Is a list of numbers even copyrightable? I wouldn't think so.....
Okay, I've got this list of numbers for you. Each number is between 0 and 255. What possible use could you put this list of numbers to? Try this just for fun. Make a file of bytes represented by these numbers. Name the file Windows2000.iso. I think you can figure out what to do next.
I wish lists of numbers weren't copyrightable. After all, all Napster did was broker the exchange of lists of numbers. They didn't even exchange the numbers themselves.
On the other hand, since those allowed access to the code probably had to sign the NDA-from-Hell, the schools, agencies, companies and individuals involved would probably be sued...
This raises a question. (Mostly still on topic.)
Has anyone ever seen this NDA from hell? Is anyone who has actually seen it allowed to live if they don't sign it?:-) Do you have to sign it before you are allowed to read it?:-) Seriously though, do the terms require that you not disclose the existance of nor contents of the agreement?
Also seriously, just like Microsoft's EULA for Front Page that requires that if you use Front Page to create web pages, you cannot ever say anything that disparages Microsoft, Expedia, (etc., etc., etc.), or any of Microsoft's subsidiary companies; does the shared source NDA from hell forbid you from saying anything negative if you see a huge hole or anything nasty or ugly in the source? Are you allowed to discuss source comments such as "weenies from Netscape" without being secretly arrested?
Seriously, non humorously, does anyone know what this NDA from hell contains? This is relevant to a discussion about Microsoft's "open" code.
Microsoft has "won". And it would be a show of great sportsmanship to collect their gold medal, step off the podium and leave the playing field.
Several observations:
1. They have not yet finished destroying the industry. There are still other successful software companies. And although it is almost impossible to have a job in this industry that is not at Microsoft's pleasure, it is still possible.
2. You don't get how these people think. It is not enough for Microsoft to succeed. everyone else must fail!
3. If they do finish destroying this industry, there are other industries. Microsoft could branch out into online services, game consoles, consumer electronics, cell phones, travel, banking, insurance, and, even perhaps government [i.e. running other people's lives].
Having published source never hurt IBM or DEC. They [Microsoft] should do it.
Yeah, publishing the source to the 1981 IBM PC's BIOS, with complete assembly language listings in the back of the manual never hurt IBM.
IBM was a monopoly. They made obscene profit on hardware. IBM didn't see any profit in software, so the let Microsoft have the rights to sell it to others. Big monopolies never think that someone hungrier can make the same thing better and cheaper. I wonder if being able to inspect IBM's bios helped Compaq in making their own original, but totally compatible ROM with exactly the same routine entry points at exactly the same addresses?
But I do agree with the second part of the parent post that Microsoft should publish their source. Like with IBM, it will help accellerate their downfall by allowing others to build something totally compatible. I wonder if, like the IBM monopoly, anyone could do Microsoft's thing better and cheaper?
>>why all my porn has been changed to Hillary Rosen with a strap-on.
>Wait a minute...
THAT'S NO STRAP-ON !
This should hardly be surprising, and is quite logical. After all, we already knew that the RIAA was screwing the artists. I'm only surprised that we didn't know the exact mechanism of such screwing until now. It must be an NDA clause in the artists' contracts.
I will never buy from a telemarketing phone call, or a pop-up ad. NEVER. Get it?
But will you buy if they send you a SPAM ?
But won't you try pop-up's and spam?
How about telemarketer's and spam?
Would you buy while in mid flight?
What if they called you at midnight?
Would you buy while on the road?
What if they stop you on the road?
Would you buy while you're at work?
What if the caller was a jerk?
Would you buy while watching TV?
What if you were downloading MP3's?
Would you buy while you're at home?
What if they called your mobile phone?
1. Candidate buys list of 1,000,000 people who hate telemarketers.
2. Candidate calls 1,000,000 people asking them to vote for opponent.
3. 1,000,000 people vote for candidate.
They may suck as a company but on occasion, they can accidentally create (or buy) something decent.
They can pour buckets of money into development or acquisitions. Money that they extort through artificially high prices on products that you have no choice but to buy (Windows and Office). Of course they can produce or acquire good products. Today. But what about in 1993 when their product, even after years of development, sucked rocks compared to what little competition there was?
I guess I don't see it that way..... I cna't see why you'd really want your chilton (car repair mauals) in your kitchen.
That's because you're only thinking of one way to organize things. In this analogy, we're describing a physical organization. "Oh, yeah, that book would be in the garage." But what about when you ask: "Now where did I leave that $*@&#* book again?" Or, "Hey, honey, do you know where I left the book on how to pull the wings off butterflies?"
Suppose you have a book that logically belongs in two categories? I suppose you've never seen an mp3 that could be categorized multiple ways. Does this mp3 belong under "Rock" or something else? What if I want to sometimes categorize by artist. Or label. Or recording. Or my mood. Or jenre. Or filesize. Or bitrate?
Does this book belong in my software cookbooks, or in my cryptography section? Well, really, both. But what about this book, is it a book on artificial intelligence, or a book on Lisp? How should I categorize my book on "Object Oriented Raytracing in C++"? It fits under two different categories. Where should I put a book dedicated to the subject of garbage collection? A book on implementing compilers in C++ ? See my point? Sometimes computer files belong in multiple places. Is this a photograph (or mp3) of X or of Y? A query for an image of George Bush might return several images in common with a different query for political cartoons, because a single image might fit both categories.
"Filesystem? I don't need no stinkin filesystem!" An ideal Palm-esque computing environment wouldn't have any filesystem.
I've been thinking along these lines for a couple years now. Suppose a computing appliance, perhaps handheld, or not, didn't have a filesystem. How would you make use of the hard disk?
Suppose the software saves everything in memory resident database. No filesystem, and no disk. Everything stays in memory. But it is virtual memory. Every page in memory has a reserved backing store page on the disk. The disk partition for this OS is just a big swap area. The total size of your usable "memory" is the swap area, not RAM. Now powering off the device becomes very fast. And so does powering on. No more "booting up" nonsense. You press the "off" button, and almost instantly the device is off. No matter how much data you have, or if you were in the middle of a huge unsaved word processing document, the device instantly powers off and back on again. No artificial concept of "saving" a file -- just like PalmOS. You don't "save" anything. In fact, no artificial concept of computer files. (For flamers: I'm not outlining a fully fleshed out implemention here, just some rough ideas, think different.)
You can still move your stuff to other computers via. "syncing" or whatever you want to call it. It's just that higher level concepts are copied, uploaded, downloaded, e-mailed, etc. rather than a file (i.e. collection of untyped, unlabeled bytes). I may move my mp3's, and they are still categorized by artist, recording, date, label, etc., etc..
I've also been thinking that a filesystem such as NTFS or ReiserFS that allows attaching huge ammounts of metadata, or small amounts of metadata to any file would be important. For instance, my 4096x2048 digital photograph of the grand canyon (big file), should still be able to have a thumbnail (say about 128 KB) attached as metadata. Since the thumbnail is part of the "directory" information of the file, merely copying the file to another location retains all the metadata. (As opposed to Windows or KDE, where the thumbnail is another little hidden file somewhere near where the original file was stored.) Heck, I might want a graphic thumbnail metadata attached to an mp3 file. Of course, I suggest ReiserFS or NTFS because there should be no limit on the number of labeled metadata attachments, nor on their size. I should be able to attach metadata "Title":"Grand Canyon", "TYPE","TIFF", or "Audio Clipping":<5 MB of audio data> just as easily. When I move the file, the metadata moves with it -- but the metadata is not seen in the primary information flow -- i.e. sequence of bytes -- that make up the "file" data.
As much as I hate Microsoft, I expect that it is they who will do stuff like this first. Ideas such as I am discussing here will encounter lots of resistance from the old school. Just look at the resistance to the topic of this article in this discussion. (I remember when we had to had to organize and save our files ourselves, and we used stupid extensions like ".jpeg" as the only metadata, and it was uphill both ways.)
Drifting to a different topic, I wonder if true innovations at higher levels come from us geeks? We put up with the most abysmal user interfaces for so long that we are not even capable of recognizing a bad user interface. We are comfortable with what we've got. I frequently see the attitude: if I can learn this stuff, then you can too. If you can't get under the hood of your 1920's car and fix it when it frequently has minor troubles, then you shouldn't be driving. Where I'm going with this is that it may take talented people who are being paid to build next generation interfaces who follow someone else's vision who is not constrained by the present.
SonicBlue announces a new DVD player that can use either 802.11b or Ethernet to access whatever the slashdot editors are smoking today. (And yesterday!)
It doesn't cost any *money* to steal, but stealing still has cost. Most notable is time cost -- it takes time to locate and download a song you want. And even then once you're done you can't be sure you didn't get a lot of data errors in the track or different songs in the album were recorded with different loudness, etc.
Agreed. This clearly shows that our large scale piracy systems still need improvement.
What I described is exactly what Palladium is. Whether you are optimistic or not is simply a matter of how nice you expect Microsoft to be. But handing over control of your computer is exactly what trusted computing is about -- this is a plain simple fact. The only optimism / pessimism is whether you expect them to play nice once they have total control.
What I hope for is something that would make a scanned digital copy as good as a paper one.
In exactly what way does this have anything to do with trusted computing?
And yes, I believe "Trustworhty computing" is good.
I disagree. It is bad because there is no reason for a corporation to control the world's computers. None of the things you mention justify this.
[trusted computing] means that I can create a digital document, and it will never have to be printed. We can have "Trusted archives" instead of paper copies.
Trusted computing doesn't mean this. Right now without having trusted computing from the hardware on up you can verify the authenticity of documents. Public key cryptography. Digital signatures. MD5 checksums. These are all tools to ensure that you have the right document. It is not necessary for me to have control of YOUR computer in order for you to be sure that you're reading a document I wrote without anyone having tampered with it. So again, this does not justify trusted computing.
And I do think it would be like a "layer of security", and an OS such as Linux could still be run, the Palladium features would just be left out.
Your 'layer of security' remark is totally vague. Please be specific as to what you mean. I believe it means only a layer of control over everyone's system and nothing else.
Yes, Linux can still be run, but without any "trust", and therefore excluded from more and more each day. Taken to an extreme, there is no reason that Microsoft would have to allow Linux to even run at all. If the hardware will only boot trusted bootloaders, then only "trusted" bootloaders will run. Of course, Microsoft will claim that this is all open for anyone to participate. Anyone can pay some huge fee to get their bootlaoder signed, but this will in effect kill Linux. This all comes, ironically, down to trust. You trust Microsoft and I don't. I base my distrust on 20+ years of observation. I don't know what you base your trust on.
But because of people yelling(like j00), and a lot of peoples distrust of MS, they won't dare to do something really bad.
I'm not yelling, where do you get that idea?
I definitely distrust MS, for good reason.
Just because a lot of people are watching won't stop MS from playing nasty. It hever has before. Now that they've got the green light from the government, why would they suddenly start playing nice now? Microsoft seems friendly to their customers (except for the price gouging) because they are customers. Microsoft is hostile to competition. It is not enough for Microsoft to succeed. Everyone else must fail. That is the way they act.
That's why I think this will be good. Perhaps even GNU/Linux can have Palladium, because *someone* will demand competition in the market.
People can demand all they want. That doesn't mean squat. And if it is just *someone* then that really doesn't mean squat. Unless *most* people demand it, it is guaranteed that nothing will happen. Even if most people demand it provides no guarantee that anything will happen.
I've tried to provide sound reason for what I believe, and facts about what trusted computing means. You don't seem to dispute that trusted computing means no control for you. It seems the only difference we are left with is that you trust Microsoft and believe they will do no wrong, and I think exactly the opposite.
Now I am wondering what trustworthy computing will really mean, but if it would give me more control, I'd be glad.
It will give Microsoft more control, not you.
Starting at the boot loader. Your trusted hardware will not even execute a bootstrap unless it is digitally signed. Who will hold the private keys to do the signing? In order for the system to remain "trusted" the boot loader must be trusted. So the only boot laoders that will get signed are ones that Microsoft can trust to only load signed operating system kernels. So now the trust is extended to the kernel. Only a signed kernel can be booted. The only way you're going to get a kernel signed is if Microsoft can be sure that it is trusted to only do its master's bidding. (Otherwise all this trust business is moot.) You might be able to get an open source kernel signed (guess what, it'll cost some "nominal fee" to cover the soruce code audits) but only if the open OS is trusted not to run any untrusted code in privileged mode (i.e. kernel modules). So now the problem is that only signed kernel modules can be run. You're definitely not going to get any modules such as, say, sound drivers signed unless they are trusted to not to play any naughty bits from those mp3s downloaded by the evil pirates who are going to destroy the world economy. The os will execute unsigned applications, but won't allow them to use any "privileged" api's, such as playing sound or video. Trusted applications, that are signed, such as Windows Media Player, can use the privileged api's. Untrusted naughty applications, such as say, Winamp, will be limited in what they can do. You cannot tamper or patch trusted applications, because then the digital signature becomes invalid. So a trusted version of, say LookOut! (errr... I mean Outlook) could do nice things such as support automatically deleting e-mails. You could trust the system to only let the user read the message twice, or hold the message for 2 weeks, and then the message disappears without trace. I could trust the system to honor protection flags in data. If I copy protected content into the clipboard, it can only be pasted into a trusted application. The system provides the clipboard api. It will simply refuse to provide an untrusted application with the contents of the clipboard if the clipboard contents are flagged as the precious valuable property of a corporate copyright holder.
Are you still so niave to believe that "trusted computing" is about giving YOU more control? (No disrespect intended.)
And yes, I expect them to be nice. I don't buy things from people who aren't nice. And that's what all the not-nice people want, all the time.
This is a nice niave view in an ideallistic world with a competitive market.
Hello. Wake up. We have a single player with monopoly control of the computer industry. You have no choice. You buy a PC, it has Windows. Next, you buy a PC and its hardware will have Palladium to ensure it can only execute a trusted OS. It is already difficult today to NOT use Windows. Do you really think they want to even allow you to have any choice about whether you buy from them based on how nice they want to be today? Disney is not nice, and people just keep buying from them. There are other examples.
when someone places a pop-up ad on my desktop, they are trespassing, and I should be able to sue them.
Perhaps the new Windows version with "trustworthy computing" will solve some of this
Ha ha ha! Funny joke!
You're kidding right?
The whole purpose of Trustworthy Computing is to ensure that they can pull this kind of crap and that you cannot do anything about it. That is, that your computer obeys their commands, not your commands. Whether they actually exploit it in this way just depends on how nice do they want to be today?
In north america, it seems that all computer power cords are standardized. I don't mean the standard electrical plug. But the "other" end of the cord. Whether it plugs into a calculator, adding machine, comptuer, monitor, or some other types of equipment.
It has a standard sized six sided shape with three holes for metal prongs to fit into.
Perhaps, you've seen a cord with a connector that is the opposite gender of these. It might, for example, but a cord comming out of a monitor with a connector
that accepts a standard computer power cord.
This cord has metal prongs (male?) but a sheath around the prongs into which the bulk of the plug from the other end fits (femals?).
If you know the kind of connector I'm talking about, then why can't electrical power plugs work like this?
At present, electrical plugs have metal prongs that can be touched with your fingers while the plug is partially inserted into the electrical outlet.
What if there were a plastic "fence" around the group of prongs so that it was impossible to touch the prongs while it is being
inserted into an outlet?
The outlet would have to have the "cutout" for this plastic fence to fit into.
Anyone who has plugged an Apple monitor's electrical cord into the Mac so that the Mac controls the flow of power to the monitor
knows what I'm talking about here. It is impossible to touch the prongs while you're inserting the plug into the socket.
After reading other poster's comments about printable transistors, flexible displays, computerized T-shirts, etc. I had a dream. (Wierd what you think up while asleep.)
PDA's are "printed" on the surface of your skin. So it's not exactly like a tatoo. Just roll up your sleeve to use a PDA. In time they become so useful, they are a "must" have, like credit cards are now. Everyone's got to have one.
Since they wear off, you have to have them re-printed on your skin after awhile. But since you need them, if you can't afford one, there are corporate sponsorships. A corporation will pay to print a PDA on your hand if in addition they can also print a color, animated, advertising strip banner on your forehead.:-)
Just imagine, animated advertising banners aren't just for the web anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
Is a list of numbers even copyrightable? I wouldn't think so.....
Okay, I've got this list of numbers for you. Each number is between 0 and 255. What possible use could you put this list of numbers to? Try this just for fun. Make a file of bytes represented by these numbers. Name the file Windows2000.iso. I think you can figure out what to do next.
I wish lists of numbers weren't copyrightable. After all, all Napster did was broker the exchange of lists of numbers. They didn't even exchange the numbers themselves.
On the other hand, since those allowed access to the code probably had to sign the NDA-from-Hell, the schools, agencies, companies and individuals involved would probably be sued...
:-) Do you have to sign it before you are allowed to read it? :-) Seriously though, do the terms require that you not disclose the existance of nor contents of the agreement?
This raises a question. (Mostly still on topic.)
Has anyone ever seen this NDA from hell? Is anyone who has actually seen it allowed to live if they don't sign it?
Also seriously, just like Microsoft's EULA for Front Page that requires that if you use Front Page to create web pages, you cannot ever say anything that disparages Microsoft, Expedia, (etc., etc., etc.), or any of Microsoft's subsidiary companies; does the shared source NDA from hell forbid you from saying anything negative if you see a huge hole or anything nasty or ugly in the source? Are you allowed to discuss source comments such as "weenies from Netscape" without being secretly arrested?
Seriously, non humorously, does anyone know what this NDA from hell contains? This is relevant to a discussion about Microsoft's "open" code.
Microsoft has "won". And it would be a show of great sportsmanship to collect their gold medal, step off the podium and leave the playing field.
Several observations:
1. They have not yet finished destroying the industry. There are still other successful software companies. And although it is almost impossible to have a job in this industry that is not at Microsoft's pleasure, it is still possible.
2. You don't get how these people think. It is not enough for Microsoft to succeed. everyone else must fail!
3. If they do finish destroying this industry, there are other industries. Microsoft could branch out into online services, game consoles, consumer electronics, cell phones, travel, banking, insurance, and, even perhaps government [i.e. running other people's lives].
Having published source never hurt IBM or DEC. They [Microsoft] should do it.
Yeah, publishing the source to the 1981 IBM PC's BIOS, with complete assembly language listings in the back of the manual never hurt IBM.
IBM was a monopoly. They made obscene profit on hardware. IBM didn't see any profit in software, so the let Microsoft have the rights to sell it to others. Big monopolies never think that someone hungrier can make the same thing better and cheaper. I wonder if being able to inspect IBM's bios helped Compaq in making their own original, but totally compatible ROM with exactly the same routine entry points at exactly the same addresses?
But I do agree with the second part of the parent post that Microsoft should publish their source. Like with IBM, it will help accellerate their downfall by allowing others to build something totally compatible. I wonder if, like the IBM monopoly, anyone could do Microsoft's thing better and cheaper?
>>why all my porn has been changed to Hillary Rosen with a strap-on.
>Wait a minute... THAT'S NO STRAP-ON !
This should hardly be surprising, and is quite logical. After all, we already knew that the RIAA was screwing the artists. I'm only surprised that we didn't know the exact mechanism of such screwing until now. It must be an NDA clause in the artists' contracts.
I will never buy from a telemarketing phone call, or a pop-up ad. NEVER. Get it?
But will you buy if they send you a SPAM ?
But won't you try pop-up's and spam?
How about telemarketer's and spam?
Would you buy while in mid flight?
What if they called you at midnight?
Would you buy while on the road?
What if they stop you on the road?
Would you buy while you're at work?
What if the caller was a jerk?
Would you buy while watching TV?
What if you were downloading MP3's?
Would you buy while you're at home?
What if they called your mobile phone?
C'mon, just try pop-up's and spam!
1. Candidate buys list of 1,000,000 people who hate telemarketers.
2. Candidate calls 1,000,000 people asking them to vote for opponent.
3. 1,000,000 people vote for candidate.
4. ???
5. Profit !!!
They may suck as a company but on occasion, they can accidentally create (or buy) something decent.
They can pour buckets of money into development or acquisitions. Money that they extort through artificially high prices on products that you have no choice but to buy (Windows and Office). Of course they can produce or acquire good products. Today. But what about in 1993 when their product, even after years of development, sucked rocks compared to what little competition there was?
So sure, Microsoft, today, has good products.
I guess I don't see it that way. .... I cna't see why you'd really want your chilton (car repair mauals) in your kitchen.
That's because you're only thinking of one way to organize things. In this analogy, we're describing a physical organization. "Oh, yeah, that book would be in the garage." But what about when you ask: "Now where did I leave that $*@&#* book again?" Or, "Hey, honey, do you know where I left the book on how to pull the wings off butterflies?"
Suppose you have a book that logically belongs in two categories? I suppose you've never seen an mp3 that could be categorized multiple ways. Does this mp3 belong under "Rock" or something else? What if I want to sometimes categorize by artist. Or label. Or recording. Or my mood. Or jenre. Or filesize. Or bitrate?
Does this book belong in my software cookbooks, or in my cryptography section? Well, really, both. But what about this book, is it a book on artificial intelligence, or a book on Lisp? How should I categorize my book on "Object Oriented Raytracing in C++"? It fits under two different categories. Where should I put a book dedicated to the subject of garbage collection? A book on implementing compilers in C++ ? See my point? Sometimes computer files belong in multiple places. Is this a photograph (or mp3) of X or of Y? A query for an image of George Bush might return several images in common with a different query for political cartoons, because a single image might fit both categories.
"Filesystem? I don't need no stinkin filesystem!" An ideal Palm-esque computing environment wouldn't have any filesystem.
I've been thinking along these lines for a couple years now. Suppose a computing appliance, perhaps handheld, or not, didn't have a filesystem. How would you make use of the hard disk?
Suppose the software saves everything in memory resident database. No filesystem, and no disk. Everything stays in memory. But it is virtual memory. Every page in memory has a reserved backing store page on the disk. The disk partition for this OS is just a big swap area. The total size of your usable "memory" is the swap area, not RAM. Now powering off the device becomes very fast. And so does powering on. No more "booting up" nonsense. You press the "off" button, and almost instantly the device is off. No matter how much data you have, or if you were in the middle of a huge unsaved word processing document, the device instantly powers off and back on again. No artificial concept of "saving" a file -- just like PalmOS. You don't "save" anything. In fact, no artificial concept of computer files. (For flamers: I'm not outlining a fully fleshed out implemention here, just some rough ideas, think different.)
You can still move your stuff to other computers via. "syncing" or whatever you want to call it. It's just that higher level concepts are copied, uploaded, downloaded, e-mailed, etc. rather than a file (i.e. collection of untyped, unlabeled bytes). I may move my mp3's, and they are still categorized by artist, recording, date, label, etc., etc..
I've also been thinking that a filesystem such as NTFS or ReiserFS that allows attaching huge ammounts of metadata, or small amounts of metadata to any file would be important. For instance, my 4096x2048 digital photograph of the grand canyon (big file), should still be able to have a thumbnail (say about 128 KB) attached as metadata. Since the thumbnail is part of the "directory" information of the file, merely copying the file to another location retains all the metadata. (As opposed to Windows or KDE, where the thumbnail is another little hidden file somewhere near where the original file was stored.) Heck, I might want a graphic thumbnail metadata attached to an mp3 file. Of course, I suggest ReiserFS or NTFS because there should be no limit on the number of labeled metadata attachments, nor on their size. I should be able to attach metadata "Title":"Grand Canyon", "TYPE","TIFF", or "Audio Clipping":<5 MB of audio data> just as easily. When I move the file, the metadata moves with it -- but the metadata is not seen in the primary information flow -- i.e. sequence of bytes -- that make up the "file" data.
As much as I hate Microsoft, I expect that it is they who will do stuff like this first. Ideas such as I am discussing here will encounter lots of resistance from the old school. Just look at the resistance to the topic of this article in this discussion. (I remember when we had to had to organize and save our files ourselves, and we used stupid extensions like ".jpeg" as the only metadata, and it was uphill both ways.)
Drifting to a different topic, I wonder if true innovations at higher levels come from us geeks? We put up with the most abysmal user interfaces for so long that we are not even capable of recognizing a bad user interface. We are comfortable with what we've got. I frequently see the attitude: if I can learn this stuff, then you can too. If you can't get under the hood of your 1920's car and fix it when it frequently has minor troubles, then you shouldn't be driving. Where I'm going with this is that it may take talented people who are being paid to build next generation interfaces who follow someone else's vision who is not constrained by the present.
Just some opinions. I should quit rambling now.
A Mac section but refusing to list Windows software? Why the bias towards one platform?
:-)
A short, simple, insightful answer: Because one of the platforms is made by Microsoft. Geez, man, get with the times.
SonicBlue announces a new DVD player that can use either 802.11b or Ethernet to access whatever the slashdot editors are smoking today. (And yesterday!)
It doesn't cost any *money* to steal, but stealing still has cost. Most notable is time cost -- it takes time to locate and download a song you want. And even then once you're done you can't be sure you didn't get a lot of data errors in the track or different songs in the album were recorded with different loudness, etc.
Agreed. This clearly shows that our large scale piracy systems still need improvement.
You know, you are very un-optimistic about this.
I belive it is realistic.
What I described is exactly what Palladium is. Whether you are optimistic or not is simply a matter of how nice you expect Microsoft to be. But handing over control of your computer is exactly what trusted computing is about -- this is a plain simple fact. The only optimism / pessimism is whether you expect them to play nice once they have total control.
What I hope for is something that would make a scanned digital copy as good as a paper one.
In exactly what way does this have anything to do with trusted computing?
And yes, I believe "Trustworhty computing" is good.
I disagree. It is bad because there is no reason for a corporation to control the world's computers. None of the things you mention justify this.
[trusted computing] means that I can create a digital document, and it will never have to be printed. We can have "Trusted archives" instead of paper copies.
Trusted computing doesn't mean this. Right now without having trusted computing from the hardware on up you can verify the authenticity of documents. Public key cryptography. Digital signatures. MD5 checksums. These are all tools to ensure that you have the right document. It is not necessary for me to have control of YOUR computer in order for you to be sure that you're reading a document I wrote without anyone having tampered with it. So again, this does not justify trusted computing.
And I do think it would be like a "layer of security", and an OS such as Linux could still be run, the Palladium features would just be left out.
Your 'layer of security' remark is totally vague. Please be specific as to what you mean. I believe it means only a layer of control over everyone's system and nothing else.
Yes, Linux can still be run, but without any "trust", and therefore excluded from more and more each day. Taken to an extreme, there is no reason that Microsoft would have to allow Linux to even run at all. If the hardware will only boot trusted bootloaders, then only "trusted" bootloaders will run. Of course, Microsoft will claim that this is all open for anyone to participate. Anyone can pay some huge fee to get their bootlaoder signed, but this will in effect kill Linux. This all comes, ironically, down to trust. You trust Microsoft and I don't. I base my distrust on 20+ years of observation. I don't know what you base your trust on.
But because of people yelling(like j00), and a lot of peoples distrust of MS, they won't dare to do something really bad.
I'm not yelling, where do you get that idea?
I definitely distrust MS, for good reason.
Just because a lot of people are watching won't stop MS from playing nasty. It hever has before. Now that they've got the green light from the government, why would they suddenly start playing nice now? Microsoft seems friendly to their customers (except for the price gouging) because they are customers. Microsoft is hostile to competition. It is not enough for Microsoft to succeed. Everyone else must fail. That is the way they act.
That's why I think this will be good. Perhaps even GNU/Linux can have Palladium, because *someone* will demand competition in the market.
People can demand all they want. That doesn't mean squat. And if it is just *someone* then that really doesn't mean squat. Unless *most* people demand it, it is guaranteed that nothing will happen. Even if most people demand it provides no guarantee that anything will happen.
I've tried to provide sound reason for what I believe, and facts about what trusted computing means. You don't seem to dispute that trusted computing means no control for you. It seems the only difference we are left with is that you trust Microsoft and believe they will do no wrong, and I think exactly the opposite.
Now I am wondering what trustworthy computing will really mean, but if it would give me more control, I'd be glad.
It will give Microsoft more control, not you.
Starting at the boot loader. Your trusted hardware will not even execute a bootstrap unless it is digitally signed. Who will hold the private keys to do the signing? In order for the system to remain "trusted" the boot loader must be trusted. So the only boot laoders that will get signed are ones that Microsoft can trust to only load signed operating system kernels. So now the trust is extended to the kernel. Only a signed kernel can be booted. The only way you're going to get a kernel signed is if Microsoft can be sure that it is trusted to only do its master's bidding. (Otherwise all this trust business is moot.) You might be able to get an open source kernel signed (guess what, it'll cost some "nominal fee" to cover the soruce code audits) but only if the open OS is trusted not to run any untrusted code in privileged mode (i.e. kernel modules). So now the problem is that only signed kernel modules can be run. You're definitely not going to get any modules such as, say, sound drivers signed unless they are trusted to not to play any naughty bits from those mp3s downloaded by the evil pirates who are going to destroy the world economy. The os will execute unsigned applications, but won't allow them to use any "privileged" api's, such as playing sound or video. Trusted applications, that are signed, such as Windows Media Player, can use the privileged api's. Untrusted naughty applications, such as say, Winamp, will be limited in what they can do. You cannot tamper or patch trusted applications, because then the digital signature becomes invalid. So a trusted version of, say LookOut! (errr... I mean Outlook) could do nice things such as support automatically deleting e-mails. You could trust the system to only let the user read the message twice, or hold the message for 2 weeks, and then the message disappears without trace. I could trust the system to honor protection flags in data. If I copy protected content into the clipboard, it can only be pasted into a trusted application. The system provides the clipboard api. It will simply refuse to provide an untrusted application with the contents of the clipboard if the clipboard contents are flagged as the precious valuable property of a corporate copyright holder.
Are you still so niave to believe that "trusted computing" is about giving YOU more control? (No disrespect intended.)
And yes, I expect them to be nice. I don't buy things from people who aren't nice. And that's what all the not-nice people want, all the time.
This is a nice niave view in an ideallistic world with a competitive market.
Hello. Wake up. We have a single player with monopoly control of the computer industry. You have no choice. You buy a PC, it has Windows. Next, you buy a PC and its hardware will have Palladium to ensure it can only execute a trusted OS. It is already difficult today to NOT use Windows. Do you really think they want to even allow you to have any choice about whether you buy from them based on how nice they want to be today? Disney is not nice, and people just keep buying from them. There are other examples.
I loved redhat very much, it's great for the newbie and corperate... but the Eula makes me want to stay away from it.
Could you be so kind as to briefly summarize what you don't like about the EULA for those of us who avoid Red Hat?
I believe his main point to this was that its HIS equipment that HE bought, thus he should not be forced to watch/listen to advertisments.
One word: Palladium
when someone places a pop-up ad on my desktop, they are trespassing, and I should be able to sue them.
Perhaps the new Windows version with "trustworthy computing" will solve some of this
Ha ha ha! Funny joke!
You're kidding right?
The whole purpose of Trustworthy Computing is to ensure that they can pull this kind of crap and that you cannot do anything about it. That is, that your computer obeys their commands, not your commands. Whether they actually exploit it in this way just depends on how nice do they want to be today?
I don't know why all Americans I meet are so certain that the government is out to get each and every one of them.
Whew! I'm glad to know that everything is A-OK then. Me and all my comrads should stop complaining or report to a re-education camp.
In north america, it seems that all computer power cords are standardized. I don't mean the standard electrical plug. But the "other" end of the cord. Whether it plugs into a calculator, adding machine, comptuer, monitor, or some other types of equipment.
It has a standard sized six sided shape with three holes for metal prongs to fit into.
Perhaps, you've seen a cord with a connector that is the opposite gender of these. It might, for example, but a cord comming out of a monitor with a connector that accepts a standard computer power cord.
This cord has metal prongs (male?) but a sheath around the prongs into which the bulk of the plug from the other end fits (femals?).
If you know the kind of connector I'm talking about, then why can't electrical power plugs work like this?
At present, electrical plugs have metal prongs that can be touched with your fingers while the plug is partially inserted into the electrical outlet. What if there were a plastic "fence" around the group of prongs so that it was impossible to touch the prongs while it is being inserted into an outlet? The outlet would have to have the "cutout" for this plastic fence to fit into.
Anyone who has plugged an Apple monitor's electrical cord into the Mac so that the Mac controls the flow of power to the monitor knows what I'm talking about here. It is impossible to touch the prongs while you're inserting the plug into the socket.
Yeah. Everyone knows that having children and viewing porn, or even being interested in sex, are mutually exclusive.
:-) Sex? Oh, yeah, remember that! Remember?
In reality, once you have children, the closest thing you'll get to sex most of the time is porn.
After reading other poster's comments about printable transistors, flexible displays, computerized T-shirts, etc. I had a dream. (Wierd what you think up while asleep.)
:-)
PDA's are "printed" on the surface of your skin. So it's not exactly like a tatoo. Just roll up your sleeve to use a PDA. In time they become so useful, they are a "must" have, like credit cards are now. Everyone's got to have one.
Since they wear off, you have to have them re-printed on your skin after awhile. But since you need them, if you can't afford one, there are corporate sponsorships. A corporation will pay to print a PDA on your hand if in addition they can also print a color, animated, advertising strip banner on your forehead.
Just imagine, animated advertising banners aren't just for the web anymore.