I've never seen a politician that wasn't a karma whore.
Being a karma whore requires sucking up to the Slashdot community. Anti-Microsoft incantations are obligatory, as well as ritualized spitting at RIAA and MPAA. Besides you have to either express yourself well or be entertaining.
Nah. Politicians have a looooong way to go before they can even aspire to the status of a Slashdot karma whore.
Speaking of horseshit, did you mean semantical or symbolical?
Even a computer can't tell the difference between my CD and theirs, it is - bit for bit - identical.
So what? In a digital world all copies are bit-for-bit identical. It has nothing to do with copyright issues.
And, as a nitpick, two.mp3 files ripped from the same CD will almost always be a teeny bit different from each other. Not enough to be noticed, but enough to fail the bit-for-bit test.
You'd be better of explaining to us how this physical discrepancy is at all relevant.
Which physical discrepancy? We are talking about a legal discrepancy here. Your copy and their copy are legally different even though they are bit-for-bit identical. What's so hard to understand about this? My copy of, say, Baldur's Gate 2 and yours are identical, but they are legally different: I can play mine whenever I want and I cannot play yours without your permission. The whole concept of copyright is based on the idea that some copies are more equal than others.
"Simply stated, a consumer who lawfully owns a work of music, such as a CD, will be able to store it on the Internet and then downstream it for personal use at a time and place of his choosing," Boucher said in his floor statement introducing the new legislation.
Ahem. A consumer who owns a CD can legally store it on the net and downstream it for personal use right now without any further legislation.
MP3.com got in trouble because it was they, and not the consumer, that stored music on the net and downstreamed it.
Looks like a stupid law. It's like having your left ear itch and making a law that allows you to scratch only your left ear and nothing else. The courts will later interpret this law to mean that you can scratch your left ear a reasonable number of times per day, and other courts will say that the word "reasonable" means "five".
If your right ear starts to itch, though, sorry. You are out of luck.
Well, falsifying server logs in order to get better rates for banner ads would probably count as fraud, which happens to be a criminal offense in the US. A couple of show trials followed by public hangings should solve this little problem.
Besides, banner ads are typically served from a server NOT controlled by the company which own the page. So people like DoubleClick know for sure how many times their ad was ignor^H^H^H^H^Hseen.
This is the problem with ALL distributed architectures. Its an N^2 problem.
Only if you insist on reaching all the nodes all the time. If you can afford to reach only a subset of the nodes for any given request, then the problem becomes one of proper clustering.
Note that Napster also implements kind of clustering: you see the files of people in your "cluster", not of all Napster users on Earth.
There's a conventional copy-protection scheme, which is the first line of defense.
SDMI is supposed to allow to *cough*securely sell digital music online. How do you copy-protect a file that you just downloaded?
This watermarking is supposed to survive speaker/microphone transfer, but that remains to be seen.
It may survive the speaker/microphone transfer, but I doubt it'll survive an attack specifically directed at it. Selective attack at a watermark is going to be orders of magnitude more effective than just adding random noise.
The idea is that either you have a 100% SDMI-compliant system, or a 0% SDMI compliant system; nothing in between will work.
That requires everybody in the world to throw out all their old hardware and buy new, and not just any new hardware, but SDMI-compliant only. I think the SDMI designers have a very good crack dealer.
It's not that it's uncrackable, it's that cracked content only plays on special systems useful for little else.
No, you got it wrong. It's the uncracked content that only plays on special systems.
That's actually (yet another) big hole in this whole scheme. If I have a system that is able to crack SDMI (e.g. through soldering leads to my speakers' drivers), I can produce non-SDMI music files, say, plain-vanilla MP3. Then I can throw them out onto the net (Usenet, Freenet, etc. etc.) for people to use. Anybody will be able to play them. Only people with 100%-pure SDMI systems will be able to play SDMI files. Guess which format is going to be more popular...
This can't be done if the vendors of the soundcards sign their drivers with a universal "secure music" key, and the SDMI music refuses to use anything other than a signed driver. These drivers of course will prohibit simultaneous sound in and out.
First of all, you can write a driver that keeps the original, signed driver in a handy closet and when the request for authentication comes, just pulls it out of the closet, shows it to whoever asked, and puts it back in.
In other words, there ain't no such thing as a secure local client. Just ask people running multiplayer servers:) Or Bruce Schneider (www.counterpane.com).
Not to mention that two PCs side by side nicely solve the problem of prohibiting the sound card to do simultaneous in and out (which is called full-duplex and is highly useful in real life).
but sound card manufacturers could always monitor voltage drop on their boards and shut down if it increased suspiciously.
You are confused. It's the RIAA that is paranoid. Sound card manufacturers want to sell hardware and tend to dislike boondoggles which increase the cost of the card while decreasing its usefullness.
[re SoftICE solution] I hear they obfuscate the object code and include commands to crash browsers, meaning that this is not a skript kiddie task.
It only has to be cracked once...
5. Audio cable connected between INPUT and OUTPUT of soundcard.
You mean these people are trying to protect copyright! Heretics!
Maybe to you it sounds like they are trying to protect their copyright. To me it sounds like they are trying to technologically re-write the fair-use laws.
Seriously, when did Slashdot become such a thought police state?
Oh, you mean somebody prevented you from posting your rants to Slashdot? Or threatened to punish you for doing so?
It also means the FCC won't have to sue everybody's asses like what happened with Napster.
Err... FCC sue everybody's asses? like Napster? What are you talking about?
How in hell can you condemn an industry for not making it incredibly easy to rip them off?
Because, IMAO, they are not just trying to protect themselves from being ripped off. They are trying to increase their power at the consumers' expense. Specifically, they are trying to annul (through licenses or technology) fair use provisions, make it so that people had to buy a separate copy of music/video for their work/car/etc., and make it so everyone's use of music/video is collected, catalogued and analyzed. I don't like it.
Any place that has a shred of journalistic integrity should immediately tell Apple four words: "First", "Amendment", "Fuck", "Off".
Jobs is a known control freak, but it's time for him to realize that his control over real world is limited. The sooner he understands this, the better it will be for everybody.
SDMI-compliant mp3 players and stuff are supposed to find this watermark and refuse to play the file unless it comes packaged in one of their goofy little secure formats
This is stupid beyound belief. They'll have somehow to make all non-SDMI players disapper from the face of the Earth, and, besides, prevent a watermark-stripping program from appearing.
I'll stand by my accertation that SDMI files are meant to be available only via download or other electronic distribution channels.
Heh. I never contested this assertion. My point was that CDs are unsecured digital music that did NOT put RIAA and company out of business. You were saying that to release unsecured music is commercial suicide. I don't think so.
they have been asking for the ability to download music from the internet without having to buy a CD.
And they got it! www.napster.com
Asking for the ability to buy digital music online is very, very different from asking for a watermark or any other kind of access control scheme.
there would be the possibility of repercussion if you did redistribute them.
RIAA is going to sue consumers who lost their music files? That's going to be funny to watch and a PR nightmare of major proportions.
And who's to say that your computer won't be an "approved device"?
I am to say. I have no intention of putting software/hardware that watches and catalogues my listening habits into my machine.
Can you honestly not see watermarking as a threat to anonymous filesharing?
Yep, I can. What I can see is a program to strip watermarks from music files appearing very soon after watermarking starts. Besides, who the RIAA is going to sue? Joe Schmoe who downloaded the file? To win a suit they'll have to show that it was he who put the file on the web and did it intentionally. I expect proving this to be quite hard.
Napster has centrallized servers to shut down, so they probably won't be around that much longer anyhow.
Ah. Some very smart lawyers are battling around the Napster case, but you, in your wisdom, already know the outcome, right?
Gnutella's pretty easily trackable as it is (or at least down to IP address),
First, use of programs like Freedom will make me NOT trackable. Second, Gnutella peers work basically in local clusters. Theoretically you can track file transfers, but it's hard, very expensive and not very useful.
A couple lawsuits, a couple jailterms
You seem to think that having a watermarked file floating around the net is enough to convict the original downloader. I don't think so.
Watermarks have nothing to do with CD's... Think about it... They're not going to do one-off pressings of their CD's unless they plan on selling them for $500-$1000 a piece...
Ever meet a CD with software that required you to type in a "CD key"? Like recent Windows? Or Diablo II? That's not one-off pressing, yet each CD is unique. Marking of audio CDs can be done similarly.
they're embedding watermarks in files that they'll make available on a "pay per download" basis. Which is what everyone's been asking for, isn't it?
Asking for? I don't recall people crying out "Please, please, watermark the music files!!". Why would everybody ask for that?
You'll be able to listen to it wherever you go, since with the watermark, copying isn't so much an issue. You can put it in your car sdmi player, your portable one, your computer, and anywhere else you go. You just won't be able to share your stuff with anyone else
You are confused. Very confused.
First, to repeat myself, watermarking is basically a tracking technique, not an access control technique. One can copy a watermarked file as much as one wants.
Second, for the situation you describe to come to pass, the music you buy must be playable only on SDMI-compliant players and nothing else. I don't like this. I don't like buying music which can be played only on "approved devices". My computer probably won't be one.
Third, why would you care if your friends distribute your music online? Because the RIAA will know that it's YOUR copy of music that is floating on the net? And how would they know it? Will it be so that you could download music if only you would identify yourself (e.g. credit card) to the seller? I don't like this. Why shouldn't I be able to buy music anonymously? Besised, what could they do? "Your Honor, I believe my computer was hacked into and somebody stole my music files."
ive it a couple years to sink in and Napster, Freenet, and Gnutella will be history...
Come on! Bruce Schneider is a Good Guy, but this is not analysis -- this is a marketing blurb.
The idea of moving from blocking threats to risk management is an old one and quite recently there was an article on Slashdot about Bruce coming to this conclusion. Not to mention that he published a whole book where he talks in detail about it.
I like Counterpane, but is it really necessary to put every press release of theirs on Slashdot?
Well, simple watermarking is a fantastic idea. It means that people aren't going to be doing a napster and share music with everyone and his dog, but they're going to be able to lend music to their friends etc.
I see. So the watermark will distinguish between your "real friends" and "everyone and his dog". Sounds like a highly useful piece of software -- imagine, it can tell who your friends are!
In any case, watermarking is not access control, it is tracking. Finding a watermarked file on Napster the RIAA will be able to tell that it was ripped from that specific CD. So what? If you are paranoid, buy your CDs for cash.
Watermarking can be used for access control, too, but then you need special players which understand things like generation control. Thankfully we (in the PC world) are not there yet.
Software is fragile -- but that is a problem only if you don't recognize this fact and are unprepared to deal with it.
Yes, the world depends more and more on software. Yes, there is no such thing as a bug-free piece of code. But failures need not be catastrophic. It is perfectly possible to build robust systems, ones which assume that something will crash and are able to deal with it.
It's all really risk management. Software can fail -- but so can mechanical parts. So far, at least, the biggest problems (like Chernobyl) were caused by human error, not a software glitch.
Robust systems can be build out of fragile components.
I'd be willing to trade accurrate search results for banners that I care about
You would? How interesting. Why don't you then go and sign yourself up with as many user profiling services as you can find? I am sure they'll find a way to send you many, many ads that you would care about.
Secondly, who wants to see an ad for viagra when you can see an ad for (Gateway | Dell | etc) which you might actually be interested in?
I do. Ads for Viagra are funnier. And why in the world would I be interested in a Dell ad?
t's like watching commercials on TV. Do you guys really want to see tampax commercials, or do you pay more attention to things like Frys/Comp USA/Best Buy/Computer stuff?
First, I rarely watch commercials. When I do it is for pure entertainment value. Some tampax commercials are funny. Most CompUSA commercials are boring and ugly.
In any case, what makes you treat commercials as a source of information?
The difference is that bankruptcy does not result from unethical conduct
First of all, there is a big difference between ethics and legality. Ethics is your personal moral beliefs. Different people have different ethics. They do not have to match. Imposing one's ethics on other people is NOT a good thing to do (IMAO). When a community agrees on some principles enough to make it law, we have legality. Legality IS enforceable on other people.
"Unethical conduct" is a matter of personal judgement. What's unethical to you may be completely ethical to me. As long as its legal I don't see a big problem here.
[Coca-Cola's community is ] The people affected by the actions, good and bad, of CocaCola.
They are not a community. They are a set of people selected by some criterion. That does not make them a community.
the average victim has no recourse.
The average victim has no recourse against what?
First, if you shove your hand in a chainsaw, you are not a victim, but an idiot. However what most people do as soon as they get out of the emergency room is sue the manufacturer. There is such thing as a "deep pockets" theory -- surely you've heard about it?
Second, look at the number of lawsuits filed against corporations in the US. You might be surprised.
That is how the court system "protects" the community.
The aim of the court system is not to protect the community -- it is to apply standing laws. Besides, you might want to consider the fact that there are other opinions on the situation. Why do you think you are right and other people are wrong?
It is countries like China and Burma in which (western) corporations run most rampant.
They do? In China? I think you are factually wrong.
A death penalty that can be issue by the community and/or victims of a criminal company means that everyone involved in the company, from sharholders to managers to cubical slaves, has an motive (even - gasp - a requirement, just like citizens) for ethical conduct.
You make no sense.
(1) So what's the difference from bankrupcy, again? Is the end result any different?
(2) What community? What is the community of Coca-Cola?
(3) Victims of a criminal company have recourse to courts. That's what they are for.
(4) There is no requirement for ethical conduct. There is one for legal conduct, though, and everybody has to conform to it now, without any corporate death penalty necessary.
when a company will fight tooth and nail for the right to deliberately destroy the lives of millions [meaning tobacco]
Do you understand the concept of personal choice? I, an individual, want to make choices regarding which risks I find acceptable and which I do not. I do NOT want the government or trial lawyers to make these choices for me.
Heart disease is the most frequent cause of death in the US. How about suing dairy companies -- how could they market and sell butter to people?! And anybody who makes fried food -- it's unhealthy, isn't it?
The fundamental purpose of companies was to provide a society with a mechanism of production and thereby facilitate the raising of the standard of living of the society. The current situation bear little resemblence to this.
Little resemblance? US is the richest country in the world. It is closely followed by Western Europe and Japan. In all these countries corporations, according to you, run rampant.
Countries like Russia or China, on the other hand, killed off their corporations or did not allow them to develop. Are they better off?
Shareholders do watch over the management's shoulder.
No, they don't. There are two exceptions: one is a takeover situation, and the other is when a single entity has control of, say, >20% of the shares (and thus could exercise effective control, typically to put his own management team in place).
I understand the the shareholders have the ultimate power. It's just that in the real world they exercise it very, very rarely.
Management already does everything they can to protect a company's stock price.
So what would you need a corporate death penalty for?
If this sort of corporate death penalty were allowed, you can bet that management will take notice.
So tell me, what difference would it make? Corporation death penalty already exists, it is called bankrupcy. Just ask Dow Corning.
Yes, but the problem is they're doing so at the expense of the safety, well-being, and frequently the civil rights of their employees and customers.
Sometimes yes, usually through stupidity, not malice. Those that do get smacked down, usually hard. Look at Firestone.
Obviously, freedom to make money does NOT mean freedom to make money at any cost.
Safety costs money. I'd rather be able to decide myself how safe a product I want. Just because a Volvo is safer than a Fiesta is not a good reason to ban Fiesta or force Ford to make is as safe as Volvo.
Corporations have other legal obligations as well, which they just ignore as is convenient for them
This is bullshit. Corporation play power games and often manage to avoid responsibility for what they did, but just as often they get a painful whack on their ass. To say that corporation can easily ignore their legal obligations is, to put it mildly, untrue.
I always imagined that people (even corporations, who are legally people) should have just one vote. But political corruption allows these people to have far more influence than a mere vote.
Ahem. And is political corruption the result of there being corporations around? I seem to recall that political corruption was widely practiced long time before any corporations came into being.
For example, you can only have an FCC license to broadcast radio signals if you ante up the dough.
That's government regulation, not evil corporations trying to take away your freedom.
Where would they be nationally visible if it weren't for the internet?
So? Internet is a Good Thing. What's your point?
Artists or musicians or even people with alternate news have no outlet unless they gain the favor of one of these mega-corps.
They do. You just pointed it out -- the net.
And let me point out that just as nobody forces you to buy, say, Sony CDs, nobody forces Sony to sign on bands that fit *your* musical taste. Sony has no duty towards all the alternate bands to publish them and that is good.
Look at cable TV -- it was forced to give several channels to local communities. I have not met a single person who watched them. It's a waste of bandwidth. Here you have it: a local community has access to TV programming. What does it do with it? Zilch. Nada.
This is an interesting argument.
1. Corporations in Nazi Germany didn't work for profit alone.
2. Nazi Germany was defeated in World War II
3. Therefore corporations that don't work for profit alone fail.
That's not my argument. My argument is different:
(1) Hitler forced corporations to work not for profit alone, but rather for "national good".
(2) Katz and others would like corporations to care less about profits and more about "national/general/community good".
(3) Katz and others are not Nazis. However they should think about why Nazis wanted the same thing they want. Hint: it has to do with government power and who defines what the national good is.
There are no alternative avenues for the music I like
You seem to think that somebody has a duty to provide you with music you like
I turn on MTV and all I get is candypop drek. The illusion of choice.
Don't do it, then!
Why should MTV cater to your musical tastes? You don't like, don't watch it.
Way to imply anyone who disagrees with you is a Nazi.
Nope. Way to imply that some very non-nice people disliked the freedom of corporations to make money. It doesn't mean that people like Katz are nazis, but it does mean that they should think about why nazis happened to agree with them on that point.
Commit an egregious wrong and have your charter revoked. In other words, lose the state's permission to exist.
There is just one little itty-bitty tiny problem with this. See, what the corporation does is mostly decided by its management, as opposed to shareholders. All the rants against corporations are really rants against corporate management.
Now, if a corporation is dissolved, who gets fucked? Well, the management somewhat 'cause they lose their jobs, plus they usually hold some shares. But the ones who are really obliterated are not the management, but the shareholders -- after all it's them who own the company. Their shares just became worthless pieces of paper.
You *could* argue that the shareholders should watch over the management's shoulder, but I don't think the world works this way.
Nearly 40% of Americans surveyed said they thought profits were more important to corporations than making safe, reliable products.
Two observations. First, the trial lawyers' definition of 'safe' is fairly different from mine. IIRC more than half of the cost of a ladder goes to lawsuit insurance. Second, the corporation's executives have a legal obligation to produce as much profit for the shareholders as they can. The point of a business is to make money, not random acts of kindness.
more than 80% agreed that entertainment and popular culture are dominated by corporate money which seeks mass appeal over quality.
May I point out to that 80% that popular culture is called 'popular' because most of the population likes it. What's wrong with seeking mass appeal? Wouldn't you rather make something that more people like as opposed to less?
Nobody stuffs Britney Spears down the throats of unwilling people. People buy it, ask for it, scream for it. They would be much upset, and rightly so, if somebody told them that this is not "quality entertaintment" and that they should go watch something that's good for them, like PBS.
More than 95% of the survey's participants said they agreed with this statement:
"U.S. crporations should have more than one purpose. They also owe something to their workers and the communities in which they operate, and they should sometimes sacrifice some profit for the sake of making things better for their workers and communities."
That's a survey? That's a propaganda job. The question is quite similar to "Do you agree that applehood and mother pie (err... you know what I mean) are good for America, should be respected by all and we should have world peace -- and don't bother replying, we know you'll say yes".
This noble sentiment fails to take into account the proprietary and predatory nature of the contemporary global corporation.
Noble sentiment? Proprietary nature? Proprietary as opposed to what -- government owned? Somebody tell Katz that it has already been tried -- there were no corporations at all in the USSR, nothing "proprietary" and "predatory". By the way, in Nazi Germany the corporations didn't work for profit alone, but rather did what had to be done for the strength of the community. I heard it didn't work out well in the end.
Amazon's efforts to copyright software
Ahem. Confusing "patent" and "copyright", plus what Katz called "software" was really "one-click shopping". Of course, it could be that he really meant what he wrote -- that software was not subject to copyright before Amazon began its dastardly deeds...
Slashdot Mirror
I've never seen a politician that wasn't a karma whore.
Being a karma whore requires sucking up to the Slashdot community. Anti-Microsoft incantations are obligatory, as well as ritualized spitting at RIAA and MPAA. Besides you have to either express yourself well or be entertaining.
Nah. Politicians have a looooong way to go before they can even aspire to the status of a Slashdot karma whore.
Kaa
What a bunch of symantical horseshit.
.mp3 files ripped from the same CD will almost always be a teeny bit different from each other. Not enough to be noticed, but enough to fail the bit-for-bit test.
Speaking of horseshit, did you mean semantical or symbolical?
Even a computer can't tell the difference between my CD and theirs, it is - bit for bit - identical.
So what? In a digital world all copies are bit-for-bit identical. It has nothing to do with copyright issues.
And, as a nitpick, two
You'd be better of explaining to us how this physical discrepancy is at all relevant.
Which physical discrepancy? We are talking about a legal discrepancy here. Your copy and their copy are legally different even though they are bit-for-bit identical. What's so hard to understand about this? My copy of, say, Baldur's Gate 2 and yours are identical, but they are legally different: I can play mine whenever I want and I cannot play yours without your permission. The whole concept of copyright is based on the idea that some copies are more equal than others.
Kaa
"Simply stated, a consumer who lawfully owns a work of music, such as a CD, will be able to store it on the Internet and then downstream it for personal use at a time and place of his choosing," Boucher said in his floor statement introducing the new legislation.
Ahem. A consumer who owns a CD can legally store it on the net and downstream it for personal use right now without any further legislation.
MP3.com got in trouble because it was they, and not the consumer, that stored music on the net and downstreamed it.
Looks like a stupid law. It's like having your left ear itch and making a law that allows you to scratch only your left ear and nothing else. The courts will later interpret this law to mean that you can scratch your left ear a reasonable number of times per day, and other courts will say that the word "reasonable" means "five".
If your right ear starts to itch, though, sorry. You are out of luck.
Kaa
The punishment in this country for fraud is not public hanging.
No? Really? [shakes his head in wonder] Those are strange times we live in...
The punishment is that you have to give all your money to a lawyer.
I was under the impression that having to give all your money to a lawyer was the punishment for needing (or thinking you need) a lawyer.
Kaa
Well, falsifying server logs in order to get better rates for banner ads would probably count as fraud, which happens to be a criminal offense in the US. A couple of show trials followed by public hangings should solve this little problem.
Besides, banner ads are typically served from a server NOT controlled by the company which own the page. So people like DoubleClick know for sure how many times their ad was ignor^H^H^H^H^Hseen.
Kaa
This is the problem with ALL distributed architectures. Its an N^2 problem.
Only if you insist on reaching all the nodes all the time. If you can afford to reach only a subset of the nodes for any given request, then the problem becomes one of proper clustering.
Note that Napster also implements kind of clustering: you see the files of people in your "cluster", not of all Napster users on Earth.
Kaa
There's a conventional copy-protection scheme, which is the first line of defense.
SDMI is supposed to allow to *cough*securely sell digital music online. How do you copy-protect a file that you just downloaded?
This watermarking is supposed to survive speaker/microphone transfer, but that remains to be seen.
It may survive the speaker/microphone transfer, but I doubt it'll survive an attack specifically directed at it. Selective attack at a watermark is going to be orders of magnitude more effective than just adding random noise.
The idea is that either you have a 100% SDMI-compliant system, or a 0% SDMI compliant system; nothing in between will work.
That requires everybody in the world to throw out all their old hardware and buy new, and not just any new hardware, but SDMI-compliant only. I think the SDMI designers have a very good crack dealer.
It's not that it's uncrackable, it's that cracked content only plays on special systems useful for little else.
No, you got it wrong. It's the uncracked content that only plays on special systems.
That's actually (yet another) big hole in this whole scheme. If I have a system that is able to crack SDMI (e.g. through soldering leads to my speakers' drivers), I can produce non-SDMI music files, say, plain-vanilla MP3. Then I can throw them out onto the net (Usenet, Freenet, etc. etc.) for people to use. Anybody will be able to play them. Only people with 100%-pure SDMI systems will be able to play SDMI files. Guess which format is going to be more popular...
Kaa
This can't be done if the vendors of the soundcards sign their drivers with a universal "secure music" key, and the SDMI music refuses to use anything other than a signed driver. These drivers of course will prohibit simultaneous sound in and out.
:) Or Bruce Schneider (www.counterpane.com).
First of all, you can write a driver that keeps the original, signed driver in a handy closet and when the request for authentication comes, just pulls it out of the closet, shows it to whoever asked, and puts it back in.
In other words, there ain't no such thing as a secure local client. Just ask people running multiplayer servers
Not to mention that two PCs side by side nicely solve the problem of prohibiting the sound card to do simultaneous in and out (which is called full-duplex and is highly useful in real life).
but sound card manufacturers could always monitor voltage drop on their boards and shut down if it increased suspiciously.
You are confused. It's the RIAA that is paranoid. Sound card manufacturers want to sell hardware and tend to dislike boondoggles which increase the cost of the card while decreasing its usefullness.
[re SoftICE solution] I hear they obfuscate the object code and include commands to crash browsers, meaning that this is not a skript kiddie task.
It only has to be cracked once...
5. Audio cable connected between INPUT and OUTPUT of soundcard.
See above about signed drivers.
See above about two PCs.
Kaa
You mean these people are trying to protect copyright! Heretics!
Maybe to you it sounds like they are trying to protect their copyright. To me it sounds like they are trying to technologically re-write the fair-use laws.
Seriously, when did Slashdot become such a thought police state?
Oh, you mean somebody prevented you from posting your rants to Slashdot? Or threatened to punish you for doing so?
It also means the FCC won't have to sue everybody's asses like what happened with Napster.
Err... FCC sue everybody's asses? like Napster? What are you talking about?
How in hell can you condemn an industry for not making it incredibly easy to rip them off?
Because, IMAO, they are not just trying to protect themselves from being ripped off. They are trying to increase their power at the consumers' expense. Specifically, they are trying to annul (through licenses or technology) fair use provisions, make it so that people had to buy a separate copy of music/video for their work/car/etc., and make it so everyone's use of music/video is collected, catalogued and analyzed. I don't like it.
Kaa
Any place that has a shred of journalistic integrity should immediately tell Apple four words: "First", "Amendment", "Fuck", "Off".
Jobs is a known control freak, but it's time for him to realize that his control over real world is limited. The sooner he understands this, the better it will be for everybody.
Kaa
SDMI-compliant mp3 players and stuff are supposed to find this watermark and refuse to play the file unless it comes packaged in one of their goofy little secure formats
This is stupid beyound belief. They'll have somehow to make all non-SDMI players disapper from the face of the Earth, and, besides, prevent a watermark-stripping program from appearing.
Yeah, right.
Kaa
I'll stand by my accertation that SDMI files are meant to be available only via download or other electronic distribution channels.
Heh. I never contested this assertion. My point was that CDs are unsecured digital music that did NOT put RIAA and company out of business. You were saying that to release unsecured music is commercial suicide. I don't think so.
they have been asking for the ability to download music from the internet without having to buy a CD.
And they got it! www.napster.com
Asking for the ability to buy digital music online is very, very different from asking for a watermark or any other kind of access control scheme.
there would be the possibility of repercussion if you did redistribute them.
RIAA is going to sue consumers who lost their music files? That's going to be funny to watch and a PR nightmare of major proportions.
And who's to say that your computer won't be an "approved device"?
I am to say. I have no intention of putting software/hardware that watches and catalogues my listening habits into my machine.
Can you honestly not see watermarking as a threat to anonymous filesharing?
Yep, I can. What I can see is a program to strip watermarks from music files appearing very soon after watermarking starts. Besides, who the RIAA is going to sue? Joe Schmoe who downloaded the file? To win a suit they'll have to show that it was he who put the file on the web and did it intentionally. I expect proving this to be quite hard.
Napster has centrallized servers to shut down, so they probably won't be around that much longer anyhow.
Ah. Some very smart lawyers are battling around the Napster case, but you, in your wisdom, already know the outcome, right?
Gnutella's pretty easily trackable as it is (or at least down to IP address),
First, use of programs like Freedom will make me NOT trackable. Second, Gnutella peers work basically in local clusters. Theoretically you can track file transfers, but it's hard, very expensive and not very useful.
A couple lawsuits, a couple jailterms
You seem to think that having a watermarked file floating around the net is enough to convict the original downloader. I don't think so.
Kaa
Watermarks have nothing to do with CD's... Think about it... They're not going to do one-off pressings of their CD's unless they plan on selling them for $500-$1000 a piece...
Ever meet a CD with software that required you to type in a "CD key"? Like recent Windows? Or Diablo II? That's not one-off pressing, yet each CD is unique. Marking of audio CDs can be done similarly.
they're embedding watermarks in files that they'll make available on a "pay per download" basis. Which is what everyone's been asking for, isn't it?
Asking for? I don't recall people crying out "Please, please, watermark the music files!!". Why would everybody ask for that?
You'll be able to listen to it wherever you go, since with the watermark, copying isn't so much an issue. You can put it in your car sdmi player, your portable one, your computer, and anywhere else you go. You just won't be able to share your stuff with anyone else
You are confused. Very confused.
First, to repeat myself, watermarking is basically a tracking technique, not an access control technique. One can copy a watermarked file as much as one wants.
Second, for the situation you describe to come to pass, the music you buy must be playable only on SDMI-compliant players and nothing else. I don't like this. I don't like buying music which can be played only on "approved devices". My computer probably won't be one.
Third, why would you care if your friends distribute your music online? Because the RIAA will know that it's YOUR copy of music that is floating on the net? And how would they know it? Will it be so that you could download music if only you would identify yourself (e.g. credit card) to the seller? I don't like this. Why shouldn't I be able to buy music anonymously? Besised, what could they do? "Your Honor, I believe my computer was hacked into and somebody stole my music files."
ive it a couple years to sink in and Napster, Freenet, and Gnutella will be history...
Dream on, baby, dream on...
Kaa
Come on! Bruce Schneider is a Good Guy, but this is not analysis -- this is a marketing blurb.
The idea of moving from blocking threats to risk management is an old one and quite recently there was an article on Slashdot about Bruce coming to this conclusion. Not to mention that he published a whole book where he talks in detail about it.
I like Counterpane, but is it really necessary to put every press release of theirs on Slashdot?
Kaa
They simply cannot release the music in an unsecure format.
And why not? It worked pretty well so far. An audio CD is completely unsecured digital music and CD sales are going up every year.
If you want music available for download (legally), there is no other way.
You mean you can't think of any other way. Why should the world be limited by your imagination?
Kaa
Well, simple watermarking is a fantastic idea. It means that people aren't going to be doing a napster and share music with everyone and his dog, but they're going to be able to lend music to their friends etc.
I see. So the watermark will distinguish between your "real friends" and "everyone and his dog". Sounds like a highly useful piece of software -- imagine, it can tell who your friends are!
In any case, watermarking is not access control, it is tracking. Finding a watermarked file on Napster the RIAA will be able to tell that it was ripped from that specific CD. So what? If you are paranoid, buy your CDs for cash.
Watermarking can be used for access control, too, but then you need special players which understand things like generation control. Thankfully we (in the PC world) are not there yet.
Kaa
Software is fragile -- but that is a problem only if you don't recognize this fact and are unprepared to deal with it.
Yes, the world depends more and more on software. Yes, there is no such thing as a bug-free piece of code. But failures need not be catastrophic. It is perfectly possible to build robust systems, ones which assume that something will crash and are able to deal with it.
It's all really risk management. Software can fail -- but so can mechanical parts. So far, at least, the biggest problems (like Chernobyl) were caused by human error, not a software glitch.
Robust systems can be build out of fragile components.
Kaa
I'd be willing to trade accurrate search results for banners that I care about
You would? How interesting. Why don't you then go and sign yourself up with as many user profiling services as you can find? I am sure they'll find a way to send you many, many ads that you would care about.
Secondly, who wants to see an ad for viagra when you can see an ad for (Gateway | Dell | etc) which you might actually be interested in?
I do. Ads for Viagra are funnier. And why in the world would I be interested in a Dell ad?
t's like watching commercials on TV. Do you guys really want to see tampax commercials, or do you pay more attention to things like Frys/Comp USA/Best Buy/Computer stuff?
First, I rarely watch commercials. When I do it is for pure entertainment value. Some tampax commercials are funny. Most CompUSA commercials are boring and ugly.
In any case, what makes you treat commercials as a source of information?
Kaa
The difference is that bankruptcy does not result from unethical conduct
First of all, there is a big difference between ethics and legality. Ethics is your personal moral beliefs. Different people have different ethics. They do not have to match. Imposing one's ethics on other people is NOT a good thing to do (IMAO). When a community agrees on some principles enough to make it law, we have legality. Legality IS enforceable on other people.
"Unethical conduct" is a matter of personal judgement. What's unethical to you may be completely ethical to me. As long as its legal I don't see a big problem here.
[Coca-Cola's community is ] The people affected by the actions, good and bad, of CocaCola.
They are not a community. They are a set of people selected by some criterion. That does not make them a community.
the average victim has no recourse.
The average victim has no recourse against what?
First, if you shove your hand in a chainsaw, you are not a victim, but an idiot. However what most people do as soon as they get out of the emergency room is sue the manufacturer. There is such thing as a "deep pockets" theory -- surely you've heard about it?
Second, look at the number of lawsuits filed against corporations in the US. You might be surprised.
That is how the court system "protects" the community.
The aim of the court system is not to protect the community -- it is to apply standing laws. Besides, you might want to consider the fact that there are other opinions on the situation. Why do you think you are right and other people are wrong?
It is countries like China and Burma in which (western) corporations run most rampant.
They do? In China? I think you are factually wrong.
Kaa
A death penalty that can be issue by the community and/or victims of a criminal company means that everyone involved in the company, from sharholders to managers to cubical slaves, has an motive (even - gasp - a requirement, just like citizens) for ethical conduct.
You make no sense.
(1) So what's the difference from bankrupcy, again? Is the end result any different?
(2) What community? What is the community of Coca-Cola?
(3) Victims of a criminal company have recourse to courts. That's what they are for.
(4) There is no requirement for ethical conduct. There is one for legal conduct, though, and everybody has to conform to it now, without any corporate death penalty necessary.
when a company will fight tooth and nail for the right to deliberately destroy the lives of millions [meaning tobacco]
Do you understand the concept of personal choice? I, an individual, want to make choices regarding which risks I find acceptable and which I do not. I do NOT want the government or trial lawyers to make these choices for me.
Heart disease is the most frequent cause of death in the US. How about suing dairy companies -- how could they market and sell butter to people?! And anybody who makes fried food -- it's unhealthy, isn't it?
The fundamental purpose of companies was to provide a society with a mechanism of production and thereby facilitate the raising of the standard of living of the society. The current situation bear little resemblence to this.
Little resemblance? US is the richest country in the world. It is closely followed by Western Europe and Japan. In all these countries corporations, according to you, run rampant.
Countries like Russia or China, on the other hand, killed off their corporations or did not allow them to develop. Are they better off?
Kaa
Shareholders do watch over the management's shoulder.
No, they don't. There are two exceptions: one is a takeover situation, and the other is when a single entity has control of, say, >20% of the shares (and thus could exercise effective control, typically to put his own management team in place).
I understand the the shareholders have the ultimate power. It's just that in the real world they exercise it very, very rarely.
Management already does everything they can to protect a company's stock price.
So what would you need a corporate death penalty for?
If this sort of corporate death penalty were allowed, you can bet that management will take notice.
So tell me, what difference would it make? Corporation death penalty already exists, it is called bankrupcy. Just ask Dow Corning.
Kaa
Yes, but the problem is they're doing so at the expense of the safety, well-being, and frequently the civil rights of their employees and customers.
Sometimes yes, usually through stupidity, not malice. Those that do get smacked down, usually hard. Look at Firestone.
Obviously, freedom to make money does NOT mean freedom to make money at any cost.
Safety costs money. I'd rather be able to decide myself how safe a product I want. Just because a Volvo is safer than a Fiesta is not a good reason to ban Fiesta or force Ford to make is as safe as Volvo.
Corporations have other legal obligations as well, which they just ignore as is convenient for them
This is bullshit. Corporation play power games and often manage to avoid responsibility for what they did, but just as often they get a painful whack on their ass. To say that corporation can easily ignore their legal obligations is, to put it mildly, untrue.
I always imagined that people (even corporations, who are legally people) should have just one vote. But political corruption allows these people to have far more influence than a mere vote.
Ahem. And is political corruption the result of there being corporations around? I seem to recall that political corruption was widely practiced long time before any corporations came into being.
For example, you can only have an FCC license to broadcast radio signals if you ante up the dough.
That's government regulation, not evil corporations trying to take away your freedom.
Where would they be nationally visible if it weren't for the internet?
So? Internet is a Good Thing. What's your point?
Artists or musicians or even people with alternate news have no outlet unless they gain the favor of one of these mega-corps.
They do. You just pointed it out -- the net.
And let me point out that just as nobody forces you to buy, say, Sony CDs, nobody forces Sony to sign on bands that fit *your* musical taste. Sony has no duty towards all the alternate bands to publish them and that is good.
Look at cable TV -- it was forced to give several channels to local communities. I have not met a single person who watched them. It's a waste of bandwidth. Here you have it: a local community has access to TV programming. What does it do with it? Zilch. Nada.
This is an interesting argument.
1. Corporations in Nazi Germany didn't work for profit alone.
2. Nazi Germany was defeated in World War II
3. Therefore corporations that don't work for profit alone fail.
That's not my argument. My argument is different:
(1) Hitler forced corporations to work not for profit alone, but rather for "national good".
(2) Katz and others would like corporations to care less about profits and more about "national/general/community good".
(3) Katz and others are not Nazis. However they should think about why Nazis wanted the same thing they want. Hint: it has to do with government power and who defines what the national good is.
Kaa
There are no alternative avenues for the music I like
You seem to think that somebody has a duty to provide you with music you like
I turn on MTV and all I get is candypop drek. The illusion of choice.
Don't do it, then!
Why should MTV cater to your musical tastes? You don't like, don't watch it.
Way to imply anyone who disagrees with you is a Nazi.
Nope. Way to imply that some very non-nice people disliked the freedom of corporations to make money. It doesn't mean that people like Katz are nazis, but it does mean that they should think about why nazis happened to agree with them on that point.
Kaa
Commit an egregious wrong and have your charter revoked. In other words, lose the state's permission to exist.
There is just one little itty-bitty tiny problem with this. See, what the corporation does is mostly decided by its management, as opposed to shareholders. All the rants against corporations are really rants against corporate management.
Now, if a corporation is dissolved, who gets fucked? Well, the management somewhat 'cause they lose their jobs, plus they usually hold some shares. But the ones who are really obliterated are not the management, but the shareholders -- after all it's them who own the company. Their shares just became worthless pieces of paper.
You *could* argue that the shareholders should watch over the management's shoulder, but I don't think the world works this way.
Kaa
Nearly 40% of Americans surveyed said they thought profits were more important to corporations than making safe, reliable products.
Two observations. First, the trial lawyers' definition of 'safe' is fairly different from mine. IIRC more than half of the cost of a ladder goes to lawsuit insurance. Second, the corporation's executives have a legal obligation to produce as much profit for the shareholders as they can. The point of a business is to make money, not random acts of kindness.
more than 80% agreed that entertainment and popular culture are dominated by corporate money which seeks mass appeal over quality.
May I point out to that 80% that popular culture is called 'popular' because most of the population likes it. What's wrong with seeking mass appeal? Wouldn't you rather make something that more people like as opposed to less?
Nobody stuffs Britney Spears down the throats of unwilling people. People buy it, ask for it, scream for it. They would be much upset, and rightly so, if somebody told them that this is not "quality entertaintment" and that they should go watch something that's good for them, like PBS.
More than 95% of the survey's participants said they agreed with this statement:
"U.S. crporations should have more than one purpose. They also owe something to their workers and the communities in which they operate, and they should sometimes sacrifice some profit for the sake of making things better for their workers and communities."
That's a survey? That's a propaganda job. The question is quite similar to "Do you agree that applehood and mother pie (err... you know what I mean) are good for America, should be respected by all and we should have world peace -- and don't bother replying, we know you'll say yes".
This noble sentiment fails to take into account the proprietary and predatory nature of the contemporary global corporation.
Noble sentiment? Proprietary nature? Proprietary as opposed to what -- government owned? Somebody tell Katz that it has already been tried -- there were no corporations at all in the USSR, nothing "proprietary" and "predatory". By the way, in Nazi Germany the corporations didn't work for profit alone, but rather did what had to be done for the strength of the community. I heard it didn't work out well in the end.
Amazon's efforts to copyright software
Ahem. Confusing "patent" and "copyright", plus what Katz called "software" was really "one-click shopping". Of course, it could be that he really meant what he wrote -- that software was not subject to copyright before Amazon began its dastardly deeds...
Bletch.
Kaa