The RIAA has repeatedly stated that making mp3 files from music CDs you already own is perfectly legal.
Ooooh, yeah, they say that out of one orifice while goading their scientists on to find new ways to make this difficult/impossible (called "copy protection") with another orifice. You choose which ones they're using.
Sure its legal, but that doesn't mean they're going to let you.
You'd have to be pretty naive to think that people aren't going to use your filesharing of "J-Lo and Ben Affleck Cavort Around, Pay Us Money" to download it illegally...
Of course, what if I'm sharing mp3s of my garage band? Or a friends' garage band? Or if I got all the garage bands in my neighborhood together and put them all up?
See, it is not as hard as you'd think to come up with a sane, nonillegal use of filesharing. If I had a garage band it would be natural to post my music online to spread awareness and to see what other people think of it. Take a look at the Minibosses or God Ate My Homework.
Or, lets say you have an incredibly popular site or you know your site is about to be hit by/. You could toss your site into freenet and post the key, or set up several torrents for it and post links to the torrents.
So now, to mangle one of your analogies, since its obviously illegal to loan someone their car to be used in a bank robbery, should you be banned from ever loaning your car? Should filesharing be banned because it could lead to copyright infringement? Just because the legitimate purposes aren't popular at this point in time, who knows where it could go from here?
I'd love to see a version I can download and invoke with Loadlin, but hey, there's only so much I can ask.
When I compiled it, it created a.bin file you can put in your lilo.conf to boot with lilo, so I would assume that you could loadlin that image as well... maybe loadlin is more careful in what it loads;)
What I would like is an SMP-capable version of it which will let me test the cache on multiple processor systems.
Ok, and the point is that if people want to get that material, then they have to pay the creators a fee.
Wrong. The people pay the distributors a fee. The creators don't have to get jack, see all the stories about the big-labels ripping off their artists.
Now, thanks to the infamous Works-for-hire case, its arguable that the "creators" have any rights to their music at all.
This also has to deal with the way copyright has been interpreted in recent years. Lets say I start selling Metallica CDs. Lets say that I even pay Metallica quite generously. Its still copyright infringement because they have a contract with some label (I don't pay any attention to these details) that says only the label can arrange such a deal. In most cases the band has no way out of the contract to arrange such a deal without the label skimming off the top. The band, in effect, is rightless.
So what about if it's your favorite group?
I support my favorite bands by buying their CDs (odd that of the 30-someodd CDs sitting on my desk at the moment, not a single one of them came from the US. They're all from Europe or Asia. Of my whole collection, I'd have to say my Weird Al, PDQ Bach, TMBG, a few classical CDs, and the Labyrinth soundtrack are the only CDs from the US). Its all I can do at the moment. And before you suggest it, no, I do not "sabotage" lesser bands by downloading their music (would that be sabotage? If I copied an n'sync cd and burn it in effigy - with real flames, would that be "theft" even though I never listened to it, never would have listened to it, most definitely never would have paid for it, and destroyed the copy? And in destroying the copy, do I somehow destroy their property? Or is it just my CD-R that I'm destroying?)
As for advertising being part of the cost of production (what accounting school did you go to?), does this cost of "production" also include the private jet trips for RIAA bigwigs, the crack delivery, the whores, and whatever extra money the label wants to take off the top to keep from having to pay the band?
As for me.... I'm going to go sue the crap out of that guy that tripped me during the weekend warrior basketball game.
I hope you're not looking forward to another one of those games... I stole the ball.
But thats OK, right? Basketball is just a game, I mean, sure, you put money into the game by buying the ball, but its still just a game and the fact that you paid is irrelevant. Besides, your basketball should have had GPS and an explosive device which armed if I took it from the court, to prevent me from stealing it. So clearly, because your basketball was not protected it wasn't even worth playing with anyway.
I don't think the minor semantic issues invalidate my point.
The problem is that they don't validate your point, either. Legally, your choices here are copyright infringement, patent infringement, and trademark infringement. Its clear that we do not infringe on SCO's trademarks because "Linux" is registered and in Torvald's name.
Our next choice is patent infringement. Their claims that every variant of Unix and piece of software written for Unix infringes on their "Intellectual Property" might have a claim here... but nobody's been able to turn up a patent in their name covering this. No patent, no infringement.
The last choice is copyright infringement. Here they might have some small fraction of their case against IBM: If someone at IBM took their written code and inserted it into Linux, SCO has a case. Even if the code was changed a little to avoid being a word-for-word copy, it would still bear the taint of being a derivative work or otherwise plagarized. In no way, though, could SCO claim to have copyrights on every piece of code in existance for Unix.
Failing that, their only recourse is breach of contract, which would be an issue strictly between IBM and SCO. If SCO wins on the grounds of that, they have NO recourse against any Linux user, because their contract is only between IBM and SCO.
I am not a lawyer, and there may be other laws I am unaware of, but that seems to pretty much cover the field as far as I'm aware.
Yes! You could! But hang on... theres a little clause in the DMCA that could bite you hard if you're making up claims. If you do file an action in the name of the DMCA and it turns out you are wrong, you might be responsibile for costs incurred by the defendant. (If you search back, you'll see this is what caused Wal-Mart to back off on the Black Friday Shopping List case... they attempted to invoke the DMCA, then realized they were in a possibly untenable position and had to drop it entirely)
The way to do this properly, would be to change your name to Usher or Metallica, record talking about random things as mp3s and post them on the web, and wait for the letters proving that they have in fact obtained copies of your lectures before filing. Indicate on the site that only your friends can download them, or better yet, that anyone who downloads these has to send you $1, and voila: instant infringement.
You're technically correct if you're a lawyer, but if you tell most people that file sharing is copyright infringement, not stealing, then since they don't understand what copyright infringement is, they will assume it's ok.
YOU stop it.
This entire line of reasoning has led to people who are afraid of their computers because they don't understand it, who are afraid of others because they don't understand it, and who are perfectly willing to let their government run amok because they don't understand it.
Maybe, instead of using hyperbole and calling things names they are not, if we actually educated people as to what "copyright" and "copyright infringement" are, people might actually understand. And an understanding populace might want change. I honestly have no idea what a fully informed American populace would want. Maybe they would sympathize with the back street boys and britney spears they've been force-fed, and demand the death penalty for the file-traders. But at least it would be an informed decision, not the result of the RIAA's crying or people telling them what to think.
Explain what copyright infringment is and why it's bad without using any concept of stealing or theft.
Copyright is a government-granted monopoly on the production (usually via copies of an original) and distribution of a creative work of art. Copyright infringement is attempting to compete with that production and distribution. Simple, isn't it? Originally, copyright wasn't about "access control" or "encryption", it was about who had the right to copy a given work. The DMCA (which doesn't protect copyrights at all, it protects encryption and access control methods, and if not repealed, will continue doing so long after the copyrighted work is released into the public domain - in a protected encrypted form) is just the latest in a long line of legislation and standard operating procedures that turned the copyright issue into one of locked-down corporate ownership of individuals' ideas and creations.
If you actually understood and accepted that the main costs of creating music and such are in the creation...
I thought that the major costs (at least in what the RIAA labels charge the bands) were for promotion and such. I know using a professional recording studio is pretty expensive, but I don't see how it can trump the cost of whatever passes for radio payola these days and other forms of advertising.
If you support filesharing, you support Microsoft adding whatever they want from Linux into Windows while keeping Windows proprietary.
Heh heh heh that will blow a few minds. It is the exact same thing. Well almost... the core rules governing it are the same, but the GPL is enforced with a written license, while CDs do not come with explicit instructions indicating that I cannot convert the CD into a format I can put on my ipod. (and yet, with the industry attempting to produce unrippable cd's, that seems to be what they don't want me to do)
This is the real reason that this technology is worthless to keep RIAA/FBI/NSA/CIA/AARP off your back. They're gonna pick it up when you transmit it over a public network.
Do you know what the REAL reason is? Its because all they have to do is get to your computer while its running (either they kick down the door while you're in the shower, or do it "remotely") and the drive is mounted. All the encryption in the world is useless when the system is happily decrypting everything for all comers.
This is why when I'm in tinfoil hat mode, I encrypt every file seperately, when I want to play a song I disconnect from the internet, create a ramdisk, decrypt into the ramdisk, play the song, then kill the ramdisk when its done and reconnect.
it does keep a system secure for a short time until someone discovers the security hole.
You're assuming that someone hasn't already bought the "hole". You're assuming that the ballot system developers are impartial. You're assuming that if the government won't abuse any knowledge that the public has no access to.
Yes, better I've done video chat using MSN messenger netphone, CUCme, Netmeeting, and ICUII. Had to configure the router but it worked.
If its anything like what I had to do you got it "working" by telling your router to forward all traffic on ports X-Y to a specific computer. Great if you've got one computer. Bad if you don't. I've seen another router that will automatically configure the forwarding given an outgoing "signal" connection. Great if you've got more than one computer. Bad if two want to use the same service at the same time. You could even mangle the port numbers so that each behind-the-firewall box has its own port range on the router that does the forwarding to the correct port. Great if you've got relatively static internal IP addresses. Bad if you're using games or other programs where you don't get to arbitrarially decide what ports to use, or you suddenly decide to throw a lanparty and have to add 50 new entries.
So, in all, if its something more complex than a single TCP connection (which, being stateful, can be tracked), NAT sucks.
I'm definitly jaded about the whole email thing, but I'll definitely be paying the $0.37 to send this one on its merry way. Probably write my senators too, not that they've ever shown me that they cared (after all, they've got the whole state to vote for them if I don't).
I'm also going to be asking that they push for an amendment to require that said agencies account for how they recognize and correct errors in these databases, because while someone finding out that I've got some STD or another can be embarassing, getting shot by the FBI when you walk into your new apartment because a terrorist lives in #531 and their database said #513 can be downright fatal.
From my reading, it looks like the actual usage of such a database is the problem, not the creation. So it would be OK for you to put this database together, and OK for citizens to use it to find property information, but NOT OK for the cop down the street who decides that he doesn't like that I've painted my house green to punch my address information into it and get my name and fake a bunch of correspondence from me to get a warrant just so he gets the chance to beat down my door.
Conspiracy theorists miss the trees for the forest. Its not the government thats out to get them, its the FBI secretary who you cut off on the way to work that morning who just happens to slip your license plate number into the stack of "people who buy too much fertilizer". By accounting for this secretary's actions, we reduce the risk that any one person will abuse the power of the government. If the cop above later had to admit that he had no idea who the heck I was and that he had never met me or otherwise known about me without the property database, he might not run the risk of looking stupid at the trial.
The something more was that the person was a state employee.
That narrows the scope quite a lot. If you know beyond a doubt that person X is inside a given database, it is a fairly trivial operation to find what information is necessary to uniquely identify that person. If you rule out the name fields and id fields, its a simple task to run through the DB and identify a minimal index set.
Personally, I think it will be long after 2050 before robots "take over", simply because of the fact that making a general-use robot that can do more than one task is currently difficult, and without major advances in vision and AI, will remain so.
However, current vision (and other environmental input) technology is adequate for developing a robot that does Task X, and does it consistently and accurately. Current "self repair" technology is mostly limited to redundancy and identifying faulty systems before they cause a major failure. It would be simple to write a program that orders a new powersupply online when the primary supply fails. Installing it by itself would be harder, though (goes back to the general purpose robot problem). Of course, you could have a "repair" robot taught to swap standardized parts. As for cheapness, if demand becomes significant enough to trigger economics of scale in production, the price will drop. General-purpose robots will make this target easier to hit, but a single-task robot with a widespread enough application and consumer acceptance (say, a mop-bot deployed in office buildings, hospitals, and the like, worldwide) could do this as well.
Now, if I'm going to be unemployed by one of these, what I really want is my very own Chii to pass the time.
Ok, I admit choosing to attack your company was in poor taste, I should have thought harder when coming up with an example. Honestly, I have no intention of trying to look up your company or do anything of the sort. The entire reason we can have a discourse like this is because of the anonymity of the internet and I'd like to keep it that way. I'm sure if someone figured out I was going on about all the things here at work I'd be out of a job as well.
You claim If one is not available, one will be fabricated. To this ended, the extreme pro-enviroment camp, who are also the most vocal, continue to promote the notion of the evil polluting industrialist. So, in one sentence you imply that there are no enemies available. In the next sentences you say that the pro-environment camp are making up the "polluting industrialist" notion, when the "polluting industrialist" camp is "declining in population".
I simply pointed out that in the current set of affairs its possible that the population is quite steady, but they've just gotten less honest and quit turning themselves in. In terms of Garbage Collection, my job is hazmat waste stream approvals (Can company X dump stream Y into landfill Z which is rated for certain classes of materials?). I've seen everything, from companies who send us the exact same sample reports year after year (you don't think we check them against each other? Do you honestly believe we think you can get the exact same volatiles to 5 decimal places year after year?), companies who have forged analysis reports, companies who report one waste stream and ship another (we do check the trucks at the landfill gates, you know. If we approve displaced "construction debris and soil", it better not show up glowing green). I've even been called by a landfill because I "misspelled" my signature on an approval (it was forged, badly). So don't tell me what I do or do not know. I know that on a daily basis, corporations are trying to put things into the dirt that don't belong there without treatment first. But shareholders don't like having to spend that money.
Do I think corporations are out to get me personally? Hell no, they're just after the shareholder's bottom line, is all. I mean sure, if I approve something and it turns out to be toxic, then I'm the one facing the federal charges (pfft, like I think my company is going to shield me, its got its shareholders to worry about too), but thats ok, because some shareholder somewhere got a few extra cents on the dollar. This is what I'm talking about when I talk about capitalist greed.
And yeah, politicians doing the policing sucks too. Which is why, once upon a time, the government actually spent the money to get real engineers, and important decisions were made by real engineers, and not by managerial pencil pushers who have never done any research into an environmental impact statement beyond reading one already prepared for them by their staff. Now, the government is run by two groups: Managers, and Lawyers.
continue to promote the notion of the evil polluting industrialist.
I've worked in the waste industry. I've seen what happens when you allow companies to self-police themselves. Your semiconductor manufacturer could have been injecting acid into elementary schoolkids' lunches and as long as you kept out of the news and didn't get caught, everything was just fine.
And on the odd event that an EPA inspector does come by, you've probably already spent years forging the kind of relationship where a few thousand dollars will let him overlook the "special sauce" you're donating to schools. After all, thats the FDA's jurisdiction, right?
Ok, you have SCO attacking Linux over licensing code.
No, we have a whole heap of confusion. SCO changes its story every week now. Originally it was copyright infringement, then it was patent infringement, then it went back to copyright infringement but on a grand scale, then it went back to patent infringement again, now its nebulous "IP infringement" where they are extorting license fees to protect you from being sued over something (but they won't tell you what, exactly). So really, until SCO gets itself in line, I think I'll spend my time writing Utah's and my AGs and point out this extortion.
I just don't see it being economically feasible in North America.
Thats what the government is for. When the raw, slimy greed starts to ooze out of capitalism and corrode the "American Way of Life(tm)", the government should step in and get people's and companies' acts cleaned up.
The government should say "Look, we know its going to cost you, and we know you're going to pass the cost onto the consumer, but you better start a recycling program, and stick to it." They've done the same to stop child labor, to enforce minimum wages, to increase air quality, and so on.
Of course, it doesn't work that way since our government sank into the slimepits, but thats another story. Its clear whose side the current government is on, what with the abolishing of overtime and (perceived?) failures in the punishment of enron and microsoft.
On the other hand, I know that several manufacturers have in fact begun recycling programs. Such as Dell, HP/Compaq, and even Gateway which was the hardest to turn up.
Of course, you might have a double standard there. Perhaps you think it's ok to have file sharing even though it can be used in the commision of crimes, but not an object tracking service because it could be used in the commision of crimes?
The issue in my mind isn't about whether the most common usage is legal or not, its about whether the intended use is reasonably secure.
Bit-torrent's stated purpose is distribution of software. I can torrent various ISOs of Linux if I choose to. Or I can break the law and torrent The Matrix. However, the software is reasonably secure and I can be fairly certain that nobody will break into my computer because I'm using it, that I won't accidentially be arrested for using it to get The Matrix when I was actually downloading Linux, or other "misfires".
Personally, I'd love to be able to track my kids like this (and personally I believe I can do so in a responsible way without turning into nazi-parent-from-hell). I'd love to be able to track my car keys so I can find them. I'd love to know where my car went when it disappears from the parking lot.
I'd hate for some guy walking by with a little receiver to know that I've left my keys in the car. I'd hate to have a broken sensor "detect" my car in an intersection during a red light because the sensor was off a dozen feet. I'd hate to have someone know that my kid was walking home alone.
So how about this: we send Woz back to the drawing board, and this time he comes up with tags that don't continuously broadcast their location. Broadcast the shortest possible response (to reduce the risk of someone accidentially "overhearing" it and the time abusers have to triangulate the signal source) in response to a cryptographically signed request which includes the frequency to respond on. Allow users to generate this key themselves (People who feel that their "chipped" auto key makes their car somehow more secure annoy me, when the chips are easy to come by and master keys exist for various towing and repair companies and have been stolen and used to steal cars in the past).
So, yeah. Don't bemoan the tool. Unless the tool sucks and could have been made better with a little more thought.
do you think that the U.S. Government really gives a fuck about where your Trek Madone 5.9 or your limited edition X-Men #500 with the supermegaholographic RealPlatinum(TM) has run off to?
No, of course the US Government doesn't give a fuck. But, see, you cut Agent Joe's secretary off in traffic on the way to work this morning, and by the time you've left work, not only are you a wanted terrorist and pedophile, the FBI has already seized your X-Men #500.
Once the consumer has purchased the product they can do whatever they want with them.
Thats odd, I seem to be unable to remove the various types of tags that are in the books I buy without destroying the cover of the book (stuck to the inside of my paperbacks) or destroying the binding (hardbacks with the long metallic strip woven into the binding). I don't know if these really count as "RFID", and theoretically they are disabled when you buy them (since they don't set off the alarm when I leave the store). But if real RFID tags are anything like these, its entirely possible for them to be attached in such a way to make removal impossible without destroying or damaging the product.
they would simply scan the real tape to see if you replaced it.
Thats a lot of work. Wouldn't it be easier just to arrest you and sort it all out?
It would make more sense to me to take pictures of the people checking out with them, and the people leaving with them. Just picking them up is too ambiguous.
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The RIAA has repeatedly stated that making mp3 files from music CDs you already own is perfectly legal.
Ooooh, yeah, they say that out of one orifice while goading their scientists on to find new ways to make this difficult/impossible (called "copy protection") with another orifice. You choose which ones they're using.
Sure its legal, but that doesn't mean they're going to let you.
It could even have a message that would pop up reading:
You are the slowest link. Goodbye!
You'd have to be pretty naive to think that people aren't going to use your filesharing of "J-Lo and Ben Affleck Cavort Around, Pay Us Money" to download it illegally...
/. You could toss your site into freenet and post the key, or set up several torrents for it and post links to the torrents.
Of course, what if I'm sharing mp3s of my garage band? Or a friends' garage band? Or if I got all the garage bands in my neighborhood together and put them all up?
See, it is not as hard as you'd think to come up with a sane, nonillegal use of filesharing. If I had a garage band it would be natural to post my music online to spread awareness and to see what other people think of it. Take a look at the Minibosses or God Ate My Homework.
Or, lets say you have an incredibly popular site or you know your site is about to be hit by
So now, to mangle one of your analogies, since its obviously illegal to loan someone their car to be used in a bank robbery, should you be banned from ever loaning your car? Should filesharing be banned because it could lead to copyright infringement? Just because the legitimate purposes aren't popular at this point in time, who knows where it could go from here?
I'd love to see a version I can download and invoke with Loadlin, but hey, there's only so much I can ask.
.bin file you can put in your lilo.conf to boot with lilo, so I would assume that you could loadlin that image as well... maybe loadlin is more careful in what it loads ;)
When I compiled it, it created a
What I would like is an SMP-capable version of it which will let me test the cache on multiple processor systems.
Ok, and the point is that if people want to get that material, then they have to pay the creators a fee.
Wrong. The people pay the distributors a fee. The creators don't have to get jack, see all the stories about the big-labels ripping off their artists.
Now, thanks to the infamous Works-for-hire case, its arguable that the "creators" have any rights to their music at all.
This also has to deal with the way copyright has been interpreted in recent years. Lets say I start selling Metallica CDs. Lets say that I even pay Metallica quite generously. Its still copyright infringement because they have a contract with some label (I don't pay any attention to these details) that says only the label can arrange such a deal. In most cases the band has no way out of the contract to arrange such a deal without the label skimming off the top. The band, in effect, is rightless.
So what about if it's your favorite group?
I support my favorite bands by buying their CDs (odd that of the 30-someodd CDs sitting on my desk at the moment, not a single one of them came from the US. They're all from Europe or Asia. Of my whole collection, I'd have to say my Weird Al, PDQ Bach, TMBG, a few classical CDs, and the Labyrinth soundtrack are the only CDs from the US). Its all I can do at the moment. And before you suggest it, no, I do not "sabotage" lesser bands by downloading their music (would that be sabotage? If I copied an n'sync cd and burn it in effigy - with real flames, would that be "theft" even though I never listened to it, never would have listened to it, most definitely never would have paid for it, and destroyed the copy? And in destroying the copy, do I somehow destroy their property? Or is it just my CD-R that I'm destroying?)
As for advertising being part of the cost of production (what accounting school did you go to?), does this cost of "production" also include the private jet trips for RIAA bigwigs, the crack delivery, the whores, and whatever extra money the label wants to take off the top to keep from having to pay the band?
As for me.... I'm going to go sue the crap out of that guy that tripped me during the weekend warrior basketball game.
I hope you're not looking forward to another one of those games... I stole the ball.
But thats OK, right? Basketball is just a game, I mean, sure, you put money into the game by buying the ball, but its still just a game and the fact that you paid is irrelevant. Besides, your basketball should have had GPS and an explosive device which armed if I took it from the court, to prevent me from stealing it. So clearly, because your basketball was not protected it wasn't even worth playing with anyway.
Have a nice day.
I don't think the minor semantic issues invalidate my point.
The problem is that they don't validate your point, either. Legally, your choices here are copyright infringement, patent infringement, and trademark infringement. Its clear that we do not infringe on SCO's trademarks because "Linux" is registered and in Torvald's name.
Our next choice is patent infringement. Their claims that every variant of Unix and piece of software written for Unix infringes on their "Intellectual Property" might have a claim here... but nobody's been able to turn up a patent in their name covering this. No patent, no infringement.
The last choice is copyright infringement. Here they might have some small fraction of their case against IBM: If someone at IBM took their written code and inserted it into Linux, SCO has a case. Even if the code was changed a little to avoid being a word-for-word copy, it would still bear the taint of being a derivative work or otherwise plagarized. In no way, though, could SCO claim to have copyrights on every piece of code in existance for Unix.
Failing that, their only recourse is breach of contract, which would be an issue strictly between IBM and SCO. If SCO wins on the grounds of that, they have NO recourse against any Linux user, because their contract is only between IBM and SCO.
I am not a lawyer, and there may be other laws I am unaware of, but that seems to pretty much cover the field as far as I'm aware.
Yes! You could! But hang on... theres a little clause in the DMCA that could bite you hard if you're making up claims. If you do file an action in the name of the DMCA and it turns out you are wrong, you might be responsibile for costs incurred by the defendant. (If you search back, you'll see this is what caused Wal-Mart to back off on the Black Friday Shopping List case... they attempted to invoke the DMCA, then realized they were in a possibly untenable position and had to drop it entirely)
The way to do this properly, would be to change your name to Usher or Metallica, record talking about random things as mp3s and post them on the web, and wait for the letters proving that they have in fact obtained copies of your lectures before filing. Indicate on the site that only your friends can download them, or better yet, that anyone who downloads these has to send you $1, and voila: instant infringement.
You're technically correct if you're a lawyer, but if you tell most people that file sharing is copyright infringement, not stealing, then since they don't understand what copyright infringement is, they will assume it's ok.
YOU stop it.
This entire line of reasoning has led to people who are afraid of their computers because they don't understand it, who are afraid of others because they don't understand it, and who are perfectly willing to let their government run amok because they don't understand it.
Maybe, instead of using hyperbole and calling things names they are not, if we actually educated people as to what "copyright" and "copyright infringement" are, people might actually understand. And an understanding populace might want change. I honestly have no idea what a fully informed American populace would want. Maybe they would sympathize with the back street boys and britney spears they've been force-fed, and demand the death penalty for the file-traders. But at least it would be an informed decision, not the result of the RIAA's crying or people telling them what to think.
Explain what copyright infringment is and why it's bad without using any concept of stealing or theft.
Copyright is a government-granted monopoly on the production (usually via copies of an original) and distribution of a creative work of art. Copyright infringement is attempting to compete with that production and distribution. Simple, isn't it? Originally, copyright wasn't about "access control" or "encryption", it was about who had the right to copy a given work. The DMCA (which doesn't protect copyrights at all, it protects encryption and access control methods, and if not repealed, will continue doing so long after the copyrighted work is released into the public domain - in a protected encrypted form) is just the latest in a long line of legislation and standard operating procedures that turned the copyright issue into one of locked-down corporate ownership of individuals' ideas and creations.
If you actually understood and accepted that the main costs of creating music and such are in the creation...
I thought that the major costs (at least in what the RIAA labels charge the bands) were for promotion and such. I know using a professional recording studio is pretty expensive, but I don't see how it can trump the cost of whatever passes for radio payola these days and other forms of advertising.
If you support filesharing, you support Microsoft adding whatever they want from Linux into Windows while keeping Windows proprietary.
Heh heh heh that will blow a few minds. It is the exact same thing. Well almost... the core rules governing it are the same, but the GPL is enforced with a written license, while CDs do not come with explicit instructions indicating that I cannot convert the CD into a format I can put on my ipod. (and yet, with the industry attempting to produce unrippable cd's, that seems to be what they don't want me to do)
This is the real reason that this technology is worthless to keep RIAA/FBI/NSA/CIA/AARP off your back. They're gonna pick it up when you transmit it over a public network.
Do you know what the REAL reason is? Its because all they have to do is get to your computer while its running (either they kick down the door while you're in the shower, or do it "remotely") and the drive is mounted. All the encryption in the world is useless when the system is happily decrypting everything for all comers.
This is why when I'm in tinfoil hat mode, I encrypt every file seperately, when I want to play a song I disconnect from the internet, create a ramdisk, decrypt into the ramdisk, play the song, then kill the ramdisk when its done and reconnect.
it does keep a system secure for a short time until someone discovers the security hole.
You're assuming that someone hasn't already bought the "hole". You're assuming that the ballot system developers are impartial. You're assuming that if the government won't abuse any knowledge that the public has no access to.
You're assuming too much.
Yes, better I've done video chat using MSN messenger netphone, CUCme, Netmeeting, and ICUII. Had to configure the router but it worked.
If its anything like what I had to do you got it "working" by telling your router to forward all traffic on ports X-Y to a specific computer. Great if you've got one computer. Bad if you don't. I've seen another router that will automatically configure the forwarding given an outgoing "signal" connection. Great if you've got more than one computer. Bad if two want to use the same service at the same time. You could even mangle the port numbers so that each behind-the-firewall box has its own port range on the router that does the forwarding to the correct port. Great if you've got relatively static internal IP addresses. Bad if you're using games or other programs where you don't get to arbitrarially decide what ports to use, or you suddenly decide to throw a lanparty and have to add 50 new entries.
So, in all, if its something more complex than a single TCP connection (which, being stateful, can be tracked), NAT sucks.
I'm definitly jaded about the whole email thing, but I'll definitely be paying the $0.37 to send this one on its merry way. Probably write my senators too, not that they've ever shown me that they cared (after all, they've got the whole state to vote for them if I don't).
I'm also going to be asking that they push for an amendment to require that said agencies account for how they recognize and correct errors in these databases, because while someone finding out that I've got some STD or another can be embarassing, getting shot by the FBI when you walk into your new apartment because a terrorist lives in #531 and their database said #513 can be downright fatal.
From my reading, it looks like the actual usage of such a database is the problem, not the creation. So it would be OK for you to put this database together, and OK for citizens to use it to find property information, but NOT OK for the cop down the street who decides that he doesn't like that I've painted my house green to punch my address information into it and get my name and fake a bunch of correspondence from me to get a warrant just so he gets the chance to beat down my door.
Conspiracy theorists miss the trees for the forest. Its not the government thats out to get them, its the FBI secretary who you cut off on the way to work that morning who just happens to slip your license plate number into the stack of "people who buy too much fertilizer". By accounting for this secretary's actions, we reduce the risk that any one person will abuse the power of the government. If the cop above later had to admit that he had no idea who the heck I was and that he had never met me or otherwise known about me without the property database, he might not run the risk of looking stupid at the trial.
The something more was that the person was a state employee.
That narrows the scope quite a lot. If you know beyond a doubt that person X is inside a given database, it is a fairly trivial operation to find what information is necessary to uniquely identify that person. If you rule out the name fields and id fields, its a simple task to run through the DB and identify a minimal index set.
Personally, I think it will be long after 2050 before robots "take over", simply because of the fact that making a general-use robot that can do more than one task is currently difficult, and without major advances in vision and AI, will remain so.
However, current vision (and other environmental input) technology is adequate for developing a robot that does Task X, and does it consistently and accurately. Current "self repair" technology is mostly limited to redundancy and identifying faulty systems before they cause a major failure. It would be simple to write a program that orders a new powersupply online when the primary supply fails. Installing it by itself would be harder, though (goes back to the general purpose robot problem). Of course, you could have a "repair" robot taught to swap standardized parts. As for cheapness, if demand becomes significant enough to trigger economics of scale in production, the price will drop. General-purpose robots will make this target easier to hit, but a single-task robot with a widespread enough application and consumer acceptance (say, a mop-bot deployed in office buildings, hospitals, and the like, worldwide) could do this as well.
Now, if I'm going to be unemployed by one of these, what I really want is my very own Chii to pass the time.
Ok, I admit choosing to attack your company was in poor taste, I should have thought harder when coming up with an example. Honestly, I have no intention of trying to look up your company or do anything of the sort. The entire reason we can have a discourse like this is because of the anonymity of the internet and I'd like to keep it that way. I'm sure if someone figured out I was going on about all the things here at work I'd be out of a job as well.
No hard feelings?
Oh gee, what now...
You claim If one is not available, one will be fabricated. To this ended, the extreme pro-enviroment camp, who are also the most vocal, continue to promote the notion of the evil polluting industrialist. So, in one sentence you imply that there are no enemies available. In the next sentences you say that the pro-environment camp are making up the "polluting industrialist" notion, when the "polluting industrialist" camp is "declining in population".
I simply pointed out that in the current set of affairs its possible that the population is quite steady, but they've just gotten less honest and quit turning themselves in. In terms of Garbage Collection, my job is hazmat waste stream approvals (Can company X dump stream Y into landfill Z which is rated for certain classes of materials?). I've seen everything, from companies who send us the exact same sample reports year after year (you don't think we check them against each other? Do you honestly believe we think you can get the exact same volatiles to 5 decimal places year after year?), companies who have forged analysis reports, companies who report one waste stream and ship another (we do check the trucks at the landfill gates, you know. If we approve displaced "construction debris and soil", it better not show up glowing green). I've even been called by a landfill because I "misspelled" my signature on an approval (it was forged, badly). So don't tell me what I do or do not know. I know that on a daily basis, corporations are trying to put things into the dirt that don't belong there without treatment first. But shareholders don't like having to spend that money.
Do I think corporations are out to get me personally? Hell no, they're just after the shareholder's bottom line, is all. I mean sure, if I approve something and it turns out to be toxic, then I'm the one facing the federal charges (pfft, like I think my company is going to shield me, its got its shareholders to worry about too), but thats ok, because some shareholder somewhere got a few extra cents on the dollar. This is what I'm talking about when I talk about capitalist greed.
And yeah, politicians doing the policing sucks too. Which is why, once upon a time, the government actually spent the money to get real engineers, and important decisions were made by real engineers, and not by managerial pencil pushers who have never done any research into an environmental impact statement beyond reading one already prepared for them by their staff. Now, the government is run by two groups: Managers, and Lawyers.
continue to promote the notion of the evil polluting industrialist.
I've worked in the waste industry. I've seen what happens when you allow companies to self-police themselves. Your semiconductor manufacturer could have been injecting acid into elementary schoolkids' lunches and as long as you kept out of the news and didn't get caught, everything was just fine.
And on the odd event that an EPA inspector does come by, you've probably already spent years forging the kind of relationship where a few thousand dollars will let him overlook the "special sauce" you're donating to schools. After all, thats the FDA's jurisdiction, right?
Ok, you have SCO attacking Linux over licensing code.
No, we have a whole heap of confusion. SCO changes its story every week now. Originally it was copyright infringement, then it was patent infringement, then it went back to copyright infringement but on a grand scale, then it went back to patent infringement again, now its nebulous "IP infringement" where they are extorting license fees to protect you from being sued over something (but they won't tell you what, exactly). So really, until SCO gets itself in line, I think I'll spend my time writing Utah's and my AGs and point out this extortion.
I just don't see it being economically feasible in North America.
Thats what the government is for. When the raw, slimy greed starts to ooze out of capitalism and corrode the "American Way of Life(tm)", the government should step in and get people's and companies' acts cleaned up.
The government should say "Look, we know its going to cost you, and we know you're going to pass the cost onto the consumer, but you better start a recycling program, and stick to it." They've done the same to stop child labor, to enforce minimum wages, to increase air quality, and so on.
Of course, it doesn't work that way since our government sank into the slimepits, but thats another story. Its clear whose side the current government is on, what with the abolishing of overtime and (perceived?) failures in the punishment of enron and microsoft.
On the other hand, I know that several manufacturers have in fact begun recycling programs. Such as Dell, HP/Compaq, and even Gateway which was the hardest to turn up.
Of course, you might have a double standard there. Perhaps you think it's ok to have file sharing even though it can be used in the commision of crimes, but not an object tracking service because it could be used in the commision of crimes?
The issue in my mind isn't about whether the most common usage is legal or not, its about whether the intended use is reasonably secure.
Bit-torrent's stated purpose is distribution of software. I can torrent various ISOs of Linux if I choose to. Or I can break the law and torrent The Matrix. However, the software is reasonably secure and I can be fairly certain that nobody will break into my computer because I'm using it, that I won't accidentially be arrested for using it to get The Matrix when I was actually downloading Linux, or other "misfires".
Personally, I'd love to be able to track my kids like this (and personally I believe I can do so in a responsible way without turning into nazi-parent-from-hell). I'd love to be able to track my car keys so I can find them. I'd love to know where my car went when it disappears from the parking lot.
I'd hate for some guy walking by with a little receiver to know that I've left my keys in the car. I'd hate to have a broken sensor "detect" my car in an intersection during a red light because the sensor was off a dozen feet. I'd hate to have someone know that my kid was walking home alone.
So how about this: we send Woz back to the drawing board, and this time he comes up with tags that don't continuously broadcast their location. Broadcast the shortest possible response (to reduce the risk of someone accidentially "overhearing" it and the time abusers have to triangulate the signal source) in response to a cryptographically signed request which includes the frequency to respond on. Allow users to generate this key themselves (People who feel that their "chipped" auto key makes their car somehow more secure annoy me, when the chips are easy to come by and master keys exist for various towing and repair companies and have been stolen and used to steal cars in the past).
So, yeah. Don't bemoan the tool. Unless the tool sucks and could have been made better with a little more thought.
do you think that the U.S. Government really gives a fuck about where your Trek Madone 5.9 or your limited edition X-Men #500 with the supermegaholographic RealPlatinum(TM) has run off to?
No, of course the US Government doesn't give a fuck. But, see, you cut Agent Joe's secretary off in traffic on the way to work this morning, and by the time you've left work, not only are you a wanted terrorist and pedophile, the FBI has already seized your X-Men #500.
Once the consumer has purchased the product they can do whatever they want with them.
Thats odd, I seem to be unable to remove the various types of tags that are in the books I buy without destroying the cover of the book (stuck to the inside of my paperbacks) or destroying the binding (hardbacks with the long metallic strip woven into the binding). I don't know if these really count as "RFID", and theoretically they are disabled when you buy them (since they don't set off the alarm when I leave the store). But if real RFID tags are anything like these, its entirely possible for them to be attached in such a way to make removal impossible without destroying or damaging the product.
they would simply scan the real tape to see if you replaced it.
Thats a lot of work. Wouldn't it be easier just to arrest you and sort it all out?
It would make more sense to me to take pictures of the people checking out with them, and the people leaving with them. Just picking them up is too ambiguous.