But isn't the Volume ID encrypted using a number of device keys? Whereby each player uses a device key to get at the volume ID. So the only way the Volume ID is going to be in plain is if the HDDVD can actually be read by the XBox 360. If every XBOx 360 key is revoked, then they'll have to flash a different player's chip. If every key is revoked, then they'll actually end up with a secure anti-copy mechanism. The only downside being that no payer will play the disc.
Yeah. Of course he did. I would have made a map of my school if I had the patience and the tools. It's not about wanting to shoot up the school. It's about playing in a realistic environment that you know well.
Hell, if the school is concerned, then ask the kid to see the counseller or something. They'll have a chat, realise the kid's harmless and apart from a minor irritation caused, nobody gets harmed. Instead they decide to send him to a school where they throw all the juveniles and undesirables.
If you're one of the endless little "Slashdot is dead, go to digg" trolls that reply to stories every now & again, I (and the rest of slashdot) would like to say: "Fuck You".
But that's Digg's purpose! Haven't you noticed since Digg started that Slashdot has improved? All the whiney brats and morons go to Digg. These days it's possible to say something poisitive on Slashdot about Microsoft, and get a few intelligent responses.
In comparison to Digg's censorship, slashdot has the hex key as a story tag.
Very true. Whatever criticism I've had of Slashdot, they have always been extremely anti-censorship.
The takedown notices may well be wrong
on
Censoring a Number
·
· Score: 1
"09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" is a key. It's a slight stretch to suggest that it's a device used for the decryption of an HD-DVD. Certainly it's a component, but so is a computer and the decryption algorithm. And like this number, they all have a lot of potential other uses. The takedown notices merely state that the MPAA believes that this infringes their copyright.
Anyone who wants to send a counter notice can have their number restored to the web. The MPAA would then have to sue them to remove it entirely. This would be a difficult, expensive and really quite difficult legal case that would get them nothing. They'd have to sue everybody. I doubt that the court would award them damages.
So anyone who has their number removed should file a counter notice. See the MPAA squirm.
Traditionally, there's been a bit more consideration for basic concepts of freedom and privacy from the politicians. God knows what happened to them.
But a written constutiton wouldn't help. If we adopted the US constitution, what is there that would prevent them from doing exactly what they're doing? Does any constitution protect from government invasiveness sufficiently? I don't think so but I think that will be a big thing after the next major revolt.
They made about a billion dollars so far. So presumably they expect to make the same amount again from their existing codebase. That's about the only part that seems not entirely unreasonable.
Somehow, now that this code has been "stolen", they are unable to make another penny from it. Anything they would have made will go to the new possessor of the code.
From the other comments, I'm clearly not the only one who thinks this makes no sense. For this to be worth that much, the code, and the code alone would have to be the sole reason people were playing the game. Marketting made no difference, content made no difference, game design made no difference. People were only interested in the game engine. And now that another company has it, people are going to choose the other company in preference.
Sure, the code isn't worthless. Knowing how a successful project works can save a lot of time, but the competitive advantage this gives isn't going to be anywhere near the order of magnitude suggested. We're talkng tens of thousands of dollars. Not a billion!
It's always been a sort of vague mass of largely compatible concepts. Some people like getting free software. Some people want to have the freedom to modify it. Some see it as an ideal. Some see it as a business opportunity. Some just have an idelogical opposition to entrenched monopolies. It doesn't really matter.
free software has never been opposed to commercial software, and neither has the related concept of Open source. The FSF just wants to ensure people are freeish. They like commercial involvement because it validates the concept.
Nope. "Person" includes comercial entities in this context. If they said "natural person" then there would be a difference because that only includes people.
How about people living on remote farms? Do they have a polling place within 200 meters?
What proportion of the nation's 18-34 year olds live on remote farms? The needs of the few people who aren't about that distance from a polling station can be considered separately, along with disabled people, and those unable to be present on the day.
20 years is a lifetime in technology terms. It took less than that for practical nulear fission from the first nuclear reactor. 20 years before sputnik, rocketry was a fe hobbyists causing bangs.
Look at it this way - pHd students who will be working on that generation are about 10 years old right now.
Alternatively, you upgrade the more sensible way - look at your computer needs, look to see what's causing a bottleneck currently and upgrade that. Much more cost-effective than just replacing a CPU and hoping you see a benefit.
Yup. I've used a lot of machines that are slow because they're constantly using virtual memory. More machines are slowed down by lack of RAM than lack of CPU speed these days.
Almost all of those 1.5 million people who had to use these machines would have had to have intended to vote for François Bayrou and had their vote cast for Ségolène Royal for this to have affected the result in any meaningful way.
While this is hardly a good thing, at least the officials were sensible enough to try a limitted approach rather than impose new voting machines on every single voter without a little testing first.
This is a good piece of technology, and the improvements over a barcode are clear. But the problem is there just isn't a need for it. Anyone who uses ordinary barcodes is already equipped and setup to handle everything based on just a unique ID number. This can easily be sent to a central database, and considerably more data can be added. As a replacement, it's worthless.
So the idea is that we'll scan it using our digital cameras. Well, it might work. I can't really see how this is more convenient than Google if you want to go to the website.
And marketting people really need to learnt that theinternet is not television. You need to give people a reason to go to your website. They're not likely to just to download what amounts to the latest ads.
They currenlty use the "razor" business model where you sell the item at a loss and make the money on the consumables.
There is an alternative.
You sell the item at a profit, and make money on the item. This is called selling stuff. It's been highly profitable for quite a lot of companies. I believe only last week I bought a table based on this innovative concept.
If Microsoft increase their prices, sales will fall. So they're going to choose a price that maximises their profits.
Whether they have to pay for development, litigation, or gold plated toilet brushes in the executive washroom, the price remains the same.
I mean, seriously, does anyone think, for a second, that if Microsoft didn't have to pay this, the price of Widnnows would fall by $12.50 a copy? Of course not. The extra $21.50 would be pumped back into Microsoft.
Seriously, competition is a good thing, and it's a pretty level playing field. MS can sell their software for a failry small amount and try to make a profit. Even in the countries this is aimed at, the price tag is fairly small, so pricewise, its competitive as long as Windows can offer something that Linux can't. It offers choice. Choice is usually good, and we're a long way from guarenteeing another MS monopoly here.
Of course, it's not that good. The version that MS is offering isn't exactly feature rich or better than the default OS in any discernable way, but if people want to spend some money on an inferior OS then let them.
I mean clearly this is the major problem with the system. That and they need to standardise whether it's pronounced paytent or a pattent. Also the stadard font used on patent application forms needs to be made slightly nicer and the layout more aesthtically pleasing.
But the ability to patent a trivial modifiation to an existing idea, patent trolls, and the fact that in many cases patents retrict innovation aren't reall important are they?
What!? people want to spend as little as possible?
My god! This is awful. I mean it's not as though Microsoft want to charge aas much as possible for their stuff.
And it's not like anyone was forcing anyone to buy the software in the first place, unlike the bastards holding a gun to Microsoft's head forcing them to write Operating systems.
Can you see a "contact us" link? An email address? A telephone number? Any means to contact them to tell them what you think? There's a support email address buried in the help section but that's all.
A more consumer oriented company like Apple have a contact us link on the main page. Gives corporate address, a feedback form for the website, product feedback, technical support contacts and corporate contacts.
But I don't understand it. Companies pay a fortune for market research, and here are people willing to go out of their way to provide it for free. they should be listening.
DRM will always cause problems with some older players that aren't designed to handle it. The industry has decided that they should warn their customers with a clear label that the DVD may not play on DVD branded equipment. The label looks something like this
Uhm. Apparently nothing stops you. All the ripping tools seem to work.
I'm not quite sure what the improved DRM does to protect them. Maybe it means that if someone does a bit-for-bit copy it isn't going to work or something but cracking these is so easy I'd be surprised if anyone does that. Most of the pirate DVDs I've seen are either cheap DVD-R copies, or are so well presented that the extra work of decrypting them would be trivial.
There were a few titles affected, and a couple of them were major releases.
But who complains to the publishers? I tried to find a number or email address ro anything to complain about the stupid anti-piracy ad at the start of DVDs but the contact details are pretty hard to find (Which is strange. I'd have thought they'd like to know when they're irrritating their customers). It's a lot easier to just take it back to the shop.
Slashdot Mirror
But isn't the Volume ID encrypted using a number of device keys? Whereby each player uses a device key to get at the volume ID. So the only way the Volume ID is going to be in plain is if the HDDVD can actually be read by the XBox 360. If every XBOx 360 key is revoked, then they'll have to flash a different player's chip. If every key is revoked, then they'll actually end up with a secure anti-copy mechanism. The only downside being that no payer will play the disc.
Yeah. Of course he did. I would have made a map of my school if I had the patience and the tools. It's not about wanting to shoot up the school. It's about playing in a realistic environment that you know well.
Hell, if the school is concerned, then ask the kid to see the counseller or something. They'll have a chat, realise the kid's harmless and apart from a minor irritation caused, nobody gets harmed. Instead they decide to send him to a school where they throw all the juveniles and undesirables.
It seems unlikely to have crashed in such a way that a data recovery specialist would be unableto get most of the data back.
But whatever the case - there is a useful lesson here. Make sure your backups are backing something up.
If you're one of the endless little "Slashdot is dead, go to digg" trolls that reply to stories every now & again, I (and the rest of slashdot) would like to say: "Fuck You".
But that's Digg's purpose! Haven't you noticed since Digg started that Slashdot has improved? All the whiney brats and morons go to Digg. These days it's possible to say something poisitive on Slashdot about Microsoft, and get a few intelligent responses.
In comparison to Digg's censorship, slashdot has the hex key as a story tag.
Very true. Whatever criticism I've had of Slashdot, they have always been extremely anti-censorship.
"09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" is a key. It's a slight stretch to suggest that it's a device used for the decryption of an HD-DVD. Certainly it's a component, but so is a computer and the decryption algorithm. And like this number, they all have a lot of potential other uses. The takedown notices merely state that the MPAA believes that this infringes their copyright.
Anyone who wants to send a counter notice can have their number restored to the web. The MPAA would then have to sue them to remove it entirely. This would be a difficult, expensive and really quite difficult legal case that would get them nothing. They'd have to sue everybody. I doubt that the court would award them damages.
So anyone who has their number removed should file a counter notice. See the MPAA squirm.
Traditionally, there's been a bit more consideration for basic concepts of freedom and privacy from the politicians. God knows what happened to them.
But a written constutiton wouldn't help. If we adopted the US constitution, what is there that would prevent them from doing exactly what they're doing? Does any constitution protect from government invasiveness sufficiently? I don't think so but I think that will be a big thing after the next major revolt.
They made about a billion dollars so far. So presumably they expect to make the same amount again from their existing codebase. That's about the only part that seems not entirely unreasonable.
Somehow, now that this code has been "stolen", they are unable to make another penny from it. Anything they would have made will go to the new possessor of the code.
From the other comments, I'm clearly not the only one who thinks this makes no sense. For this to be worth that much, the code, and the code alone would have to be the sole reason people were playing the game. Marketting made no difference, content made no difference, game design made no difference. People were only interested in the game engine. And now that another company has it, people are going to choose the other company in preference.
Sure, the code isn't worthless. Knowing how a successful project works can save a lot of time, but the competitive advantage this gives isn't going to be anywhere near the order of magnitude suggested. We're talkng tens of thousands of dollars. Not a billion!
It's always been a sort of vague mass of largely compatible concepts. Some people like getting free software. Some people want to have the freedom to modify it. Some see it as an ideal. Some see it as a business opportunity. Some just have an idelogical opposition to entrenched monopolies. It doesn't really matter.
free software has never been opposed to commercial software, and neither has the related concept of Open source. The FSF just wants to ensure people are freeish. They like commercial involvement because it validates the concept.
Nope. "Person" includes comercial entities in this context. If they said "natural person" then there would be a difference because that only includes people.
How about people living on remote farms? Do they have a polling place within 200 meters?
What proportion of the nation's 18-34 year olds live on remote farms? The needs of the few people who aren't about that distance from a polling station can be considered separately, along with disabled people, and those unable to be present on the day.
20 years is a lifetime in technology terms. It took less than that for practical nulear fission from the first nuclear reactor. 20 years before sputnik, rocketry was a fe hobbyists causing bangs.
Look at it this way - pHd students who will be working on that generation are about 10 years old right now.
Alternatively, you upgrade the more sensible way - look at your computer needs, look to see what's causing a bottleneck currently and upgrade that. Much more cost-effective than just replacing a CPU and hoping you see a benefit.
Yup. I've used a lot of machines that are slow because they're constantly using virtual memory. More machines are slowed down by lack of RAM than lack of CPU speed these days.
Almost all of those 1.5 million people who had to use these machines would have had to have intended to vote for François Bayrou and had their vote cast for Ségolène Royal for this to have affected the result in any meaningful way.
While this is hardly a good thing, at least the officials were sensible enough to try a limitted approach rather than impose new voting machines on every single voter without a little testing first.
This is a good piece of technology, and the improvements over a barcode are clear. But the problem is there just isn't a need for it. Anyone who uses ordinary barcodes is already equipped and setup to handle everything based on just a unique ID number. This can easily be sent to a central database, and considerably more data can be added. As a replacement, it's worthless.
So the idea is that we'll scan it using our digital cameras. Well, it might work. I can't really see how this is more convenient than Google if you want to go to the website.
And marketting people really need to learnt that theinternet is not television. You need to give people a reason to go to your website. They're not likely to just to download what amounts to the latest ads.
People are still buying printers. Why do you think the demand will suddenly go down when the incentive to make them last disappears?
They currenlty use the "razor" business model where you sell the item at a loss and make the money on the consumables.
There is an alternative.
You sell the item at a profit, and make money on the item. This is called selling stuff. It's been highly profitable for quite a lot of companies. I believe only last week I bought a table based on this innovative concept.
If Microsoft increase their prices, sales will fall. So they're going to choose a price that maximises their profits.
Whether they have to pay for development, litigation, or gold plated toilet brushes in the executive washroom, the price remains the same.
I mean, seriously, does anyone think, for a second, that if Microsoft didn't have to pay this, the price of Widnnows would fall by $12.50 a copy? Of course not. The extra $21.50 would be pumped back into Microsoft.
Seriously, competition is a good thing, and it's a pretty level playing field. MS can sell their software for a failry small amount and try to make a profit. Even in the countries this is aimed at, the price tag is fairly small, so pricewise, its competitive as long as Windows can offer something that Linux can't. It offers choice. Choice is usually good, and we're a long way from guarenteeing another MS monopoly here.
Of course, it's not that good. The version that MS is offering isn't exactly feature rich or better than the default OS in any discernable way, but if people want to spend some money on an inferior OS then let them.
I mean clearly this is the major problem with the system. That and they need to standardise whether it's pronounced paytent or a pattent. Also the stadard font used on patent application forms needs to be made slightly nicer and the layout more aesthtically pleasing.
But the ability to patent a trivial modifiation to an existing idea, patent trolls, and the fact that in many cases patents retrict innovation aren't reall important are they?
What!? people want to spend as little as possible?
My god! This is awful. I mean it's not as though Microsoft want to charge aas much as possible for their stuff.
And it's not like anyone was forcing anyone to buy the software in the first place, unlike the bastards holding a gun to Microsoft's head forcing them to write Operating systems.
You didn't really think they include what consumers think in any of their decisions, do you?
I've bitched about this earlier. You're quite right. They don't care. this is Sony pictures' Web site.
Can you see a "contact us" link? An email address? A telephone number? Any means to contact them to tell them what you think? There's a support email address buried in the help section but that's all.
A more consumer oriented company like Apple have a contact us link on the main page. Gives corporate address, a feedback form for the website, product feedback, technical support contacts and corporate contacts.
But I don't understand it. Companies pay a fortune for market research, and here are people willing to go out of their way to provide it for free. they should be listening.
DRM will always cause problems with some older players that aren't designed to handle it. The industry has decided that they should warn their customers with a clear label that the DVD may not play on DVD branded equipment. The label looks something like this
I emailed Fox about the logic of putting their "Piracy Is A Crime" video at the front of every DVD (a video which is impossible to skip through)
Phone their anti-piracy hotline to complain.
Don't know if it will help, but the way I figure it, if they want to waste my time, I'm going to be petty and waste theirs.
Uhm. Apparently nothing stops you. All the ripping tools seem to work.
I'm not quite sure what the improved DRM does to protect them. Maybe it means that if someone does a bit-for-bit copy it isn't going to work or something but cracking these is so easy I'd be surprised if anyone does that. Most of the pirate DVDs I've seen are either cheap DVD-R copies, or are so well presented that the extra work of decrypting them would be trivial.
There were a few titles affected, and a couple of them were major releases.
But who complains to the publishers? I tried to find a number or email address ro anything to complain about the stupid anti-piracy ad at the start of DVDs but the contact details are pretty hard to find (Which is strange. I'd have thought they'd like to know when they're irrritating their customers). It's a lot easier to just take it back to the shop.