Then is the president of the united states lying in his statements that they are keeping a database of numbers called? Or is he just misinformed about what civil liberties his administration is currently disregarding?
What's the big deal here? I pay a premium for my 3mb connection as compared with my parents getting the basic 256kb connection. There's not that much difference in basic web browsing, but when I'm downloading and uploading databases I am paying for the higher tier. I pay it, not the service providers, they have to pay for their outgoing bandwidth anyway. This isn't something new.
I also run some websites, same deal there. I pay for the bandwidth and speed of my connection so people can get my page quickly and reliably. I pay a portion of the hosting companies fees for their fiber connection. That's the service they provide me, they have many levels.
Everybody is paying for what they use right now.
Google is paying for their bandwidth right? I am paying for my bandwidth right?
We both have options on our connection speeds to get to each other right?
I can go from dial up, to dsl, to cable, to high speed cable, to paying for a T1 to my home. I have all the options and Google has the same.
Who are we paying if not the people who make up the infrastructure? I don't doubt that they have been making money off these monthly payments and they can keep on doing it all they want. Just don't put some sort of extortion tax on it to "make sure your data doesn't have an accident and not get there fast" That's mafia crap.
Run fiber, research new data transfer tech, implement it, get paid. they're doing it now, just stick to that and don't get greedy.
I'd like to see if there are any statistics on which initial purchase method is released into the P2P arena.
If it's the CD rip that eventually gets on the networks or the iTunes. If they had a simple watermark at the end of the song that would show up in the resulting encodings and be detected they could track which method is actually contributing to piracy. If people who are more likely to purchase a CD and rip it to serve on the file sharing networks or if it's the iTunes users that serve it up. With a couple hundred songs marked and tracked that'd be compelling data either way.
In any case all it takes is one person to borrow/buy/steal/download a track and serve it up.
It makes a lot more sense to make it cheap enough and easy enough to get a song that illegally downloading it is not benificial. Not threatening them with vague lawsuites that people really don't care about. And not DRM crap that makes it better to download it illegally to use on the multitude of products out there being marketed by the same companies that restrict the customers ability to use them (cough-sony-cough).
If there were a service that let people pay a small price for music by the track in a high quality standardized format and allowed them to do whatever they wanted with it without any draconian DRM restrictions, it would be an alternative that would capture the majority of the market share overnight. And at the same time would make the p2p networks that much less attractive. (didn't hear it from me, allofmp3)
It's not something new, but needs to be said again to these execs: Basic economics 101, if you offer an easier product at a cheaper price without a significant quality drop you will make more money in volume than your competitors.
The competitors in this case are virus ridden, illegal, spotty selection, gun to the head, can go away at any time, P2P networks.
You hear that RIAA? You could make millions happy, rake in billions of dollars in sales, have more volume with significantly less overhead and 3rd party costs. All you have to do is look at the market and act like business people and fulfill the obvious need.
I recently scheduled the oscars to record from a web enabled phone by going to online tivo scheduling.
WTFITBD?
The hell I'm going to pay for a specialized app on a phone that has internet access already.
Standards are there for a reason, if a phone can access normal web pages it can do hundreds of things, if it has a bunch of nickle and dime apps that raises your bill it's a POS and your provider is screwing you.
If your phone can only view "mobile pages" there are scripts that you can run on your own webserver that'll strip everything but the actual info and serve you that.
The questions aren't the big deal, it's the process of collecting personalized data and associating it with those answers. Surveys are standard practice, but disclosed as such. This never mentioned being a survey, but a presentation. There's the story.
The second screenshot asks for your information to obtain an activation number. this is standard practice for software. What is not standard is that this data is collected with the survey and posted on an unsecure website in whole.
How would you like it if the next piece of software automatically read an address off any of a number of files including your internet cache and reported it with the other names of applications you have installed. All without your knowledge. It just asked you to click install. And assumed that you wanted this all to happen since it gives you no notice. This is not the direction that I'd like things to go. Especially from people who say they have our interests at heart and want to be elected or kept in office.
From what I can gather on the CD in question, it is more in the line of a personality quiz in which the "form" was part of an interactive presentation.
If people should expect the info entered into forms to be sent away by default, it should stand that there be an explination as to what it will be used for and how much information is shared to third parties. This is the standard which is lacking in this scenario.
If it was understood that the data would be sent, it should be understood what will happen to it. Since it is not explained anywhere what usage policies govern the data there is an obvious assumption that the data is not being used.
This assumption that "Entering the data alone is a certain amount of implied consent." leads down a different path than all software standards currently in place. The existance of EULAs would be negated by this assumption. Privacy policies would be unnecessary.
Personally I'd like to be informed before my information is distributed to the marketing department of every online company with enough money. I do read license agreements. When I can I copy the text into a good editor and scan for terms like "third party" and "paprtners" as well as "opt" and "remove". It's a practice that more should take up. Not the opposite. The companies need to disclose their intentions, no mater what they are, when programming in a "call home" form.
In this day and age of Identity Theft and Immoral CEOs is should be the example of those who are leading that we are to follow with pride.
If I install a program on my computer it can ask for my name company name etc. It can then ask if I want to register this program and send this information outside the computer.
The difference would be that if the program asked for my information without stating that it would automatically be sent out it would be considered misrepresentation.
It is an understood assumption by consumers (one which I personally believe is valid as well as the standard) that software must inform you explicitly that any data will be sent outside the software/computer it is on.
One would not assume that the forms in software such as ACT, MS Word, MS Excel, or other programs that ask for your information would be sent out without at least telling you so before the process.
Even the software companies that are on the edge of customer acceptance in this area have a policy that you can read and find exactly what information is being sent back to the company. Quickbooks is a prime example. They monitor your usage and use pop-ups and in-program ads to try and sell you other products that they think you might use. This is specific data collected with the association to your registration. Which by the way is mandatory. But disclosed.
This is why I applaud apple for itunes. They realize that an easy service + selection = profit. Same with Netflix. There are some smart people out there.
MPAA/RIAA on the other hand think that Threats + DRM + higher prices + mandatory multiple purchases on single items (mp3 for home PC, mp3 clip of same song for cellphone, CD of same song for car, etc) = profits
I really wanna hear their kids at school on "bring in your parent and have them explain their job" day.
"My daddy is a suit at MPAA, he... why are you all holding guns to my daddys head?"
In other news, MPAA goes completely insane and sues Microsoft for supplying the OS to use Google.com to search for the movie "This film is not yet rated".
And what about magazines that feature an artists work in pictures about art galleries or about "this painting sold for a trillian dollars" or newspapers that feature the paintings or photographs as supplemental graphics to a story? Aren't these out there to bring up as examples of old business models that have been doing this for as long as I can remember?
As an alternative that they might all agree to, how about google placing a watermark over the images they cache or display that says "Link" or something?
I wouldn't mind. I can always get to the real image by clicking on the thumbnail.
I pay for the 5 at a time plan, as such I would expect on avarage to get more movier per month than a person with the same viewing habits as myself but on a 3 at a time plan who is paying less. I heard that you are throttling down sending me my selections because I watch a lot of movies. I thought That's what I was paying the extra money for, to watch more movies. If you are "throttling" down shipping my movies, I am not getting what I paid for. I had the 3 at a time plan and wanted to watch more movies per month, I upgraded to the 5 at a time plan to do so. I have been enjoying this plan. Now I hear that you want to restrict the amount of movies I watch by delaying my shipments. Any delay that is not caused by circumstances beyond your control is a restriction on the "unlimited" part of the plan that I pay for. Just because I watch more movies than another customer is not justification, especially if I pay you more for the service. Are you throttling my account? If so please stop. I don't pay you more a month to get throttled down because of it.
I pay for the 5 at a time subscription, and I expect that the additional charge is for more movies per month total that I can watch.
compare my total monthly movie rentals to someone with a 3 at a time plan and I should be getting on average 2 additional rentals per cycle of shipped movies. Irregardless of wether someone watches 5 a week or 5 a month, being on a higher plan should mean that they get more on average than a person on a plan of 3 at a time.
Now introduce throttling.
I get less movies per cycle because I paid more for a higher plan.
Say I watch a movie every night that I have a new one available. If I have a 3 at a time plan and it's timed correctly, I could have one in the mail to them, one at home to watch, and one in the mail to me. That would mean that I would have a movie every day to watch. But then the weekend hits and on sunday I don't get mail and then they don't ship out on sunday and everything gets screwed. So I have to go to the 5 at a time plan to make sure I have a movie every weekday, to account for delays from netflix and postal inadequicies.
But then they throttle my shipments back down and I don't have movies to watch, which is the whole reason to have (and pay for) the 5 at a time plan.
That's something bad. A rippoff, bait-and-switch, false advertising, or just bad business, I don't know which. But it's bad.
Netflix: I pay you more. This is the throttling I get?
I literally laughed out loud. Not many things online have been able to actually do that, maybe a smile or a chuckle. But to actually scare the cat across the room, that was hilarious. scrolling down and seeing the Barbie with a male usb port for a head. damn. that's just too much.
Can you imagine a more violent game than Romeo and Juliet? Two gang waring mafia type families and a plot where the two main characters die?
Have the full text and add a game requirement that you have to talk to people with the accent and all. actually walk up to people and ask them questions and make statements that forward the game, rather than the standard now where you just button mash to get through the plot and power up.
Mix the two areas, good games need good plot, and good books need to be read by later generations.
I really think that there are more direct methods of addressing the issue expecially if we start altering their genetic makup. Rather than making glow in the dark gonads, we could address the actual issue of their annoyance or their ability to transfer bloodborne contaigens.
Don't misunderstand, I do think there are a lot of ways to do this but some are more direct than others and I prefer to see money spent wisely.
We could spend research money finding out why the mosquito isn't a contractor of the hundreds of diseases that they can carry in the blood they draw from animals as well as humans. If we were to drink the blood of animals and other humans we would be a breeding ground for mutant strains of these diseases. Like Aids mutates within a person and can become more virulent, so would the many illnesses change from within a giant population of bloodsucking people and we would eventually be wiped out from the millions of different multicombinations of recombining infected bloodsupplies that would be our foodsource. The mosquito doesn't contract these diseases and still fully absorbs the protien rich lifeblood of it's local invertabrate population.
To find out why would be money better spent in my opinion.
So what if we diverted all the funds from these people who are insane and just let out a couple highschool kids with freakin' flamethrowers and told them it was a game to wipe out the mosquito population.
Cost analysis:
genetically engineering mosquito for glowing gonad "feature" 5 million
cytometer detection machine that sorts mosquito larve gonad "feature" 8 million
sterilization machine to put the hate down on millions of mosquitoes 4 million
or
Flamethrowers and cheetoes for a weekend: 500 bucks
(plus the cost of tape and postage to send it in to AFHV later)
And to those who would rise up and argue that the mosquito shouldn't be killed off, just remember that a male mosquitos' diet consists of plant nectar, and they don't really need to suck your blood and give you, oh say: west Nile, encephalitis, yellow fever, dengue, malaria, etc.. It's the females that need the protein for reproduction and can piss you off or kill you to get it.
So instead of giving them glowing gonads, why aren't these guys altering the wingspan so they don't present a threat of contaigen or removing the gene that generates the "itchy chemical" gland? or I don't know, just killing them all off and accepting the fact that they were all living in standing water areas that didn't have an ecological influence on the world greater than the thousands of animals we've killed off already.
Tried it in Highschool, doesn't work, waxes are either are too hard to capture the details before cracking or too soft and again miss details when making the positive mold with plaster. They only work sometimes on very simple keys and only if the lock accepts a lot of play, schlage and other manufacturers state this on the packaging that you should always make copies from one of the included master and not a copy because of the tollerance limitations.
With the wax method you still need to have the key in your posession in a secluded manner to make the mold.
This is much harder than simply having a reader in your pocket and standing next to someone for a fraction of a second.
Slashdot Mirror
Then is the president of the united states lying in his statements that they are keeping a database of numbers called? Or is he just misinformed about what civil liberties his administration is currently disregarding?
Uh...
What's the big deal here?
I pay a premium for my 3mb connection as compared with my parents getting the basic 256kb connection. There's not that much difference in basic web browsing, but when I'm downloading and uploading databases I am paying for the higher tier. I pay it, not the service providers, they have to pay for their outgoing bandwidth anyway. This isn't something new.
I also run some websites, same deal there. I pay for the bandwidth and speed of my connection so people can get my page quickly and reliably. I pay a portion of the hosting companies fees for their fiber connection. That's the service they provide me, they have many levels.
Everybody is paying for what they use right now.
Google is paying for their bandwidth right?
I am paying for my bandwidth right?
We both have options on our connection speeds to get to each other right?
I can go from dial up, to dsl, to cable, to high speed cable, to paying for a T1 to my home. I have all the options and Google has the same.
Who are we paying if not the people who make up the infrastructure?
I don't doubt that they have been making money off these monthly payments and they can keep on doing it all they want. Just don't put some sort of extortion tax on it to "make sure your data doesn't have an accident and not get there fast" That's mafia crap.
Run fiber, research new data transfer tech, implement it, get paid.
they're doing it now, just stick to that and don't get greedy.
Seriousy, mod this up.
I'm not kidding.
That was funny shit.
I'd like to see if there are any statistics on which initial purchase method is released into the P2P arena.
If it's the CD rip that eventually gets on the networks or the iTunes. If they had a simple watermark at the end of the song that would show up in the resulting encodings and be detected they could track which method is actually contributing to piracy. If people who are more likely to purchase a CD and rip it to serve on the file sharing networks or if it's the iTunes users that serve it up. With a couple hundred songs marked and tracked that'd be compelling data either way.
In any case all it takes is one person to borrow/buy/steal/download a track and serve it up.
It makes a lot more sense to make it cheap enough and easy enough to get a song that illegally downloading it is not benificial. Not threatening them with vague lawsuites that people really don't care about. And not DRM crap that makes it better to download it illegally to use on the multitude of products out there being marketed by the same companies that restrict the customers ability to use them (cough-sony-cough).
If there were a service that let people pay a small price for music by the track in a high quality standardized format and allowed them to do whatever they wanted with it without any draconian DRM restrictions, it would be an alternative that would capture the majority of the market share overnight. And at the same time would make the p2p networks that much less attractive.
(didn't hear it from me, allofmp3)
It's not something new, but needs to be said again to these execs: Basic economics 101, if you offer an easier product at a cheaper price without a significant quality drop you will make more money in volume than your competitors.
The competitors in this case are virus ridden, illegal, spotty selection, gun to the head, can go away at any time, P2P networks.
You hear that RIAA? You could make millions happy, rake in billions of dollars in sales, have more volume with significantly less overhead and 3rd party costs. All you have to do is look at the market and act like business people and fulfill the obvious need.
I recently scheduled the oscars to record from a web enabled phone by going to online tivo scheduling.
WTFITBD?
The hell I'm going to pay for a specialized app on a phone that has internet access already.
Standards are there for a reason, if a phone can access normal web pages it can do hundreds of things, if it has a bunch of nickle and dime apps that raises your bill it's a POS and your provider is screwing you.
If your phone can only view "mobile pages" there are scripts that you can run on your own webserver that'll strip everything but the actual info and serve you that.
The questions aren't the big deal, it's the process of collecting personalized data and associating it with those answers. Surveys are standard practice, but disclosed as such. This never mentioned being a survey, but a presentation. There's the story.
The second screenshot asks for your information to obtain an activation number. this is standard practice for software. What is not standard is that this data is collected with the survey and posted on an unsecure website in whole.
How would you like it if the next piece of software automatically read an address off any of a number of files including your internet cache and reported it with the other names of applications you have installed. All without your knowledge. It just asked you to click install. And assumed that you wanted this all to happen since it gives you no notice. This is not the direction that I'd like things to go. Especially from people who say they have our interests at heart and want to be elected or kept in office.
From what I can gather on the CD in question, it is more in the line of a personality quiz in which the "form" was part of an interactive presentation.
If people should expect the info entered into forms to be sent away by default, it should stand that there be an explination as to what it will be used for and how much information is shared to third parties. This is the standard which is lacking in this scenario.
If it was understood that the data would be sent, it should be understood what will happen to it. Since it is not explained anywhere what usage policies govern the data there is an obvious assumption that the data is not being used.
This assumption that "Entering the data alone is a certain amount of implied consent." leads down a different path than all software standards currently in place. The existance of EULAs would be negated by this assumption. Privacy policies would be unnecessary.
Personally I'd like to be informed before my information is distributed to the marketing department of every online company with enough money.
I do read license agreements. When I can I copy the text into a good editor and scan for terms like "third party" and "paprtners" as well as "opt" and "remove". It's a practice that more should take up. Not the opposite. The companies need to disclose their intentions, no mater what they are, when programming in a "call home" form.
In this day and age of Identity Theft and Immoral CEOs is should be the example of those who are leading that we are to follow with pride.
Here's the difference.
If I install a program on my computer it can ask for my name company name etc. It can then ask if I want to register this program and send this information outside the computer.
The difference would be that if the program asked for my information without stating that it would automatically be sent out it would be considered misrepresentation.
It is an understood assumption by consumers (one which I personally believe is valid as well as the standard) that software must inform you explicitly that any data will be sent outside the software/computer it is on.
One would not assume that the forms in software such as ACT, MS Word, MS Excel, or other programs that ask for your information would be sent out without at least telling you so before the process.
Even the software companies that are on the edge of customer acceptance in this area have a policy that you can read and find exactly what information is being sent back to the company. Quickbooks is a prime example. They monitor your usage and use pop-ups and in-program ads to try and sell you other products that they think you might use. This is specific data collected with the association to your registration. Which by the way is mandatory. But disclosed.
This is why I applaud apple for itunes. They realize that an easy service + selection = profit. Same with Netflix. There are some smart people out there.
MPAA/RIAA on the other hand think that Threats + DRM + higher prices + mandatory multiple purchases on single items (mp3 for home PC, mp3 clip of same song for cellphone, CD of same song for car, etc) = profits
I really wanna hear their kids at school on "bring in your parent and have them explain their job" day.
"My daddy is a suit at MPAA, he... why are you all holding guns to my daddys head?"
In other news, MPAA goes completely insane and sues Microsoft for supplying the OS to use Google.com to search for the movie "This film is not yet rated".
At least they're not concluding from the review that it beats Linux for "certain server applications".
And what about magazines that feature an artists work in pictures about art galleries or about "this painting sold for a trillian dollars" or newspapers that feature the paintings or photographs as supplemental graphics to a story? Aren't these out there to bring up as examples of old business models that have been doing this for as long as I can remember?
As an alternative that they might all agree to, how about google placing a watermark over the images they cache or display that says "Link" or something?
I wouldn't mind. I can always get to the real image by clicking on the thumbnail.
Then I hope that they use .DOC or .PDF to do the editing. There's lots of fun when you get that stuff removing the blankouts and reversing the edits. :)
Perfect logic.
I just sent a letter to them stating as much:
I pay for the 5 at a time plan, as such I would expect on avarage to get more movier per month than a person with the same viewing habits as myself but on a 3 at a time plan who is paying less. I heard that you are throttling down sending me my selections because I watch a lot of movies. I thought That's what I was paying the extra money for, to watch more movies. If you are "throttling" down shipping my movies, I am not getting what I paid for. I had the 3 at a time plan and wanted to watch more movies per month, I upgraded to the 5 at a time plan to do so. I have been enjoying this plan. Now I hear that you want to restrict the amount of movies I watch by delaying my shipments. Any delay that is not caused by circumstances beyond your control is a restriction on the "unlimited" part of the plan that I pay for. Just because I watch more movies than another customer is not justification, especially if I pay you more for the service. Are you throttling my account? If so please stop. I don't pay you more a month to get throttled down because of it.
Actually that's a good point.
I pay for the 5 at a time subscription, and I expect that the additional charge is for more movies per month total that I can watch.
compare my total monthly movie rentals to someone with a 3 at a time plan and I should be getting on average 2 additional rentals per cycle of shipped movies. Irregardless of wether someone watches 5 a week or 5 a month, being on a higher plan should mean that they get more on average than a person on a plan of 3 at a time.
Now introduce throttling.
I get less movies per cycle because I paid more for a higher plan.
Say I watch a movie every night that I have a new one available. If I have a 3 at a time plan and it's timed correctly, I could have one in the mail to them, one at home to watch, and one in the mail to me. That would mean that I would have a movie every day to watch. But then the weekend hits and on sunday I don't get mail and then they don't ship out on sunday and everything gets screwed. So I have to go to the 5 at a time plan to make sure I have a movie every weekday, to account for delays from netflix and postal inadequicies.
But then they throttle my shipments back down and I don't have movies to watch, which is the whole reason to have (and pay for) the 5 at a time plan.
That's something bad. A rippoff, bait-and-switch, false advertising, or just bad business, I don't know which. But it's bad.
Netflix: I pay you more. This is the throttling I get?
Stop it.
bad repeat, bad!
look at what you've done, now go outside. Get.
Try Google for 30 days with unlimited searches!
(your firstborn will be named AOL234 if you do not cancel)
I literally laughed out loud. Not many things online have been able to actually do that, maybe a smile or a chuckle. But to actually scare the cat across the room, that was hilarious. scrolling down and seeing the Barbie with a male usb port for a head. damn. that's just too much.
Better plans at: http://www.diyprojectorcompany.com/
Make them into games.
Can you imagine a more violent game than Romeo and Juliet?
Two gang waring mafia type families and a plot where the two main characters die?
Have the full text and add a game requirement that you have to talk to people with the accent and all. actually walk up to people and ask them questions and make statements that forward the game, rather than the standard now where you just button mash to get through the plot and power up.
Mix the two areas, good games need good plot, and good books need to be read by later generations.
Doesn't this fall in line with reviewing a persons library checkout history?
Fine, I'll rephrase. Direct and smarter than DDT.
The flamethrower part was a joke.
I really think that there are more direct methods of addressing the issue expecially if we start altering their genetic makup. Rather than making glow in the dark gonads, we could address the actual issue of their annoyance or their ability to transfer bloodborne contaigens.
Don't misunderstand, I do think there are a lot of ways to do this but some are more direct than others and I prefer to see money spent wisely.
We could spend research money finding out why the mosquito isn't a contractor of the hundreds of diseases that they can carry in the blood they draw from animals as well as humans. If we were to drink the blood of animals and other humans we would be a breeding ground for mutant strains of these diseases. Like Aids mutates within a person and can become more virulent, so would the many illnesses change from within a giant population of bloodsucking people and we would eventually be wiped out from the millions of different multicombinations of recombining infected bloodsupplies that would be our foodsource. The mosquito doesn't contract these diseases and still fully absorbs the protien rich lifeblood of it's local invertabrate population.
To find out why would be money better spent in my opinion.
So what if we diverted all the funds from these people who are insane and just let out a couple highschool kids with freakin' flamethrowers and told them it was a game to wipe out the mosquito population.
Cost analysis:
genetically engineering mosquito for glowing gonad "feature" 5 million
cytometer detection machine that sorts mosquito larve gonad "feature" 8 million
sterilization machine to put the hate down on millions of mosquitoes 4 million
or
Flamethrowers and cheetoes for a weekend: 500 bucks
(plus the cost of tape and postage to send it in to AFHV later)
And to those who would rise up and argue that the mosquito shouldn't be killed off, just remember that a male mosquitos' diet consists of plant nectar, and they don't really need to suck your blood and give you, oh say: west Nile, encephalitis, yellow fever, dengue, malaria, etc..
It's the females that need the protein for reproduction and can piss you off or kill you to get it.
So instead of giving them glowing gonads, why aren't these guys altering the wingspan so they don't present a threat of contaigen or removing the gene that generates the "itchy chemical" gland? or I don't know, just killing them all off and accepting the fact that they were all living in standing water areas that didn't have an ecological influence on the world greater than the thousands of animals we've killed off already.
Tried it in Highschool, doesn't work, waxes are either are too hard to capture the details before cracking or too soft and again miss details when making the positive mold with plaster. They only work sometimes on very simple keys and only if the lock accepts a lot of play, schlage and other manufacturers state this on the packaging that you should always make copies from one of the included master and not a copy because of the tollerance limitations.
With the wax method you still need to have the key in your posession in a secluded manner to make the mold.
This is much harder than simply having a reader in your pocket and standing next to someone for a fraction of a second.