The difference is, that in an OS or an encryption algorithm, errors leads to insecurity. Obscurity makes it harder to find the error for both sides.
I disagree, DeCSS is a prime example of how security through obscurity just doesn't work. There is always a better reverse engineer than you out there. There are cheats for the games that are out there right now because of reverse engineers. If the games were open source and popular enough there would be groups of coders right now working on ways to prevent cheating, because they want a fair honest game. I believe that open source games could have a strong advantage over closed source games, if they are done correctly. Now just what is correctly? Only time will tell!!:)
But isn't this the same old security through obscurity issue that we've talked about time and time again on./? It leads me to think that the game will have LESS cheating because any time that someone finds a cheat one of the great coding honest players will patch the cheat and give the update back to Nevrax. The only good security is open security, just like the only good encryption is a published equation. Just because everyone has the source to linux doesn't mean that it is less secure than Windoze.. and in fact some would argue that it is much more secure..
I believe that everquest is run on a very distributed system.. Somewhere on the www.everquest.com webpage they stated that there is around 15 computers per eq 'server' and they have 1000's of computers total running in their server farm. In fact the context of the post was how amazing it is that it only takes them 8 hours to patch the 1000's of servers and update the game.
Of course, this type of system already exists. Remember Cruise missiles doing their thing in downtown Baghdad? This leads me to conclude that the US military has something else in mind for their new unmanned aircraft, such as on-station patrolling for mobile forces, or something along those lines that can't be handled by a stationary target finder...
I'm willing to bet that an unmanned craft that drops a few cheap bombs and lives to serve another day is much much cheaper than a cruise missle. The motivation is probably to create a 'reusable' cruise missle (i.e. an unmanned craft that drops bombs) and save tons of money. I would be rather upset if my expensive missle delivery device was a one time use item (such as the tomahawk). *Shrug* just a guess, but it seems the logical step.
Maybe another route would be a cruise missle that just delivers a 'warhead' type payload and returns home. Sorta a big roaming acurate cluster bomb that flys back home after destroying it's target. But then again there really isn't much different between a return cruise missle and an unmanned plane.
The human pulling the trigger from remote thing sounds a bit like fluff to me. Probably pretty much only consists of a human pushing a button telling a squadron of these things it's okay to drop the bombs. I doubt that it has anything like 1 person per unit. It sounds more like a comfort the civilian thing as in: "Don't worry, there is no risk of these things deciding to attack New York; after all, a human has to pull the trigger."
It certainly has been decided, and reverse engineering is legal, if it is directed at producing a compatible application. Reverse engineering aimed at stealing somebody else's intellectual property is not legal, and this case looks to be decidedly an example of the latter.
Out of mild curiosity.. where is the line drawn?.. because to me it looks as if they are Reverse engineering to produce a compatible application...
Well said. Best case scenario, Transmeta makes a zero power processor. That just moves the power bottleneck from the processor to something else (the screen, most likely).
When I was working on handhelds, the screen was the power bottleneck already. Processors are bad, but LCD screens (mainly the LCD backlight) and I am willing to bet Hard Drives (we used much lower power/higher cost solid state drives) take more power than the Processor (not to mention CD-ROMS and Floppy drives). So with such a large amount of power consumption, can a lower power processor really make that big of a difference?
Some quick math suggests that their bandwidth usage probably isn't as high as you'd think: 2e7 pages per month times 1e5 bits per page (rough guess) gives about 2e12 bits per month. Since a month is about 2e6 seconds, that's of order 1e6 bits per second, or roughly T1 speed. Putting banner ads on their pages could wind up greatly increasing their outbound bandwidth
You assumed uniform usage. You don't account for usage peaks and valley's. I doubt seriously your math reflects the real world bandwith usage of Google.:)
Well, AOL itself didn't release the software. IIRC, the software was released by Nullsoft (the authors of Winamp). AOL found out about the software and had it pulled. Therefore, I reiterate, AOL should be in the clear. If anyone would be liable, it would be Nullsoft in my eyes.
Now I understand where your confusion lies.. take a long hard look at who owns Nullsoft. AOL is responisble for their subsidiaries just like any other company. If New York decided to invade Canada, do you think Canada would blame just the people who live in New York? Or do you think they would blame the USA?:)
So long as there are TCP/IP PORTS, there will be ways to transfer files. Unless Sony plans on suing every ISP that uses a TCP/IP based internet out of existance in favor of ones that use another protocal
I think you forget Sony's master vision. They want to replace pc's with net appliances.. these net appliances will be closed hardware. It is already illegal to reverse engineer them. In Sony's world we can't just write a GUI app to move MP3's around the net, because you have to be a Sony licensed developer to develop for their appliance. Their plan is, if you offer the average person a device that does everything a computer can do, only with the ease of use of a VCR, the PC market will go away. Take a long hard look at the PS2. In Sony's world they will easily stop Napster and Gnutella because we all run little Sony black boxes. The sick part is, it has a chance to work. PS2 will be cheaper than a pc, if it can browse and check email it will take at least a little chunk of the PC market. Just a few products and a few years later Sony will have a good sized portion of the pc market. And it doesn't matter how many geeks boycott them, because in the end it's going to be the average user they are attempting to appeal to.
As well as I can tell, since AOL pulled the plug on the program shortly after it was posted (they should be able to prove this) then they should be in the clear.
That line of defense makes no sense.. think about it.. if I release poisonous gas in Times Square, then decide, three hours later, that I did the wrong thing and start handing out gas masks.. does that clear me for the 1000's I killed in the first place?.. How can you do something (make a program and release it publicly) then hours later decide nevermind (remove the link) and ever think that clears you of a thing... you still did the damage.. just because you later changed your mind doesn't make a bit of difference (I'm sorry that I killed your family but I relized what I did is wrong and I wont kill anymore so don't punish me okay?)...
Now the reality is that both the Napster and the Gnutella cases are bogus. It would be like suing the poisonous gas manufacturer because I (an independant third party) decided to kill people (instead of the intended victim: bugs) with the gas. So the cases are bogus, but not because AOL repented for their sins, but because they never sined in the first place.. I'm amazed the RIAA hasn't gone after whoever designed the FTP protocol (or HTTP for that matter) because it facilitates the transfer of illegal materials...
I think suing the RNA because they promote firearms is not more (or less) silly than suing 2600 because it promotes DeCSS
I'm sure that the NRA has at least one link from their page to the page of a gun manufacturer, which the 2600 case seems to imply that linking to a place to buy a gun is as bad as selling a gun.
Sure, they are only in the business of leasing planes, but if they know what is going on and just ignore it and pretend they are ignorant, that is just plain unethical and they should be called on it. It's at least a gray area.
By that argument someone had better start suing Honda, because I bought my car for the sole purpose of running down pedestrians.. and I told the Honda salesman when he sold me the car that I would not use it for transportation, only to run down pedestrians.. in no way did he attempt to stop me from purchasing the car..
For that matter it is time to sue Micro$haft for creating a product that can be used to pirate MP3's.. after all.. if it wasn't for Windoze there would be no Napster!:)
I'm glad you posted because apparently we spend our days the exact same way. I'm happy to know that A) I'm not the only person who spends his time lazing around and B) that I'm not the only one that feels guilty about it!!:)
I don't see: Cleopatra records, waxtrax! (but I think they are owned by TVT/Nothing now and that is one the list), Invisible records (Martin Atkins record label, some good bands like Pigface, RitalinRX (Nivek Ogres new band), and even Sheep On Drugs), or Netwerk (which is another good label)..
I hate to say it, but all mainstream "news" is is glorified gossip
I don't think you were the first.. didn't Thoreau say all news is gossip? Hence the 'drop out' approach to living (as in Walden)... According to literature mainstream media has always sacrificed accuracy to get the 'scoop'
Err, no. You obviously don't get it because you're spouting the same tired line about how copying music is stealing. It's not. Get your facts straight before going around spouting the IP world's propaganda.
I'm interested in what you just said.. but you gave no argument and no way to follow up on it.. if it isn't stealing what is it? I would definately like to learn the facts so if you could tell me why its not stealing and where I can go to verify I will definately follow up on it... thanks in advance!!
What about 3 or 4 levels of linking. I.E. 2600 links to my site, that links to bob's site that links to georges site that contains DeCSS.. As that reads 2600 CAN'T possibly link to any other web page in fear that one of those web pages could link to someone who links to someone that shows the DeCSS. After all, couldn't it be said that the entire internet is linked in some form. What if 2600's router routes a packet from one third party to another third party that contains DeCSS...
I guess it comes down to exactly what the word 'publish' and the word 'describes' mean.
But what happens when my PC is stolen and the RIAA finds all my songs I purchased on the net? Or now I have DSL and my computer is cracked and I never even know about it. There are too many outs for the RIAA to really think this is a way to secure music..
Slashdot Mirror
The real question here is.. did you even look at the sight?.. it encodes nothing like that..
I disagree, DeCSS is a prime example of how security through obscurity just doesn't work. There is always a better reverse engineer than you out there. There are cheats for the games that are out there right now because of reverse engineers. If the games were open source and popular enough there would be groups of coders right now working on ways to prevent cheating, because they want a fair honest game. I believe that open source games could have a strong advantage over closed source games, if they are done correctly. Now just what is correctly? Only time will tell!! :)
But isn't this the same old security through obscurity issue that we've talked about time and time again on ./? It leads me to think that the game will have LESS cheating because any time that someone finds a cheat one of the great coding honest players will patch the cheat and give the update back to Nevrax. The only good security is open security, just like the only good encryption is a published equation. Just because everyone has the source to linux doesn't mean that it is less secure than Windoze.. and in fact some would argue that it is much more secure..
I believe that everquest is run on a very distributed system.. Somewhere on the www.everquest.com webpage they stated that there is around 15 computers per eq 'server' and they have 1000's of computers total running in their server farm. In fact the context of the post was how amazing it is that it only takes them 8 hours to patch the 1000's of servers and update the game.
I'm willing to bet that an unmanned craft that drops a few cheap bombs and lives to serve another day is much much cheaper than a cruise missle. The motivation is probably to create a 'reusable' cruise missle (i.e. an unmanned craft that drops bombs) and save tons of money. I would be rather upset if my expensive missle delivery device was a one time use item (such as the tomahawk). *Shrug* just a guess, but it seems the logical step.
Maybe another route would be a cruise missle that just delivers a 'warhead' type payload and returns home. Sorta a big roaming acurate cluster bomb that flys back home after destroying it's target. But then again there really isn't much different between a return cruise missle and an unmanned plane.
The human pulling the trigger from remote thing sounds a bit like fluff to me. Probably pretty much only consists of a human pushing a button telling a squadron of these things it's okay to drop the bombs. I doubt that it has anything like 1 person per unit. It sounds more like a comfort the civilian thing as in: "Don't worry, there is no risk of these things deciding to attack New York; after all, a human has to pull the trigger."
Damn, remind me not to post after smoking crack anymore, yup I meant Andromeda Strain. :)
Close.. it is the plot to a really good sci-fi book/movie... Amoeba Strain.. :)
Out of mild curiosity.. where is the line drawn?.. because to me it looks as if they are Reverse engineering to produce a compatible application...
When I was working on handhelds, the screen was the power bottleneck already. Processors are bad, but LCD screens (mainly the LCD backlight) and I am willing to bet Hard Drives (we used much lower power/higher cost solid state drives) take more power than the Processor (not to mention CD-ROMS and Floppy drives). So with such a large amount of power consumption, can a lower power processor really make that big of a difference?
You assumed uniform usage. You don't account for usage peaks and valley's. I doubt seriously your math reflects the real world bandwith usage of Google. :)
Now I understand where your confusion lies.. take a long hard look at who owns Nullsoft. AOL is responisble for their subsidiaries just like any other company. If New York decided to invade Canada, do you think Canada would blame just the people who live in New York? Or do you think they would blame the USA? :)
I think you forget Sony's master vision. They want to replace pc's with net appliances.. these net appliances will be closed hardware. It is already illegal to reverse engineer them. In Sony's world we can't just write a GUI app to move MP3's around the net, because you have to be a Sony licensed developer to develop for their appliance. Their plan is, if you offer the average person a device that does everything a computer can do, only with the ease of use of a VCR, the PC market will go away. Take a long hard look at the PS2. In Sony's world they will easily stop Napster and Gnutella because we all run little Sony black boxes. The sick part is, it has a chance to work. PS2 will be cheaper than a pc, if it can browse and check email it will take at least a little chunk of the PC market. Just a few products and a few years later Sony will have a good sized portion of the pc market. And it doesn't matter how many geeks boycott them, because in the end it's going to be the average user they are attempting to appeal to.
That line of defense makes no sense.. think about it.. if I release poisonous gas in Times Square, then decide, three hours later, that I did the wrong thing and start handing out gas masks.. does that clear me for the 1000's I killed in the first place?.. How can you do something (make a program and release it publicly) then hours later decide nevermind (remove the link) and ever think that clears you of a thing... you still did the damage.. just because you later changed your mind doesn't make a bit of difference (I'm sorry that I killed your family but I relized what I did is wrong and I wont kill anymore so don't punish me okay?)...
Now the reality is that both the Napster and the Gnutella cases are bogus. It would be like suing the poisonous gas manufacturer because I (an independant third party) decided to kill people (instead of the intended victim: bugs) with the gas. So the cases are bogus, but not because AOL repented for their sins, but because they never sined in the first place.. I'm amazed the RIAA hasn't gone after whoever designed the FTP protocol (or HTTP for that matter) because it facilitates the transfer of illegal materials...
I'm sure that the NRA has at least one link from their page to the page of a gun manufacturer, which the 2600 case seems to imply that linking to a place to buy a gun is as bad as selling a gun.
By that argument someone had better start suing Honda, because I bought my car for the sole purpose of running down pedestrians.. and I told the Honda salesman when he sold me the car that I would not use it for transportation, only to run down pedestrians.. in no way did he attempt to stop me from purchasing the car..
For that matter it is time to sue Micro$haft for creating a product that can be used to pirate MP3's.. after all.. if it wasn't for Windoze there would be no Napster! :)
I didn't know my manager read slashdot! What are you doing here? :) (that was a joke btw)..
I'm glad you posted because apparently we spend our days the exact same way. I'm happy to know that A) I'm not the only person who spends his time lazing around and B) that I'm not the only one that feels guilty about it!! :)
When did we start talking about the American Revolutionary war? :)
Perhaps that will help out?
I don't think you were the first.. didn't Thoreau say all news is gossip? Hence the 'drop out' approach to living (as in Walden)... According to literature mainstream media has always sacrificed accuracy to get the 'scoop'
I think you are confusing jokes with reality! :)
I'm interested in what you just said.. but you gave no argument and no way to follow up on it.. if it isn't stealing what is it? I would definately like to learn the facts so if you could tell me why its not stealing and where I can go to verify I will definately follow up on it... thanks in advance!!
I guess it comes down to exactly what the word 'publish' and the word 'describes' mean.
But what happens when my PC is stolen and the RIAA finds all my songs I purchased on the net? Or now I have DSL and my computer is cracked and I never even know about it. There are too many outs for the RIAA to really think this is a way to secure music..
Read Asimov's "I, Robot"