I'm sorry. I thought the suggestion in the GP was that Media Defender were breaching copyright by offering files that they claimed were copyrighted files.
This is a bit like if a company claims to be distributing copyrighted files that they don't have rights to and they're actually distributing dummy files.
My position is simply that the RIAA are evil on account of behaving in a manner that causes disproportionate harm for their own benefit. I think they're evil even f supported by the law, and even if the populace have the power to change the law. I'd consider them evil whether they lost or won. They're attempting to violate human rights by making people indebted to them for life.
If someone was sold into slavery, even if they knew their actions would result in that, and even if it was legal, I'd consider anyone who bought them to be breaching their human rights as well.
I don't think I was offering an alternative solution, apart from the record labels should push for damages that are related to the damage caused.
It's not a fine. It's compensation for damages to the record industry's sales.
Should people really expect to be charged a ridiculous amount - hundreds of times the damage they cold possibly have caused - based on a law that was intended to deal with large scale industrial piracy? Surely most people expect the punishment to fit the crime and for damages to be reasonable.
And given that the media industry were the ones who lobbied for these laws, and they're the ones who bring lawsuits based on them, then I'm damn well going to hold them responsible still. Just because you have the power to ruin someone's life does not oblige you to do so in retribution.
Not exactly, but threatening a lawsuit that will result in someone owing money to them for the rest of their life is a little too close to indentured servitude for my liking.
I'm as confused as you are. The complete absence of any sort of order of events makes things more confusing.
Things I'm fairly sure of. Revision3 had a security hole. MediaDefender saw the security hole, and seeded it with fake files. Revision3 noticed these fake files and disconnected them. As a result, MediaDefender - either due to misconfigured servers or malice - DOSed Revision3.
Not sure if pirates were using the security hole. It would seem a bit pointless given that there are plenty of pretty open torrent sites.
Also not quite sure how MediaDefender can defend their initial actions. This seems to be pretty clearly hacking. Exploiting a security hole in another machine to gain access is generally enough regardless of whether there was any further malicious intent.
They're not selling drugs! It's up to the copyright holder whether to prosecute for copyright infringement and they have a lot more leeway to be arbitrary about their decisions than the police or government. Media defender is acting with the (possibly implied) permission of the copyright holders. The people running trackers are not.
One of his books has a character called "Horselover Fat", which is apparently a translation of his name. Philip is derived from Philoppos - a greek name meaning lover of horses, and Dick is German for Fat. I think he was probably okay with his name.
You really think they're going to respond to hundred of false positives caused by nervous flyers, people anxious about being late, and mildly irritable people? Perhaps they'll actually test it based on typical traveller behaviour rather than making wild guesses. And perhaps they'll use actual sensible precautions such as getting a human to observe any flagged passenger.
Honestly - I doubt this will work, but I don't expect a lot of privacy crammed with a couple of hundred other people on a plane.
Seems like it's a webcam (per passenger) and a computer (only need one. It can do the analysis on a round robin basis if need be). It's not a lot of additional weight to a 300 ton plane.
Microsoft makes software. Google provides a web service. Microsoft has presence in the web services industry, but it's an area Microsoft do not control. Google is an obstacle, not a threat.
When a law makes the majority of the population criminal (or infringers), it's time to rethink the law.
Well, it's not actually criminal, although it would probably benefit them if it was. The potential penalties would probably be smaller and the burden of proof higher.
But that's where I see the problem. The penalties are vast! Far higher than the harm caused. Would you feel any sympathy for these people (assuming they're actually infringing) if they faced a $100 fine? It would work well as a deterrent without crippling people.
No. I'm saying we should. Sorry. Read it as '...the "loophole" seems to be...". i.e. it's not a loophole so much as a belief from the government that having to prove guilt of actual crimes is too hard, so they make related acts illegal as well.
Yes. I've tried. They look like a computer modified version of a photo. At the very best, they look like someone was actually posing for the portrait, which - in the case of child porn - would be just as bad as photography.
Can you show me an example of a photograph being converted into a computer generated image that is not obviously based on a photograph? I assume the same technique works for clothed adults so there ought to be a SIGGRAPH paper on it or a photoshop tutorial depending on how complex it is.
I agree. Was using 2K for years before I got XP. Boot times were slow but apart from that it was pretty good, and seemed to run all my applications quite happily. Much more compatible with Win95 than XP, and there was very little that required XP.
The loophole seems to be that we require proof that people are causing harm to convict someone. Images that may have been manipulated mean a possibility that the person did harm. Drawings mean that the person could be capable of doing harm.
Google's "next" and "previous" links may be considered a conveyor belt slide show.
On the other hand, it appears that this is a patent for a slightly different technology, where it's a standard web search, seeking pages, but along with (optionally) the summary text, there's an image of the company logo and other images from the linked-to page.
But yeah - the manager didn't know who owned the XBox, but surely he would assume that a toy used for breaks was owned by one of the IT guys.
If there is a real story, it's more likely to be some guy installed Linux on an XBox. Someone figured that they might as well use that for something. A manager asked why they had an XBox in the server room. But that would make a dull story wouldn't it?
Encrypting RAM will add to the price, decrease the speed, and get the computer manufacturers nothing. But directly accessing those is going to be way too much hassle anyway.
But surely this is vulnerable to something like a man in the middle attack. Run the OS in a virtual machine. The VM can inspect any part of memory of machine it's emulating. Any contact with the CPU can be emulated by the VM (because it has access to the CPU). That's the hard way.
The easy way is to get access to the unencrypted version of the game.
Slashdot Mirror
How does this make things clearer? Is this a situation that happens on a regular basis that we all know how to deal with?
I'm sorry. I thought the suggestion in the GP was that Media Defender were breaching copyright by offering files that they claimed were copyrighted files.
This is a bit like if a company claims to be distributing copyrighted files that they don't have rights to and they're actually distributing dummy files.
My position is simply that the RIAA are evil on account of behaving in a manner that causes disproportionate harm for their own benefit. I think they're evil even f supported by the law, and even if the populace have the power to change the law. I'd consider them evil whether they lost or won. They're attempting to violate human rights by making people indebted to them for life.
If someone was sold into slavery, even if they knew their actions would result in that, and even if it was legal, I'd consider anyone who bought them to be breaching their human rights as well.
I don't think I was offering an alternative solution, apart from the record labels should push for damages that are related to the damage caused.
It's not a fine. It's compensation for damages to the record industry's sales.
Should people really expect to be charged a ridiculous amount - hundreds of times the damage they cold possibly have caused - based on a law that was intended to deal with large scale industrial piracy? Surely most people expect the punishment to fit the crime and for damages to be reasonable.
And given that the media industry were the ones who lobbied for these laws, and they're the ones who bring lawsuits based on them, then I'm damn well going to hold them responsible still. Just because you have the power to ruin someone's life does not oblige you to do so in retribution.
They're not exactly selling people into slavery.
Not exactly, but threatening a lawsuit that will result in someone owing money to them for the rest of their life is a little too close to indentured servitude for my liking.
I'm as confused as you are. The complete absence of any sort of order of events makes things more confusing.
Things I'm fairly sure of. Revision3 had a security hole. MediaDefender saw the security hole, and seeded it with fake files. Revision3 noticed these fake files and disconnected them. As a result, MediaDefender - either due to misconfigured servers or malice - DOSed Revision3.
Not sure if pirates were using the security hole. It would seem a bit pointless given that there are plenty of pretty open torrent sites.
Also not quite sure how MediaDefender can defend their initial actions. This seems to be pretty clearly hacking. Exploiting a security hole in another machine to gain access is generally enough regardless of whether there was any further malicious intent.
They're not selling drugs! It's up to the copyright holder whether to prosecute for copyright infringement and they have a lot more leeway to be arbitrary about their decisions than the police or government. Media defender is acting with the (possibly implied) permission of the copyright holders. The people running trackers are not.
I think the view is that it should be easier for immigrants to come to the US legally.
One of his books has a character called "Horselover Fat", which is apparently a translation of his name. Philip is derived from Philoppos - a greek name meaning lover of horses, and Dick is German for Fat. I think he was probably okay with his name.
You really think they're going to respond to hundred of false positives caused by nervous flyers, people anxious about being late, and mildly irritable people? Perhaps they'll actually test it based on typical traveller behaviour rather than making wild guesses. And perhaps they'll use actual sensible precautions such as getting a human to observe any flagged passenger.
Honestly - I doubt this will work, but I don't expect a lot of privacy crammed with a couple of hundred other people on a plane.
1. How much does all of this equipment weigh?
Seems like it's a webcam (per passenger) and a computer (only need one. It can do the analysis on a round robin basis if need be). It's not a lot of additional weight to a 300 ton plane.
Microsoft makes software. Google provides a web service. Microsoft has presence in the web services industry, but it's an area Microsoft do not control. Google is an obstacle, not a threat.
When a law makes the majority of the population criminal (or infringers), it's time to rethink the law.
Well, it's not actually criminal, although it would probably benefit them if it was. The potential penalties would probably be smaller and the burden of proof higher.
But that's where I see the problem. The penalties are vast! Far higher than the harm caused. Would you feel any sympathy for these people (assuming they're actually infringing) if they faced a $100 fine? It would work well as a deterrent without crippling people.
No. I'm saying we should. Sorry. Read it as '...the "loophole" seems to be...". i.e. it's not a loophole so much as a belief from the government that having to prove guilt of actual crimes is too hard, so they make related acts illegal as well.
Yes. I've tried. They look like a computer modified version of a photo. At the very best, they look like someone was actually posing for the portrait, which - in the case of child porn - would be just as bad as photography.
Is this possible?
Can you show me an example of a photograph being converted into a computer generated image that is not obviously based on a photograph? I assume the same technique works for clothed adults so there ought to be a SIGGRAPH paper on it or a photoshop tutorial depending on how complex it is.
The wording will be something along the lines of "anyone who is, or appears to be"
I agree. Was using 2K for years before I got XP. Boot times were slow but apart from that it was pretty good, and seemed to run all my applications quite happily. Much more compatible with Win95 than XP, and there was very little that required XP.
The loophole seems to be that we require proof that people are causing harm to convict someone. Images that may have been manipulated mean a possibility that the person did harm. Drawings mean that the person could be capable of doing harm.
Ah. Suddenly it makes sense! Wicked Witch Security!
No, but each of them will only get a few cents. It's not worth the effort. The only reason it worked for this guy was that it was automated.
Google's "next" and "previous" links may be considered a conveyor belt slide show.
On the other hand, it appears that this is a patent for a slightly different technology, where it's a standard web search, seeking pages, but along with (optionally) the summary text, there's an image of the company logo and other images from the linked-to page.
You can rent games.
But yeah - the manager didn't know who owned the XBox, but surely he would assume that a toy used for breaks was owned by one of the IT guys.
If there is a real story, it's more likely to be some guy installed Linux on an XBox. Someone figured that they might as well use that for something. A manager asked why they had an XBox in the server room. But that would make a dull story wouldn't it?
But the game didn't work on unmodified consoles. That's pretty effective at preventing piracy.
Encrypting RAM will add to the price, decrease the speed, and get the computer manufacturers nothing. But directly accessing those is going to be way too much hassle anyway.
But surely this is vulnerable to something like a man in the middle attack. Run the OS in a virtual machine. The VM can inspect any part of memory of machine it's emulating. Any contact with the CPU can be emulated by the VM (because it has access to the CPU). That's the hard way.
The easy way is to get access to the unencrypted version of the game.