saying they are not liable in the event of your death, so problem solved.
Not necessarily true. There are plenty of companies, even entire industries, that exist while losing money - generally subsidized because they are either of national importance (ie, steel in the UK) or because they have indirect benefits to the local economy (Tourism is often given substantial subsidies, because tourists also spend heavily at local businesses filling up on exotic food and holiday tat). Airlines, though, are just doing quite well on their own.
Much of Europe does have laws against it. It's more a matter of enforcement: Only in America (And apparently China) do police routinely issue citations or occasional arrests.
One criticism of jaywalking laws in the US is that the crime is so common, enforcement depends largely on if the police nearby 'don't like the look of you.' Somewhat unsurprisingly, this often seems to come down to race - a very brief glance at statistics shows a suspiciously high percentage of jaywalking tickets go to blacks.
Can an occupant of the car force open a door or window in the event the car is suffering severe electronics failure?
If yes: Any halfway-competent thief will realise what is going on and be out the car when it arrives. Car reclaimed with some damage, thief gone. Better than no car, at least. If no: Then there is the risk that an occupant may be trapped in the event the car is involved in an accident, is on fire or drives into water - all circumstances in which the electronics may fail in a manner that prevents doors unlocking. This is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
You missed a bit: The Amstrad case, in the UK. It closely parallels the Betamax case in the US. CBS Songs sued Amstrad electronics for selling a consumer dual-deck cassette recorder, arguing that such a technology would be overwhelmingly used for copyright infringement and thus making it available to the public was promoting this infringement.
They did have a plan. It consisted of three key elements: 1. All analog video outputs must be protected by a legacy copy protection system, of which the only approved ones were Macrovision and CGMS-A. 2. All analog video outputs must be SD only. HD output in analog form (ie, VGA connectors or RGB cables) was strictly prohibited. DVDs were allowed to output on VGA, as they were only standard definition anyway. HD outputs were only permitted via encrypted digital. And the third part, the key that was never implemented: 3. The watermark - the plan was to use a watermark for all analog outputs, including audio, which marked them as 'encrypted distribution only.' So you could play your legal music, plug a recorder into the headphone socket, and thus generate a decrypted copy - but if you then put that file onto your CPSA-complient media player, it would detect that watermarked audio was present in unencrypted form and refuse to play.
They did have a plan for the analog hole. It just didn't work.
It's something that made sense as part of the wider framework. Compliant media player software playing an encrypted DVD is supposed to check via driver with the graphics card to make sure that it is capable of outputting a video with macrovision protection and is actually doing so, and that it has no unencrypted digital outputs (At the time, DVI - HDMI wasn't a thing back then.)
If it had all actually worked as planned, it would have created no inconvenience at all for the consumer. There was never any real chance of that happening - too many components, too many interactions, and no standard API for querying DRM-status from the video drivers.
I've read the specification for CPRM. It is designed to allow moving for just that reason: You can move your media file from one media to another, but the process will render it unplayable on the first media. It's just that no-one actually used or supported that functionality.
There was once a grant scheme called the Content Protection System Architecture, designed by a consortium of consumer electronics and media industries around the mid-2000s. It aimed to do much as you say: An interlocking network of DRM-equipped connections and media. In order for a device to use any of these technologies, the manufacturer would have to agree to a license agreement which included a condition that their device may only output high-definition video and high-quality audio using one of the other DRM-enabled, encrypted technologies that formed the CPSA family (A concession was made for analog video in non-HD for backwards compatibility, providing it used macrovision protection). In this way, it would be impossible for any media that was released in DRMed form to ever leave the DRM system: Every appliance would be encrypted-in-encrypted-out. For added protection it was to use a watermark scheme which could mark media as being from the CPSA system - any compliant device which found watermarked media input in either analog HD or unencrypted digital form would thus know that there was no legitimate way that input could have originated, and shut down. Thus the analog hole would be firmly closed.
It was a bold vision, but with a critical flaw: With all those interlinked forms of DRM, it only needed the breaking of a single element to bring the whole system down. Long before the watermark technology was ready for release, that is exactly what happened - time after time, until their grand vision of interlocked DRM technologies was reduced to a museum of the cracked and obsolete. The CPSA framework just fell apart, and I do not know what the status if the consortium is today.
It does have a legacy though. Some of the DRM technologies still in use today, including CSS and HDCP, were originally developed as part of the CPSA framework. It was also responsible for the 'Secure' in 'Secure Digital' cards - the term refers to the inclusion of the CPRM DRM technology which all Secure Digital cards are required to implement as part of the specification, though I have never heard of any device actually making use of that functionality. An obscure feature, but a mandatory part of the specification - and a revenue source for 4C Entity, the company which holds essential patents and secret keys needed to implement CPRM.
Behind some of these proposals there is an assumption: That any large and popular file on the internet is probably pirated, and should be assumed to be pirated until shown otherwise.
Do these entertainment executives believe that it is impossible for popular media to be created outside of their studios? That they and they alone have the talent and resources to make something that people want to watch?
Rumors of the same are circulating in the furry world. Caroo just got banned, and he never posted any photos. Mostly strange fetish drawings, with no child characters. There is clearly something of an automated purge in progress.
I imagine they do keep the material, probably in encrypted form such that it needs authorization from multiple people to access. They need to keep it so they have the option of recalculating using alternative perceptual hashes in future.
We'll see. SpaceX is certainly delivering on their technological promises, and they have the serious contracts to prove it. If nothing else, Musk is able to hire people who can make stuff work. I just think we should save some of the hype until he actually shows they can do something new and better, even if it's only a contract for someone relatively mundane, like construction of a fairly contentional tunnel but at lower cost than is currently achievable.
Forget about the loop aspect - smaller tunnels alone could be very useful indeed in urban areas. They can transport people on foot from A to a nearby B in a mostly-straight line, without having to weave around buildings or wait to cross traffic - and if A happens to be a subway station, you've just found a way to make subways substantially more attractive. The trick is getting the cost of drilling tunnels down low enough that it becomes practical for a subway station to have a spider-web of pedestrian tunnels radiating out for half a kilometer.
It's a standard TBM. Making a tunnel. Cool, yes, but what's the advancement here? Is is any faster or cheaper than existing tunnel-making machines? Can it make smaller tunnels, which could be quite valuable in urban areas? Why all the excitement?
Bitcoin was the first successful cryptocurrency, if not the first cryptocurrency entirely - and like many things in tech, the first one has staying power even though the technology is inferior to products that try and fail to displace it. Bitcoin is running into scaling and resource use issues.
It doesn't need to be within reach of everyone. The first practical quantum computers will belong to to universities, governments, and large corporations - but eventually someone is going to start renting processor time on one to anyone who can pay. Probably Amazon.
Plenty is wrong with starting a conversation. When presenting a new claim, the claim may persist in popular awareness even after it has been shown to be false - just look how anti-vax views endure long after Wakefield was revealed to be a fraud. The authors have made it clear that their findings are only preliminary, and they were unable to find any bacteria in mouse brains, but I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing some quacks selling 'boost your brain biome' products in a few months.
It's a compromise. Those larger fans and ducting mean more weight, which means lower flight time and reduced maneuverability. If you want to get the noise down, compromises must be made - and all that does is get the noise down from 'deafening' to 'intolerable.' Even with ducted fans they are still pretty loud.
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A couple of special interest groups. They coordinate. They have to, because no company considers Enough is Enough to be worthy of notice on their own, and NCoSE is still routinely making claims that exposure to pornography causes the brain to physically shrink.
It's not just Enough is Enough, the organisation mentioned in the article. The anti-pornography organisation National Campign on Sexual Exploitation (Formerly Morality in Media) has been trying to push Starbucks (and other companies) to block pornography for years.
I can't see any reason for starbucks not to block porn, really. It doesn't cost much, and even if it's totally ineffective, it lets them save face any time a customer complains about seeing something they would rather not have. It probably just took a few petitions before the issue was considered important enough for the board to pay any regard to it at all.
If he was editing porn clips that much, it's quite possible he does that for a living. Someone has to.
In libertarianland, you would be able to fly in modest comfort and for a very low cost. You'd just have to accept that your plane is likely to be held together with duct tape and rubber bands because there are no safety regulations. But it's ok - the airline would get you to sign a waiver saying they are not liable in the event of your death, so problem solved.
Not necessarily true. There are plenty of companies, even entire industries, that exist while losing money - generally subsidized because they are either of national importance (ie, steel in the UK) or because they have indirect benefits to the local economy (Tourism is often given substantial subsidies, because tourists also spend heavily at local businesses filling up on exotic food and holiday tat). Airlines, though, are just doing quite well on their own.
Much of Europe does have laws against it. It's more a matter of enforcement: Only in America (And apparently China) do police routinely issue citations or occasional arrests.
One criticism of jaywalking laws in the US is that the crime is so common, enforcement depends largely on if the police nearby 'don't like the look of you.' Somewhat unsurprisingly, this often seems to come down to race - a very brief glance at statistics shows a suspiciously high percentage of jaywalking tickets go to blacks.
Can an occupant of the car force open a door or window in the event the car is suffering severe electronics failure?
If yes: Any halfway-competent thief will realise what is going on and be out the car when it arrives. Car reclaimed with some damage, thief gone. Better than no car, at least.
If no: Then there is the risk that an occupant may be trapped in the event the car is involved in an accident, is on fire or drives into water - all circumstances in which the electronics may fail in a manner that prevents doors unlocking. This is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
You missed a bit: The Amstrad case, in the UK. It closely parallels the Betamax case in the US. CBS Songs sued Amstrad electronics for selling a consumer dual-deck cassette recorder, arguing that such a technology would be overwhelmingly used for copyright infringement and thus making it available to the public was promoting this infringement.
They did have a plan. It consisted of three key elements:
1. All analog video outputs must be protected by a legacy copy protection system, of which the only approved ones were Macrovision and CGMS-A.
2. All analog video outputs must be SD only. HD output in analog form (ie, VGA connectors or RGB cables) was strictly prohibited. DVDs were allowed to output on VGA, as they were only standard definition anyway. HD outputs were only permitted via encrypted digital.
And the third part, the key that was never implemented:
3. The watermark - the plan was to use a watermark for all analog outputs, including audio, which marked them as 'encrypted distribution only.' So you could play your legal music, plug a recorder into the headphone socket, and thus generate a decrypted copy - but if you then put that file onto your CPSA-complient media player, it would detect that watermarked audio was present in unencrypted form and refuse to play.
They did have a plan for the analog hole. It just didn't work.
Hosting providers, not ISP. Otherwise much the same thing though.
It's something that made sense as part of the wider framework. Compliant media player software playing an encrypted DVD is supposed to check via driver with the graphics card to make sure that it is capable of outputting a video with macrovision protection and is actually doing so, and that it has no unencrypted digital outputs (At the time, DVI - HDMI wasn't a thing back then.)
If it had all actually worked as planned, it would have created no inconvenience at all for the consumer. There was never any real chance of that happening - too many components, too many interactions, and no standard API for querying DRM-status from the video drivers.
I've read the specification for CPRM. It is designed to allow moving for just that reason: You can move your media file from one media to another, but the process will render it unplayable on the first media. It's just that no-one actually used or supported that functionality.
It was.
There was once a grant scheme called the Content Protection System Architecture, designed by a consortium of consumer electronics and media industries around the mid-2000s. It aimed to do much as you say: An interlocking network of DRM-equipped connections and media. In order for a device to use any of these technologies, the manufacturer would have to agree to a license agreement which included a condition that their device may only output high-definition video and high-quality audio using one of the other DRM-enabled, encrypted technologies that formed the CPSA family (A concession was made for analog video in non-HD for backwards compatibility, providing it used macrovision protection). In this way, it would be impossible for any media that was released in DRMed form to ever leave the DRM system: Every appliance would be encrypted-in-encrypted-out. For added protection it was to use a watermark scheme which could mark media as being from the CPSA system - any compliant device which found watermarked media input in either analog HD or unencrypted digital form would thus know that there was no legitimate way that input could have originated, and shut down. Thus the analog hole would be firmly closed.
It was a bold vision, but with a critical flaw: With all those interlinked forms of DRM, it only needed the breaking of a single element to bring the whole system down. Long before the watermark technology was ready for release, that is exactly what happened - time after time, until their grand vision of interlocked DRM technologies was reduced to a museum of the cracked and obsolete. The CPSA framework just fell apart, and I do not know what the status if the consortium is today.
It does have a legacy though. Some of the DRM technologies still in use today, including CSS and HDCP, were originally developed as part of the CPSA framework. It was also responsible for the 'Secure' in 'Secure Digital' cards - the term refers to the inclusion of the CPRM DRM technology which all Secure Digital cards are required to implement as part of the specification, though I have never heard of any device actually making use of that functionality. An obscure feature, but a mandatory part of the specification - and a revenue source for 4C Entity, the company which holds essential patents and secret keys needed to implement CPRM.
Behind some of these proposals there is an assumption: That any large and popular file on the internet is probably pirated, and should be assumed to be pirated until shown otherwise.
Do these entertainment executives believe that it is impossible for popular media to be created outside of their studios? That they and they alone have the talent and resources to make something that people want to watch?
Rumors of the same are circulating in the furry world. Caroo just got banned, and he never posted any photos. Mostly strange fetish drawings, with no child characters. There is clearly something of an automated purge in progress.
I imagine they do keep the material, probably in encrypted form such that it needs authorization from multiple people to access. They need to keep it so they have the option of recalculating using alternative perceptual hashes in future.
We'll see. SpaceX is certainly delivering on their technological promises, and they have the serious contracts to prove it. If nothing else, Musk is able to hire people who can make stuff work. I just think we should save some of the hype until he actually shows they can do something new and better, even if it's only a contract for someone relatively mundane, like construction of a fairly contentional tunnel but at lower cost than is currently achievable.
We can do that already. It's called a train. I'm more interested in innovations in tunneling for urban transport.
Forget about the loop aspect - smaller tunnels alone could be very useful indeed in urban areas. They can transport people on foot from A to a nearby B in a mostly-straight line, without having to weave around buildings or wait to cross traffic - and if A happens to be a subway station, you've just found a way to make subways substantially more attractive. The trick is getting the cost of drilling tunnels down low enough that it becomes practical for a subway station to have a spider-web of pedestrian tunnels radiating out for half a kilometer.
It's a standard TBM. Making a tunnel. Cool, yes, but what's the advancement here? Is is any faster or cheaper than existing tunnel-making machines? Can it make smaller tunnels, which could be quite valuable in urban areas? Why all the excitement?
Perl was *made* for text processing. Though it does make handling binary data a bit awkward.
Bitcoin was the first successful cryptocurrency, if not the first cryptocurrency entirely - and like many things in tech, the first one has staying power even though the technology is inferior to products that try and fail to displace it. Bitcoin is running into scaling and resource use issues.
It doesn't need to be within reach of everyone. The first practical quantum computers will belong to to universities, governments, and large corporations - but eventually someone is going to start renting processor time on one to anyone who can pay. Probably Amazon.
Plenty is wrong with starting a conversation. When presenting a new claim, the claim may persist in popular awareness even after it has been shown to be false - just look how anti-vax views endure long after Wakefield was revealed to be a fraud. The authors have made it clear that their findings are only preliminary, and they were unable to find any bacteria in mouse brains, but I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing some quacks selling 'boost your brain biome' products in a few months.
It's a compromise. Those larger fans and ducting mean more weight, which means lower flight time and reduced maneuverability. If you want to get the noise down, compromises must be made - and all that does is get the noise down from 'deafening' to 'intolerable.' Even with ducted fans they are still pretty loud.