I never said that DeCSS was completely illedgitimate, I just said that it is not completely ledgitimate. It can be used for 'good' reasons (watching on linux) and 'bad' (copying illegaly.) I completely acknowledge that fact, I was just pointing out that many people seem to not.
But thank you for mindlessly repeating the anti-DMCA arguments. NOT THAT I DISAGREE WITH THEM, but you seemed to counter arguments I didn't make.
just a little afterthought. It's sad when everyone seems obligated to be completely for or completely against a topic, and when someone says anything interpreted as being for/against something, they are immediatly grouped with everyone else on the same 'side', and are immediatly thought to support whatever that side supports. I think that the MPAA is wrong in some points, and that the DeCSS supporters are wrong in some points too. But when I point out what I think are the flaws in the DeCSS argument, i'm immediatly treated as if I'm jack valenti himself. I think this is a problem endemic of the US as a whole, where most people are unwilling to actualy hear someone's beliefs, and would rather just lump them together with a bunch of other "pirates", "hackers", "terrorists".
Once more I find myself having to clarify that I never inteded to say that DeCSS has no ledgitimate use, I just wanted to say that DeCSS does have illedgitimate uses, and that most people seem to deny that those illedgitimate uses exist.
I agree i'm against the MPAA and all this, but I think it's important to make the right arguments against the MPAA and not make arguments that are just as ignorant of the real world as the MPAA's arguments.
But nobody denies the fact that crowbars and screwdrivers can be used to 'access content illegaly' (I think you meant something about breaking into cars?).
Maybe I made that statement a bit ambiguous. "DeCSS CAN be used for ripping dvds" and I didn't mean to say it had no ledgitimacy at all, I just meant to say that it's not the eiptome of perfect, good, just, infallable software. It can be used to pirate movies.
Arg, look. I got 6 or 7 replies stating basicly the same thing, so i'm only replying once.
I agree with all your points, it's just that the argument "DeCSS doesn't do bit-by-bit-copying, hence can't be for pirating" doesn't work.
and I AGREE WITH ALL OF YOU that there's no reason to punish the makers of the tool, but if we're going to argue for DeCSS as a ledgitimate tool, we have to use the right arguments, and I don't think that "anyone can do a bit-by-bit copy" is a good argument.
I think I really should repeate myself
I never said we should forbid P2P! I said that we should RECOGNIZE the fact that DeCSS has "bad" and "good" uses, just like we recognize that with p2p apps. Yes I know you can use
Oh and another reply said something about how decss was designed primarily so that you could play dvd's on linux. As far as the code goes, there's no difference between playing it on screen and converting it to another format. The code wasn't written to primarily do one or the other, it can do both.
Someone else replied saying that there are better programs for ripping dvds. Correct. But that has no bearing on the DeCSS case. Just cause everyone else is speeding on the highway doesn't mean you should too, and doesn't mean that the cops can't pull you over unless they pull everyone else over too.
Look, I know it, you know it, we all know what the MPAA doesn't like about DeCSS. It's not disc to disc copying, it's converting from dvd to something more easily transmited over the net. Divx.
You can argue about how DeCSS doesn't copy anything, but you all know it, DeCSS is used for ripping dvd's to vcd's and divx. We can keep living in la la land and pretend that DeCSS is perfectly ledgitimate, but it really isn't.
That doesn't mean I support the decision by the courts, I think code is speech too. It's just that i'm not willing to keep beliving in my argument just because the other side doesn't have the wording *exactly* right.
The article said they didn't think the vulnerability was exploited. What could have been a real problem with real victims in my opinion was avoided by him makeing this fuss about the issue, and getting the company's customers to demand the issue be fixed. If you really want to continue the fire metaphor, at least he threw the gas on the fire, thus causeing it to be extinguished, before someone else threw a gernade in.
2) The company was informed of this problem prior to the emails being sent out, and did nothing.
3) Our arrested subject in question did not inform the general public, he informed only patrons of said company, who could use this information to protect their privacy by switching ISPs.
But the analogy at the end is very good. Is the integrity of the bank's security impaired by them leaving the front door open, thus allowing armed robers entry, or is it impaired by someone informing *potentialy* armed robbers that they leave their doors open and you can walk in with a gun?
What's 'way beyond what normaly is done'? What I think is a very important part of this is that he didn't send a message to bugtraq or a few thousand random people, he only told the people who were affected by the issue. Once agin, if my email was with that ISP, I would appreciate his efforts, and I would close down my account and switch immediatly. Telling the company aparently didn't cause anything to change, and not doing anything and just hoping the problem would go away doesn't fix anything either.
Think about it. What do you want more, someone reading your email, or someone sending you an email saying that your email can be read by someone else? Ignorance simply doesn't make the world any safer.
Still, the point is that if I was a customer at said bank, I would very much like to see that sign and immediatly close my account with the bank and move to some place that will secure my money at least a bit. And I would personaly thank whoever posted this sign.
I agree, wireing up simple circuits to rooms in your house is not hard. You just run the romex, and stick in a new breaker. But this guy obviously has something a bit more complicated by that. And as I see it, the "hacker spirit" is more like "break it first, then learn about it by fixing it". In this case, that would be a very bad idea. A much better idea would be to just stare at it for a while, and figure out EXACTLY how everything works, and exactly how to NOT break it. Then, if you're sure you know exactly how what you're messing with works, and exactly what you're going to do to make it better, shut off the main breaker, and fix it. With power like this, you really don't want to have to do it a second time, cause you'll probably injure/burn/damage something.
I really don't know why you wouldn't get an electrician. Doing it yourself is just incompetent unless you've been doing similar stuff for a long time.
He's not angry about the 'mass-media' spotlight exactly, it's more he's angry that everyone is forgetting why the GNU project was started in the first place. I don't think he really likes the fact that few people understand "free speech, not beer fully, that the GNU project was started for social reasons, not financial resions. I very much agree with him.
The thing is, he's not building his own empire, he's demolishing the comercial software empire, the means of doing which you seem to see as an 'empire.'
The consumer will set the price when they choose whether or not to buy.
The whole problem with monopolies is that the consumer *does not* have a choice whether or not to buy, and hence does not set the price.
Touching on earlier threads, if MS was to set the price to 1000$, then the consumer would seriously be makeing a decision whether or not to buy windows. But as it is now, the consumer has very little choice. Hence the consumer does not set the price, hence MS sets the price,... potentialy hurting consumers.
He takes time to read the source, then debug the source, instead of calling a company for an update that exists because several customers have already had the same complaint.
He just has to go to the project's website and get the patch, because several users have already had the same complaint and one of them fixed it themself.
Closed source software responds better to the market that free software? yeah right.
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I misspelt his name. Markoff.
Content analysis details: (20 hits, 5 required)
AUTHOR_JOHN_MARKOV (20 points) Article written by John Markov
I never said that DeCSS was completely illedgitimate, I just said that it is not completely ledgitimate. It can be used for 'good' reasons (watching on linux) and 'bad' (copying illegaly.) I completely acknowledge that fact, I was just pointing out that many people seem to not.
But thank you for mindlessly repeating the anti-DMCA arguments. NOT THAT I DISAGREE WITH THEM, but you seemed to counter arguments I didn't make.
just a little afterthought. It's sad when everyone seems obligated to be completely for or completely against a topic, and when someone says anything interpreted as being for/against something, they are immediatly grouped with everyone else on the same 'side', and are immediatly thought to support whatever that side supports. I think that the MPAA is wrong in some points, and that the DeCSS supporters are wrong in some points too. But when I point out what I think are the flaws in the DeCSS argument, i'm immediatly treated as if I'm jack valenti himself. I think this is a problem endemic of the US as a whole, where most people are unwilling to actualy hear someone's beliefs, and would rather just lump them together with a bunch of other "pirates", "hackers", "terrorists".
Once more I find myself having to clarify that I never inteded to say that DeCSS has no ledgitimate use, I just wanted to say that DeCSS does have illedgitimate uses, and that most people seem to deny that those illedgitimate uses exist.
I agree i'm against the MPAA and all this, but I think it's important to make the right arguments against the MPAA and not make arguments that are just as ignorant of the real world as the MPAA's arguments.
But nobody denies the fact that crowbars and screwdrivers can be used to 'access content illegaly' (I think you meant something about breaking into cars?).
Maybe I made that statement a bit ambiguous. "DeCSS CAN be used for ripping dvds"
and I didn't mean to say it had no ledgitimacy at all, I just meant to say that it's not the eiptome of perfect, good, just, infallable software. It can be used to pirate movies.
Arg, look. I got 6 or 7 replies stating basicly the same thing, so i'm only replying once.
I agree with all your points, it's just that the argument "DeCSS doesn't do bit-by-bit-copying, hence can't be for pirating" doesn't work.
and I AGREE WITH ALL OF YOU that there's no reason to punish the makers of the tool, but if we're going to argue for DeCSS as a ledgitimate tool, we have to use the right arguments, and I don't think that "anyone can do a bit-by-bit copy" is a good argument.
I think I really should repeate myself
I never said we should forbid P2P! I said that we should RECOGNIZE the fact that DeCSS has "bad" and "good" uses, just like we recognize that with p2p apps. Yes I know you can use
Oh and another reply said something about how decss was designed primarily so that you could play dvd's on linux. As far as the code goes, there's no difference between playing it on screen and converting it to another format. The code wasn't written to primarily do one or the other, it can do both.
Someone else replied saying that there are better programs for ripping dvds. Correct. But that has no bearing on the DeCSS case. Just cause everyone else is speeding on the highway doesn't mean you should too, and doesn't mean that the cops can't pull you over unless they pull everyone else over too.
Look, I know it, you know it, we all know what the MPAA doesn't like about DeCSS. It's not disc to disc copying, it's converting from dvd to something more easily transmited over the net. Divx.
You can argue about how DeCSS doesn't copy anything, but you all know it, DeCSS is used for ripping dvd's to vcd's and divx. We can keep living in la la land and pretend that DeCSS is perfectly ledgitimate, but it really isn't.
That doesn't mean I support the decision by the courts, I think code is speech too. It's just that i'm not willing to keep beliving in my argument just because the other side doesn't have the wording *exactly* right.
That was just a general list of features! Does anything there actualy even suggest that the author actualy installed the OS?
This is about as newsworthy as the "Top universities" thing.
The article said they didn't think the vulnerability was exploited. What could have been a real problem with real victims in my opinion was avoided by him makeing this fuss about the issue, and getting the company's customers to demand the issue be fixed. If you really want to continue the fire metaphor, at least he threw the gas on the fire, thus causeing it to be extinguished, before someone else threw a gernade in.
I call BS on three points.
1) The company could DEFINITLY fix this problem.
2) The company was informed of this problem prior to the emails being sent out, and did nothing.
3) Our arrested subject in question did not inform the general public, he informed only patrons of said company, who could use this information to protect their privacy by switching ISPs.
But the analogy at the end is very good. Is the integrity of the bank's security impaired by them leaving the front door open, thus allowing armed robers entry, or is it impaired by someone informing *potentialy* armed robbers that they leave their doors open and you can walk in with a gun?
I think the difference here is not IT vs. other professions, it's corperations vs. people.
I'm really starting to question the relationship between 'the government', 'the corperations' and 'the people' anymore.
In SOVIET RUSSIA, would this problem have us?
What's 'way beyond what normaly is done'? What I think is a very important part of this is that he didn't send a message to bugtraq or a few thousand random people, he only told the people who were affected by the issue. Once agin, if my email was with that ISP, I would appreciate his efforts, and I would close down my account and switch immediatly. Telling the company aparently didn't cause anything to change, and not doing anything and just hoping the problem would go away doesn't fix anything either.
Think about it. What do you want more, someone reading your email, or someone sending you an email saying that your email can be read by someone else? Ignorance simply doesn't make the world any safer.
Still, the point is that if I was a customer at said bank, I would very much like to see that sign and immediatly close my account with the bank and move to some place that will secure my money at least a bit. And I would personaly thank whoever posted this sign.
Please point out where you determined he had the "intention of causing harm".
I agree, wireing up simple circuits to rooms in your house is not hard. You just run the romex, and stick in a new breaker. But this guy obviously has something a bit more complicated by that. And as I see it, the "hacker spirit" is more like "break it first, then learn about it by fixing it". In this case, that would be a very bad idea. A much better idea would be to just stare at it for a while, and figure out EXACTLY how everything works, and exactly how to NOT break it. Then, if you're sure you know exactly how what you're messing with works, and exactly what you're going to do to make it better, shut off the main breaker, and fix it. With power like this, you really don't want to have to do it a second time, cause you'll probably injure/burn/damage something.
I really don't know why you wouldn't get an electrician. Doing it yourself is just incompetent unless you've been doing similar stuff for a long time.
He's not angry about the 'mass-media' spotlight exactly, it's more he's angry that everyone is forgetting why the GNU project was started in the first place. I don't think he really likes the fact that few people understand "free speech, not beer fully, that the GNU project was started for social reasons, not financial resions. I very much agree with him.
The thing is, he's not building his own empire, he's demolishing the comercial software empire, the means of doing which you seem to see as an 'empire.'
Sounds like something right out of Snowcrash.
I believe he was refering to people who run SETI without their employer's permission getting fired for doing so, as it now may be more of a problem.
John Markoff?
Hmmmm.
This just makes me want to go bury some CD-R's in a wood. Reminds me of cryptonomicon. Anyone got any tips for data burial?
Absolutly Perfect.
... potentialy hurting consumers.
The consumer will set the price when they choose whether or not to buy.
The whole problem with monopolies is that the consumer *does not* have a choice whether or not to buy, and hence does not set the price.
Touching on earlier threads, if MS was to set the price to 1000$, then the consumer would seriously be makeing a decision whether or not to buy windows. But as it is now, the consumer has very little choice. Hence the consumer does not set the price, hence MS sets the price,
It allows for more 'finegrain' control I guess if implemented that way, yes.
But that's assumeing best case scenario, where everything works like it should.
Security is built on the worst case scenario.
It's no more "secure", it's not that much harder for evil people to do bad stuff.
Ok, so because there's a structure to the data transmitted between two computers, it's more secure?
What?
What the hell is an "xml framework" anyways? How does that make anything more secure/better?
Buzword.
He takes time to read the source, then debug the source, instead of calling a company for an update that exists because several customers have already had the same complaint.
He just has to go to the project's website and get the patch, because several users have already had the same complaint and one of them fixed it themself.
Closed source software responds better to the market that free software? yeah right.