My uncle is not a ford dealer; yet he modifies people's cars for them. He does all kinds of work to make them faster. he has pre-packaged kits to soup them up.
Is this illegal because he does not have a license from ford?
Because the situation with sony is *exactly* the same.
Your statement is a scary indication of the way people are beginning to think due to the bizarre software licensing issues we have been plagued with for the last 2 decades. People actually think that the company that sold you a device outright can dictate what you do with it. They can't.. they SOLD IT TO YOU..
The mass amounts of money that 'Companies' lose on copyrighted software is bullshit spewed by the SPA and the like. Sure, they may lose some sales.. but nowhere near the numbers they make you think they do.
It's the First Sale doctrine. You cannot exercise control over something once you sell it.
Where is this license? Did I click 'Agree'? Did I sign paper? Did I verbally agree? No.
I bought a PS2 game in the mall, and took it home from my vacation to play it.
It's wrong to think that every business automatically uses it's products to boost each other.
It may make very solid financial sence for palm to take steps to ensure their hardware and software sections are financially and legally separated. Maybe the COULD sell more palm devices if they used other software.. and maybe they could make more on software if they weren't stuck with a single platform.
This way.. if one fails, the other can go on.
Of course it's geographically limited. The point of this was that you need an ISP that has satellite capabilities. Fixed access, or semi-fixed.
I didn't understand it to be for real roaming, where you could set it up instantly, anywhere, and get net access...
Did it not say that the ISP was above and beyond this?
It's a definite issue, but they are a bit misleading as well.
If you consider the satellite communications from a raw radio perspective, you ahve to take this stuff into account... what am I trying to send, how am I going to encode it, etc.
The thing is, as long as the satellite layer has error correction of it's own, TCP will deal with it. (because TCP won't see the errors)
And satellite is no different than any other form of RF communication. It doesn't present any other challenges, other than having a higher latency than other connectins. The distance - signal - noise garbage is the same for any transmitter. You can't just say 'it's far, so it's hard'. It also depends on your transmitter, receiver, output power, etc.
You get the exact same issues trying to engineer a radio linke 20 miles long using microwave gear.
You can talk to your mother with no delay because most international calls, especially from really modern systems like those in North America go via undersea cable, not satellite.
I've talked to my mom (who's on the same side of the planet, just 60 degrees north) and it's definately satellite most of the time.
I see people talking about how incredibly expensive this must be, as well as saying things like "Now we can get internet in the congo".
Let me enlighten you a bit.
You can already get internet just about anywhere via satellite. Yes, it will require a fixed installation and a hefty dish, but it's commercially available, NOT rediculously expensive (comparable to landline), and works quite well, all things considered.
Yes, the latency is high, thanks to the laws of the universe and all that... but if your choice is no internet, or 2Mbps with a 450ms latency tacked on off the bat, the 2Mbps will do fine. (it only really sucks for gaming anyway.. websurfing is fine)
The benefits of this portable, small unit are just that. It's portable, and it's small. It's not a breakthrough in satellite communications, only in portability.
This doesn't look to be an ISP delivering service either, like people mentioning inmarsat, etc... It's simply a satellite rig that can be used with a multitude of birds. There are a number of ISPs out there that have sattellite capability.
Those prices are very high, and you definately can't lump all satellite communications together.
I use satellite here (full duplex, 1 Mbps) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for both internet and telephone traffic.
You can get a T1 equivalent (meaning it's 1.5Mbps both ways, depending on RF quality at that moment) for around $2000/month, flat rate.
At your Inmarsat prices, that would be $5000 a day, or 1.8 million a year, for a 9600bps connection. Perhaps they charge so much because it only gets used sporadically, from remote locations?
I mean, sure, it may have application somewhere...
but is everyone going to have a PDA with a full time net connection & GPS, as well as audio/video capability? Because until we do, this is hype.
And even then.. how hard is this? IF said device exists.. this is TRIVIAL. THey make it sound like 'new technology. It's not new.. it's OBVIOUS
I'm sure someone has patented this great idea too.
perhaps meatspace prices just dropped a bit to equal online prices?
I can't see a clear reason why online sales should be cheaper than in-store sales. Where does the cost saving come into play?
If the net has done anything, it's helped globalizes prices. You don't get as much region to region fluctuation in retail items anymore. (I didn't say NO fluctuation, just less. There is still plenty)
As for people paying retail +20%, absolutely.
I saw a guy selling silver maple leafs (1 troy oz silver bullion, Canadian Mint) for market price + 50%. And people were buying.. because it was a 'collectors item'(It's not, it's silver bullion that you can pick up at a bazillion outlets at spot price)
I am still amazed at the multi-tier confusion that is the US DSL business.
I suppose it makes sense, sort of.
Canada:
If you have DSL... then whoever your ISP is owns all the involved gear except the telco lines. There is no DSL provider separate from the ISP (Maybe there is back east in Toronto.. I dunno, nowhere I've been though).
I really think the problem here is that you have just too many cooks.
You have a telco, who provides wiring
You have a DSL provider, who provides like, layer 2 networking over that wiring
You have an ISP who provides the rest. YIKES!
In many cases here, It's ONE company.. the telco. Why? Becuase.. nevermind monopolies and such.. it JUST MAKES SENSE
Look at it.
The telco owns the switches & property around the switches. So it's easy for them to get the CO DSL gear as close to their switches as possible.
They already have a network in place, with huge bandwidth.
OF course, we are a smaller market, so I suppose that has something to do with it. but hey, IT WORKS.
Now... I've also dealt with a DSL provider who was separate from the phone company.
Like.. if I kno wit's going to sit on a shelf in a warehouse for 50 years, then get thrown in the garbage, I'll take it. I'm not 'depriving'anyone of anything.
Software.... if I can't afford said software, then I'm not really hurting them by not paying for it, becaues I CANNOT buy it in the first place.
I think we can all agree for the most part that, in a way, he should have known better.
The scary part is that for something as minor as this, they tried to get him on 9 felony counts, facing 120 years in prison and something like a million bucks in fines/restitution.
If memory serves, all you need is the win2k password.
File encryption in windows does not set a key on a per-file basis... it just uses something related to your account... so it's transparent to you when you are logged in.
Lots of people are saying
"Look how stupid Al-Quaeda are"
"They must be dumb to use it"
"Look, export restrictions helped us"
All of these statements are based on big assumptions.
First, why do we assume they thought their data was encrypted and secure forever from anyone? There are othe reasons for using the windows file encryption.. just to prevent casual accidental access to a file by another user, for instance. It's there, why not use it?
Who says export restrictions helped? This is the WSJ, not the CIA! If the data was so vital, don't you think that laptop would be in the hands of the government?
Who says having stronger crypto would have mattered? I'm willing to bet that uncle sam can crack 128 bit in a rather short period of time.
(Yes, I know how much computing power that would take)
And... someone please correct me here, because I'm not 100% on this.. but..
This was windows file encryption. The key is stored somewhere in your profile, encrypted by your password perhaps.
Windows passwords are EASY to brute force.
Which did they crack here? The windows password, or the actualy 40 bit key for the encrypted file? I'm willing to bet it was just a windows password.... oooh, that's hard.
Export grade is no longer 40 bit, hasn't been for 2 years now.
Perhaps Al-Quaeda didn't CARE. Remember.. encryption is a matter of deciding how long you need to keep the data secure.
Obviously, it's not very important, or the feds would have siezed the damn thing already for their investigation, yes?
If they used 128 bit, would it have protected them? I doubt it. It would just take longer to work on.. and this is the WSJ working on it.. with 'supercomputer-equivalent' stuff.. probably some geek with a small cluster. What if Uncle Sam decided to have a go at it?
So... Al-Quaeda appear rather stupid to you. I suppose you have a great deal of first hand experience with them? Jesus. It's IGNORANT to assume your enemy is stupid.
Today, I will try an experiment.
I will disable my location bar.
The only time I will actually punch in a URL directly into the browser is if I have a URL in print that I have to go to, and it's not very generic (like, if I'm debuggin a web page at work, etc).
Anyhting I want to look at, I'll use google, even if I know the url.
Yes.. absolutely. There are man facets of motion where you could use the thing to harvest a little bit of energy. But... that would also inhibit your motion to a degree, and for a very small return.
I mean, if this thing were, say, wired into your brain, and new what you wanted to do.. you could be falling to the ground. Absorbing the shock of the impact could also generate energy. If you are running, that's using energy.. when you stop.. the suit could engage generators at the right moments to stop you, and conserve power.
Doubtful we'd see it in the near future.. would be a huge hinderance for a negligible increase in power.
When a uses it's brakes to stop, it is taking all the kinetic energy it has and bleeding it off as heat, via the brakes. That energy is lost.. so using that energy to generate power to be used later makes good sense.
A person walking around is not losing energy in the same fashion... they are using just what they need to move around.
Though, I don't know what a real law would look like...
Consider, say, the hotel I was at years ago... they had an indoor pool. Before you used the pool, you had to sign a waiver... they had a stack of them in the pool room.
The waiver basically said using the pool was at your own risk, etc, etc.
Now... Dad asked his lawyer later, for kicks.
Say you drowned becuase you couldn't swim.. and they had no lifeguard. This document would protect them... it was fairly clear there was no lifeguard.
But.. say the diving board was in disrepair, and broke off while you were about to dive, causing you to fall and break leg... guess what? That contract doesn't absolve them of responsibility. Why? Because... it was reasonable to expect that the diving board worked.. the owner still had a duty to keep the area safe for it's users, regardless of their waiver. (If they wanted a waiver to protect them against that, they would have to clearly state the risks.. state that the facilities are in bad repair and broken.
Now.. software, we have these horrible EULAs... but still. I can understand how it's okay for a company to, say, protect itself from being sued over some little bug.. of COURSE they have to. Like.. say Excel crashes while you are in the middle of some work.. and you have to re-do it, so you are late for a meeting, so you lose the deal, etc.
Just as in the real world, where even a disclaimer can't generally release you of all obligation, so should it be with software. I don't know what the wording would be, or what would be fair... but software vendors should have a certain level of accountability for what they do.
Now.. how does this affect OSS? I don't know. Do I think OSS authors should be responsible for what they do? Yes, to a degree.. but there is a problem.. I don't think someone should be sued just because they shared some code with the world and it didn't work.
As only source code can be GPL'd, then of COURSE you have to give a copy to someone in order to give it to them under GPL.. not sure what your point is.
Who is talking about claiming to release software without releasing anything?
THe previous post made it sound like the author of code is bound by the terms of the GPL.. he is not.. the GPL specifies nothing in terms of obligations of the original author.
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My uncle is not a ford dealer; yet he modifies people's cars for them. He does all kinds of work to make them faster. he has pre-packaged kits to soup them up.
Is this illegal because he does not have a license from ford?
Because the situation with sony is *exactly* the same.
Your statement is a scary indication of the way people are beginning to think due to the bizarre software licensing issues we have been plagued with for the last 2 decades. People actually think that the company that sold you a device outright can dictate what you do with it. They can't.. they SOLD IT TO YOU..
The mass amounts of money that 'Companies' lose on copyrighted software is bullshit spewed by the SPA and the like. Sure, they may lose some sales.. but nowhere near the numbers they make you think they do.
It's the First Sale doctrine. You cannot exercise control over something once you sell it.
Where is this license? Did I click 'Agree'? Did I sign paper? Did I verbally agree? No.
I bought a PS2 game in the mall, and took it home from my vacation to play it.
You would swap drives, yes. But you aren't a thief.
But your average guy who stole the computer to make a quick buck won't.. and neither will the schmuck who bought it from him.
Several companies sell packages for the PC that are theft-detection packages. Very low-level virus-like things that are internet aware, etc.
It's wrong to think that every business automatically uses it's products to boost each other.
It may make very solid financial sence for palm to take steps to ensure their hardware and software sections are financially and legally separated. Maybe the COULD sell more palm devices if they used other software.. and maybe they could make more on software if they weren't stuck with a single platform.
This way.. if one fails, the other can go on.
Of course it's geographically limited. The point of this was that you need an ISP that has satellite capabilities. Fixed access, or semi-fixed.
I didn't understand it to be for real roaming, where you could set it up instantly, anywhere, and get net access...
Did it not say that the ISP was above and beyond this?
from what I've seen, QNX is one of the more friendly embedded systems.
Ever used VxWorks?
It's a definite issue, but they are a bit misleading as well.
If you consider the satellite communications from a raw radio perspective, you ahve to take this stuff into account... what am I trying to send, how am I going to encode it, etc.
The thing is, as long as the satellite layer has error correction of it's own, TCP will deal with it. (because TCP won't see the errors)
And satellite is no different than any other form of RF communication. It doesn't present any other challenges, other than having a higher latency than other connectins. The distance - signal - noise garbage is the same for any transmitter. You can't just say 'it's far, so it's hard'. It also depends on your transmitter, receiver, output power, etc.
You get the exact same issues trying to engineer a radio linke 20 miles long using microwave gear.
Yes on both counts.
You can talk to your mother with no delay because most international calls, especially from really modern systems like those in North America go via undersea cable, not satellite.
I've talked to my mom (who's on the same side of the planet, just 60 degrees north) and it's definately satellite most of the time.
I see people talking about how incredibly expensive this must be, as well as saying things like "Now we can get internet in the congo".
Let me enlighten you a bit.
You can already get internet just about anywhere via satellite. Yes, it will require a fixed installation and a hefty dish, but it's commercially available, NOT rediculously expensive (comparable to landline), and works quite well, all things considered.
Yes, the latency is high, thanks to the laws of the universe and all that... but if your choice is no internet, or 2Mbps with a 450ms latency tacked on off the bat, the 2Mbps will do fine. (it only really sucks for gaming anyway.. websurfing is fine)
The benefits of this portable, small unit are just that. It's portable, and it's small. It's not a breakthrough in satellite communications, only in portability.
This doesn't look to be an ISP delivering service either, like people mentioning inmarsat, etc... It's simply a satellite rig that can be used with a multitude of birds. There are a number of ISPs out there that have sattellite capability.
Don't be so sure.
Those prices are very high, and you definately can't lump all satellite communications together.
I use satellite here (full duplex, 1 Mbps) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for both internet and telephone traffic.
You can get a T1 equivalent (meaning it's 1.5Mbps both ways, depending on RF quality at that moment) for around $2000/month, flat rate.
At your Inmarsat prices, that would be $5000 a day, or 1.8 million a year, for a 9600bps connection. Perhaps they charge so much because it only gets used sporadically, from remote locations?
That's like saying "It's not an apple, it's a fruit"
A republic can *certianly* be a democracy.
No king? no prince? no emperor? You got a president? Yes? okay, you are a republic.
I mean, sure, it may have application somewhere...
but is everyone going to have a PDA with a full time net connection & GPS, as well as audio/video capability? Because until we do, this is hype.
And even then.. how hard is this? IF said device exists.. this is TRIVIAL. THey make it sound like 'new technology. It's not new.. it's OBVIOUS
I'm sure someone has patented this great idea too.
perhaps meatspace prices just dropped a bit to equal online prices?
I can't see a clear reason why online sales should be cheaper than in-store sales. Where does the cost saving come into play?
If the net has done anything, it's helped globalizes prices. You don't get as much region to region fluctuation in retail items anymore. (I didn't say NO fluctuation, just less. There is still plenty)
As for people paying retail +20%, absolutely.
I saw a guy selling silver maple leafs (1 troy oz silver bullion, Canadian Mint) for market price + 50%. And people were buying.. because it was a 'collectors item'(It's not, it's silver bullion that you can pick up at a bazillion outlets at spot price)
I am still amazed at the multi-tier confusion that is the US DSL business.
I suppose it makes sense, sort of.
Canada:
If you have DSL... then whoever your ISP is owns all the involved gear except the telco lines. There is no DSL provider separate from the ISP (Maybe there is back east in Toronto.. I dunno, nowhere I've been though).
I really think the problem here is that you have just too many cooks.
You have a telco, who provides wiring
You have a DSL provider, who provides like, layer 2 networking over that wiring
You have an ISP who provides the rest. YIKES!
In many cases here, It's ONE company.. the telco. Why? Becuase.. nevermind monopolies and such.. it JUST MAKES SENSE
Look at it.
The telco owns the switches & property around the switches. So it's easy for them to get the CO DSL gear as close to their switches as possible.
They already have a network in place, with huge bandwidth.
OF course, we are a smaller market, so I suppose that has something to do with it. but hey, IT WORKS.
Now... I've also dealt with a DSL provider who was separate from the phone company.
property? Sometimes.
Like.. if I kno wit's going to sit on a shelf in a warehouse for 50 years, then get thrown in the garbage, I'll take it. I'm not 'depriving'anyone of anything.
Software.... if I can't afford said software, then I'm not really hurting them by not paying for it, becaues I CANNOT buy it in the first place.
is not that his employer took action.
I think we can all agree for the most part that, in a way, he should have known better.
The scary part is that for something as minor as this, they tried to get him on 9 felony counts, facing 120 years in prison and something like a million bucks in fines/restitution.
If memory serves, all you need is the win2k password.
File encryption in windows does not set a key on a per-file basis... it just uses something related to your account... so it's transparent to you when you are logged in.
Lots of people are saying
"Look how stupid Al-Quaeda are"
"They must be dumb to use it"
"Look, export restrictions helped us"
All of these statements are based on big assumptions.
First, why do we assume they thought their data was encrypted and secure forever from anyone? There are othe reasons for using the windows file encryption.. just to prevent casual accidental access to a file by another user, for instance. It's there, why not use it?
Who says export restrictions helped? This is the WSJ, not the CIA! If the data was so vital, don't you think that laptop would be in the hands of the government?
Who says having stronger crypto would have mattered? I'm willing to bet that uncle sam can crack 128 bit in a rather short period of time.
(Yes, I know how much computing power that would take)
And... someone please correct me here, because I'm not 100% on this.. but..
This was windows file encryption. The key is stored somewhere in your profile, encrypted by your password perhaps.
Windows passwords are EASY to brute force.
Which did they crack here? The windows password, or the actualy 40 bit key for the encrypted file? I'm willing to bet it was just a windows password.... oooh, that's hard.
Win2k uses AES, no?
Export grade is no longer 40 bit, hasn't been for 2 years now.
Perhaps Al-Quaeda didn't CARE. Remember.. encryption is a matter of deciding how long you need to keep the data secure.
Obviously, it's not very important, or the feds would have siezed the damn thing already for their investigation, yes?
If they used 128 bit, would it have protected them? I doubt it. It would just take longer to work on.. and this is the WSJ working on it.. with 'supercomputer-equivalent' stuff.. probably some geek with a small cluster. What if Uncle Sam decided to have a go at it?
So... Al-Quaeda appear rather stupid to you. I suppose you have a great deal of first hand experience with them? Jesus. It's IGNORANT to assume your enemy is stupid.
Nice experiment. Very nerdy.
So where does one obtain LN2 for experimentation?
Today, I will try an experiment.
I will disable my location bar.
The only time I will actually punch in a URL directly into the browser is if I have a URL in print that I have to go to, and it's not very generic (like, if I'm debuggin a web page at work, etc).
Anyhting I want to look at, I'll use google, even if I know the url.
Yes.. absolutely. There are man facets of motion where you could use the thing to harvest a little bit of energy. But... that would also inhibit your motion to a degree, and for a very small return.
I mean, if this thing were, say, wired into your brain, and new what you wanted to do.. you could be falling to the ground. Absorbing the shock of the impact could also generate energy. If you are running, that's using energy.. when you stop.. the suit could engage generators at the right moments to stop you, and conserve power.
Doubtful we'd see it in the near future.. would be a huge hinderance for a negligible increase in power.
When a uses it's brakes to stop, it is taking all the kinetic energy it has and bleeding it off as heat, via the brakes. That energy is lost.. so using that energy to generate power to be used later makes good sense.
A person walking around is not losing energy in the same fashion... they are using just what they need to move around.
Though, I don't know what a real law would look like...
Consider, say, the hotel I was at years ago... they had an indoor pool. Before you used the pool, you had to sign a waiver... they had a stack of them in the pool room.
The waiver basically said using the pool was at your own risk, etc, etc.
Now... Dad asked his lawyer later, for kicks.
Say you drowned becuase you couldn't swim.. and they had no lifeguard. This document would protect them... it was fairly clear there was no lifeguard.
But.. say the diving board was in disrepair, and broke off while you were about to dive, causing you to fall and break leg... guess what? That contract doesn't absolve them of responsibility. Why? Because... it was reasonable to expect that the diving board worked.. the owner still had a duty to keep the area safe for it's users, regardless of their waiver. (If they wanted a waiver to protect them against that, they would have to clearly state the risks.. state that the facilities are in bad repair and broken.
Now.. software, we have these horrible EULAs... but still. I can understand how it's okay for a company to, say, protect itself from being sued over some little bug.. of COURSE they have to. Like.. say Excel crashes while you are in the middle of some work.. and you have to re-do it, so you are late for a meeting, so you lose the deal, etc.
Just as in the real world, where even a disclaimer can't generally release you of all obligation, so should it be with software. I don't know what the wording would be, or what would be fair... but software vendors should have a certain level of accountability for what they do.
Now.. how does this affect OSS? I don't know. Do I think OSS authors should be responsible for what they do? Yes, to a degree.. but there is a problem.. I don't think someone should be sued just because they shared some code with the world and it didn't work.
As only source code can be GPL'd, then of COURSE you have to give a copy to someone in order to give it to them under GPL.. not sure what your point is.
Who is talking about claiming to release software without releasing anything?
THe previous post made it sound like the author of code is bound by the terms of the GPL.. he is not.. the GPL specifies nothing in terms of obligations of the original author.