"If you're concerned about spyware, be very careful about who's DNS server you list in your PC...We used this approach at my previous job (dealing with employee security and network use compliance... great job, eh? *sigh*)"
Just another reason to list slashdot in your hosts file, along with a 127.0.0.1 for all the adult sites which can easily be found in a nice pre-formatted hosts file right here.
" I remember someone mentioning in an earier discussion that the WMA encoder fooled many people into thinking their encoded audio sounded "better" by applying a compressor/dynamics (6:1 ratio was it?), leaving the dynamic range 'squished' and making music sound louder (which isn't really "better"). Can anybody confirm this?"
It is false. I posted in a previous article that WMA fooled people by increasing the volume by 3 dBA and it was modded to +5 Informative. Unfortunately I was wrong and did not do my research.
It turns out that the 3 dBA thing was just made up by someone as a joke.
" A while ago I was going to switch all my WMAs over to MP3 format (Acid doesn't like WMAs as input), but when I went into Nero (which can decode/encode multiple files with one command) it said that it's not allowed to decode WMA files - something about Microsoft saying it's bad.
Have any of you seen this?"
"99% of people will NOT be able to tell the difference when listening to the "unmakable" CD in their car."
You forget -- 99% of the people will not be able to do your procedure!! Messing with passthru cables and recording from an input but only if you have a full duplex sound card is too hard. And heaven forbid that they have to modify the mixer settings to enable the line-in.
A joe with Roxio EasyCd and a burner will still be stopped by "copy protected discs" and that is what the industry wants. They know they will never be able to stop people like us from being able to do it. All they need to do is make copying CDs inaccessible to the average person. This is why usenet file trading will not die. You have to be skilled to do it.
"Okay, who on Earth thinks that they should "backup audio cds"? Come on, that's a pretty forced issue. I have several thousand audio cds, and while I'd hate to lose any of them, I don't think I'm going to be burning CDR copies of the pile."
I think audio CDs should be backed up. If I had done proper backups, a certain rare CD which is no longer produced would not have been destroyed when the CD changer machine broke down.
Similarly, would you leave your original CDs in a car? I woudln't. That is why I burn copies of the legally purchased originals and play them in the car.
"I wonder what percentage of Joe Users out there have heard of the DMCA or have any idea about the war over fair use."
Probably less than the percentage that have heard of DVD Region controls. (Since the system favours region 1 to begin with, people in N.A. don't have a reason to know about it even though all the equipment and DVDs they buy are region 1.)
"2) My files aren't shared permanently. If nobody requests the files I injected, they are thrown out after a while, even if my node is online 24/7. That's just plain stupid."
It is less stupid to have the network collapse under its own weight?
"This says to me that either there are very few links to the company's homepage, or there is no company homepage."
Please excuse any irregularities in the following post because I only got 3 hours of sleep lst night.
Apparently it's the first case beacause the company homepage is here. They mention that they deal with Adelphia, AT&T, Bell Canada, Bellsouth, Charter Communications, RoadRunner, SBC, Sprint, Telus (Canada) and Time Warner among others.
They seem to have their fingers deeply into this industry.
"Presumably you are trying to "get the word out" about the Evil Corporate Spyware installed by your cable provider. Suppose you were to succeed, and almost every cable customer were to remove said software from his or her PC. Their demographics database would start to be pretty thin, and suddenly they can no longer use that information to defray some of the costs of running a broadband outfit. Best case, you get a rate hike. Worst case, the cable company goes out of business..."
Keep in mind that 99% of cable users don't read slashdot or tech forums in general. The posting here will only serve to inform those who can put the knowledge to good use and protect themselves. The resulting dent in the demographics databases as a result of this will be very small, and the cable companies probably will not bat an eye.
"I did this the first time I got cable. It was a 486 with Windows95 installed on it. Took the guy 30 minutes to install his warez on it. After he left, I got out my real computer and put the garage sale relic back in the attic."
The thing is, the cable guy would probably have no problem with that, even if he knew what was going on. Hey, he just works for the company and probably knows he's installing malware.
"if somebody would come out with a player that allowed you update the playable codecs by hooking it up to your computer or inserting a preloaded pcmcia card. Open up the plugin architecture and you would probably sell one to every/.er."
I wonder if dreamcast hackers could (or already have?) come up with something like this. Maybe the DC does not have the CPU power to do it.
Perhaps the X-Box modders might have a fun time with the project too. The X-Box certainly has enough horsepower!
"Ogg Vorbis isn't really supposed to be used for DivXs. It's a VBR system, when AVIs require a CBR audio compressor, otherwise the video gets really screwed up. Now if there was a way to get ogg to do CBR...."
This was in the beta builds of ogg vorbis. Does anyone know if it still exists? Now -b sets an average bitrate but it used to set a constant bitrate. I have tried this with managed bitrate mode and it still doesn't generate CBR. Does anyone know if OGGEnc 1.0 can generate CBR like the betas?
I have tried fudging with the --Managed, -b, -M and -m in ogg1.0 and no combination of these will give me CBR!
"Needless to say, civilization has managed to survive for thousands of years despite man's desire to control everything including his fellow men. I think the internet will find a way."
So are you saying that spam, DDOSs, exploits and the (RI|MP)AA all drive natural selection in the ecosystem that is the internet? What an interesting thought.
In true slashdot style I did not read the article, but now I see that this specific case does not (seem) to involve a paypal imposed account restriction. I just assumed that this was another case of the typical "paypal stole my money" story.
"Can somebody explain how this theft occurred. It's not clear to me from the post."
Typically what happens with PayPal cases like these (they're extremely common) is that the account is "restricted" from some trivial reason like a cancelled payment or for no reason at all, and then it is impossible to withdraw money from the account. Then PayPal will start making unauthorised withdrawals from you bank account and credit card. They won't unrestrict the account until you fax them utility bills, social security card scans, drivers license scans, etc multiple times because they always claim they they didn't receive the information. Even then, it is rare to get the account un-restricted. Complaints and investigations by police, government, etc tend to get the account nuked. And of course you never get your money back.
"The PFC site must be quite different from CIBC's."
It certainly is. I can't even recall if I've ever used IE to access it. Please be aware that if you're going to try out President's Choice Financial, they carefully hide the 'catch' - all deposits (except for automated payroll) have the first $200 go in immediately, and the rest go in 5 days later. They make interest on the exess in the 5 days. And if you want to talk to a real live teller in person the fee is ~$5. But I am happy to have those tradeoffs for no fees, free internet banking, free phone banking, free chequing, very good interest rates and all that.
"I believed that Paypal would do something about my complaints during the interim, and that this would all be resolved quietly."
Do your research. I never donate if it's a paypal tip jar because of things like this and this. Paypal based donations are a disaster waiting to happen.
"So get off your ass, knock up a form letter, keep it handy, and complain!"
And don't forget to do the converse as well! Tell your bank when they are doing something right!
This way they will know that their efforts are paying off in the form of more loyal customers. It is the only they will know that they should continue such things.
I recently wrote these folks to tell them what a great job they were doing supporting web standards and allowing me to use the service on my terms and not theirs. (Linux/Mozilla works perfectly.)
"Netscape and Explorer 6 but only from a Windows computer. Mybe they support Opera but NOT from a linux box."
Try President's Choice Financial. They are basically a part of CIBC and I have payed my visa online through their site from Mozilla under Linux. It's all good. I have found no part of their service which has unequal accessability over Windows vs. Linux. Overall I am extremely satisfied with the service.
Basically each customer gets a login for the web site and can download from there. It avoids serial generators and cracks because you can't just download the shareware and then apply a crack. The only people who even get the opportunity to download the software are those who have paid so it's less likely (but still inevitable) that they will give it away, share it on kazaa, etc.
If the RIAA quit spending their money trying to shoot down file sharing networks, buying senators, and getting the attention of schools, corporate America, etc and instead channelled their resources into building a new business model, they might just come out on top. It seems to me they they are betting the farm on being able to prevent the evolution of the market. If they lose this bet, they will be obsolete and bankrupt.
And what about these studios? Didn't Lucasfilm say something about studios eventually becoming unprofitable? You'd think...
"Someone PLEASE post a link to a reputable site that has QUIET fans (CPU fans, projector fans, powersupply fans) that can be bought in Canada! PLEASE!!!"
Here you go! Check out the Panaflo Lows and Vantec stealth fans. Overall, this place has tons of really excellent gear. These people are based in Toronto and I have ordered from them several times. Highly recommended.
Slashdot Mirror
Just another reason to list slashdot in your hosts file, along with a 127.0.0.1 for all the adult sites which can easily be found in a nice pre-formatted hosts file right here.
It is false. I posted in a previous article that WMA fooled people by increasing the volume by 3 dBA and it was modded to +5 Informative. Unfortunately I was wrong and did not do my research.
It turns out that the 3 dBA thing was just made up by someone as a joke.
Perhaps you forgot to get the Nero WMA 2.0 Decoding plugin which allows WMA decoding.
You forget -- 99% of the people will not be able to do your procedure!! Messing with passthru cables and recording from an input but only if you have a full duplex sound card is too hard. And heaven forbid that they have to modify the mixer settings to enable the line-in.
A joe with Roxio EasyCd and a burner will still be stopped by "copy protected discs" and that is what the industry wants. They know they will never be able to stop people like us from being able to do it. All they need to do is make copying CDs inaccessible to the average person. This is why usenet file trading will not die. You have to be skilled to do it.
I think audio CDs should be backed up. If I had done proper backups, a certain rare CD which is no longer produced would not have been destroyed when the CD changer machine broke down.
Similarly, would you leave your original CDs in a car? I woudln't. That is why I burn copies of the legally purchased originals and play them in the car.
Probably less than the percentage that have heard of DVD Region controls. (Since the system favours region 1 to begin with, people in N.A. don't have a reason to know about it even though all the equipment and DVDs they buy are region 1.)
It is less stupid to have the network collapse under its own weight?
Please excuse any irregularities in the following post because I only got 3 hours of sleep lst night.
Apparently it's the first case beacause the company homepage is here. They mention that they deal with Adelphia, AT&T, Bell Canada, Bellsouth, Charter Communications, RoadRunner, SBC, Sprint, Telus (Canada) and Time Warner among others.
They seem to have their fingers deeply into this industry.
Keep in mind that 99% of cable users don't read slashdot or tech forums in general. The posting here will only serve to inform those who can put the knowledge to good use and protect themselves. The resulting dent in the demographics databases as a result of this will be very small, and the cable companies probably will not bat an eye.
The thing is, the cable guy would probably have no problem with that, even if he knew what was going on. Hey, he just works for the company and probably knows he's installing malware.
I wonder if dreamcast hackers could (or already have?) come up with something like this. Maybe the DC does not have the CPU power to do it.
Perhaps the X-Box modders might have a fun time with the project too. The X-Box certainly has enough horsepower!
This was in the beta builds of ogg vorbis. Does anyone know if it still exists? Now -b sets an average bitrate but it used to set a constant bitrate. I have tried this with managed bitrate mode and it still doesn't generate CBR. Does anyone know if OGGEnc 1.0 can generate CBR like the betas?
I have tried fudging with the --Managed, -b, -M and -m in ogg1.0 and no combination of these will give me CBR!
So are you saying that spam, DDOSs, exploits and the (RI|MP)AA all drive natural selection in the ecosystem that is the internet? What an interesting thought.
In true slashdot style I did not read the article, but now I see that this specific case does not (seem) to involve a paypal imposed account restriction. I just assumed that this was another case of the typical "paypal stole my money" story.
Typically what happens with PayPal cases like these (they're extremely common) is that the account is "restricted" from some trivial reason like a cancelled payment or for no reason at all, and then it is impossible to withdraw money from the account. Then PayPal will start making unauthorised withdrawals from you bank account and credit card. They won't unrestrict the account until you fax them utility bills, social security card scans, drivers license scans, etc multiple times because they always claim they they didn't receive the information. Even then, it is rare to get the account un-restricted. Complaints and investigations by police, government, etc tend to get the account nuked. And of course you never get your money back.
Hence, you have been 'robbed' by paypal.
It certainly is. I can't even recall if I've ever used IE to access it. Please be aware that if you're going to try out President's Choice Financial, they carefully hide the 'catch' - all deposits (except for automated payroll) have the first $200 go in immediately, and the rest go in 5 days later. They make interest on the exess in the 5 days. And if you want to talk to a real live teller in person the fee is ~$5. But I am happy to have those tradeoffs for no fees, free internet banking, free phone banking, free chequing, very good interest rates and all that.
Do your research. I never donate if it's a paypal tip jar because of things like this and this. Paypal based donations are a disaster waiting to happen.
And don't forget to do the converse as well! Tell your bank when they are doing something right! This way they will know that their efforts are paying off in the form of more loyal customers. It is the only they will know that they should continue such things.
I recently wrote these folks to tell them what a great job they were doing supporting web standards and allowing me to use the service on my terms and not theirs. (Linux/Mozilla works perfectly.)
Try President's Choice Financial. They are basically a part of CIBC and I have payed my visa online through their site from Mozilla under Linux. It's all good. I have found no part of their service which has unequal accessability over Windows vs. Linux. Overall I am extremely satisfied with the service.
It's also similar to the way F-Prot Antivirus is delivered.
Basically each customer gets a login for the web site and can download from there. It avoids serial generators and cracks because you can't just download the shareware and then apply a crack. The only people who even get the opportunity to download the software are those who have paid so it's less likely (but still inevitable) that they will give it away, share it on kazaa, etc.
And what about these studios? Didn't Lucasfilm say something about studios eventually becoming unprofitable? You'd think...
It's not an unreasonable assumption since Star Trek: Nemesis, the last movie featuring the TNG crew, will be starting in Canada/USA on 2002 Dec 13.
This applies especially for northbridge chipset fans. Those things get real loud real fast unless you give them a drop of oil.
Here you go! Check out the Panaflo Lows and Vantec stealth fans. Overall, this place has tons of really excellent gear. These people are based in Toronto and I have ordered from them several times. Highly recommended.
Yeah, but Windows XP was proof-of-concept.