The AOL CD I got advertized 1000 free hours. It only lasted 2 seconds before it started smoking. It actually developed a nice pattern of rings on the data side that reflect the light in interesting ways - looks kind of like one of the xscreensavers.
There was a discussion a while back on whether or not to use VP3 as the official Tarkin. I think that idea might have gotten scrapped due to patent and license issues. Look in the xiph.org archives.
it is fair of Apple to put restrictions on the update CDs and to prevent the most popular Mac web sites from distributing the instructions to circumvent Apple's legitimate copy protection.
While it would have been fair for Apple to put restrictions on who they sell to, it is most certainly not fair for Apple to put these restrictions on it after the sale. Also, it's even less fair for them to silence the speech of people just because it points out flaws in their product.
It would be dishonest for the seller to slap a Sony sticker on the generic model and sell it as such,
Isn't this a TRADEMARK infringement? What if they marked the monitor "precision toaster"? Is it still dishonest to sell it? How about if they labeled it "Mac OS 10.1 installer"?
But according to that, the only legal copies of a computer program you can make are ones helping you use the program (i.e., the copy in memory) and copies that are only used for archival purposes. What happened to fair use rights???
I must be missing something here... you have to install OS 10.1 before you can modify the OS 10.1 installer? The screen showing the EULA must be a part of the install. If you modify the program BEFORE accepting the EULA, you should be perfectly within your rights (reverse-engineering is a fair use right). You then run the modified installer and it prompts you to accept the EULA. You accept it, and the installer proceeds to install the entire operating system without checking for OS 10.0 first. What law has been broken, exactly?
Where did this particular idea come from? Buying SuperExpensiveOS on a CD is no different from buying music on a CD - you're not licensing the music and neither are you licensing the OS. Rather, you have bought a copy and you are then entitled to do with that copy whatever you want except for things prohibited by copyright law (IANAL, of course).
Preventing someone from doing something they are entitled to do until they give you something of value (your compliance) is extortion
Exactly! By the same logic using CSS to encrypt DVDs could be thought of as extortion. It'd be nice if lawyers would think more like people and less like corporations.
I must be missing something
on
DMCA 2, Freedom 0
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm reading through the 2600 ruling, and there's a section on here about the DMCA's constitutionality. The court says that because the DMCA deals with only the "functional" aspect of speech, it's "content-neutral". Since it's content neutral, it is therefore (this is the part I don't get) okay under the First Amendment.
How does this work? Does this apply to other types of speech as well, or are they just making this stuff up as they go?
Likely, it is just sine-wave beeps at the right frequency. The next step is to figure out how to play.wav files, and the holy grail, mp3 and Ogg Vorbis.
Actually, it looks like they're just square-wave beeps to me. It should be pretty easy to play.wav files. All you'd need to do is set an 8-bit greyscale palette and actually generate sine waves. From there playing mp3 and Vorbis files is easy. Just dump the output of mpg123 or ogg123 into the new program. Unfortunately, the electron gun turns off during retraces so there will be tiny chunks of the audio that drop out, but that shouldn't be much more than a low hum. The only problem I can see is that the processor might not be fast enough to push that much data to the screen every vertical refresh.
First of all, as others have pointed out, this approach is economically infeasable because of the way CD's are manufactured. Also, this type of watermark is vulnerable to a collusion attack: You and a group of buddies each get a copy, average the copies together, and then release that. The process of averaging together the copies will almost certainly dillute out the watermark.
It's a bit of a processor hog compared to MP3 (maybe something like twice the processing time), but remember that MP3 decoders have been around for a while and have gone through several iterations of optimization and tuning, whereas the Ogg codec is still under heavy development. The optimization process hasn't even started yet.
You're thinking of mid-side stereo. Joint stereo lets the encoder choose between real and mid-side stereo as it deems fit. That way if there's a section of the audio that has strong stereo separation it'll switch to two-channel stereo with a slight degradation in fidelity (to maintain bitrate).
Reminds me of a movie called Brazil in which a guy (I don't remember his name) is accidentally entered into some sort of criminal database because a fly fell into a typewriter (they used typewriters in that particular future). Government police stormed his home, took him away, and then tortured and killed him. Obviously the US wouldn't be that bad, but it's still something to think about.
No, I meant "write up a document describing how this would work, and maybe I'll listen to you and not filter you out as -1, Troll". Frankly, I don't see how what you propose would be workable without some sort of high-bandwidth global satellite broadcasting system that carries all the traffic on the Internet. Feel free to correct me.
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Not having any privacy is not something to just "get over". Or do you like being pushed around by large corporations?
The AOL CD I got advertized 1000 free hours. It only lasted 2 seconds before it started smoking. It actually developed a nice pattern of rings on the data side that reflect the light in interesting ways - looks kind of like one of the xscreensavers.
Does IIS support IPv6 (or will it soon)? I know Apache 2.0 does, because I'm using it right now.
Bah. There's always some file that won't make any pattern and to represent it will require more bits than the original file.
There was a discussion a while back on whether or not to use VP3 as the official Tarkin. I think that idea might have gotten scrapped due to patent and license issues. Look in the xiph.org archives.
it is fair of Apple to put restrictions on the update CDs and to prevent the most popular Mac web sites from distributing the instructions to circumvent Apple's legitimate copy protection.
While it would have been fair for Apple to put restrictions on who they sell to, it is most certainly not fair for Apple to put these restrictions on it after the sale. Also, it's even less fair for them to silence the speech of people just because it points out flaws in their product.
There's nothing binding about the contract if you don't accept it.
Isn't this a TRADEMARK infringement? What if they marked the monitor "precision toaster"? Is it still dishonest to sell it? How about if they labeled it "Mac OS 10.1 installer"?
But according to that, the only legal copies of a computer program you can make are ones helping you use the program (i.e., the copy in memory) and copies that are only used for archival purposes. What happened to fair use rights???
No, if the manufacturer sells you a car with a watch in it, both the car AND the watch are YOURS.
I must be missing something here... you have to install OS 10.1 before you can modify the OS 10.1 installer? The screen showing the EULA must be a part of the install. If you modify the program BEFORE accepting the EULA, you should be perfectly within your rights (reverse-engineering is a fair use right). You then run the modified installer and it prompts you to accept the EULA. You accept it, and the installer proceeds to install the entire operating system without checking for OS 10.0 first. What law has been broken, exactly?
(blah blah blah, IANAL, blah blah blah)
Where did this particular idea come from? Buying SuperExpensiveOS on a CD is no different from buying music on a CD - you're not licensing the music and neither are you licensing the OS. Rather, you have bought a copy and you are then entitled to do with that copy whatever you want except for things prohibited by copyright law (IANAL, of course).
Exactly! By the same logic using CSS to encrypt DVDs could be thought of as extortion. It'd be nice if lawyers would think more like people and less like corporations.
I'm reading through the 2600 ruling, and there's a section on here about the DMCA's constitutionality. The court says that because the DMCA deals with only the "functional" aspect of speech, it's "content-neutral". Since it's content neutral, it is therefore (this is the part I don't get) okay under the First Amendment.
How does this work? Does this apply to other types of speech as well, or are they just making this stuff up as they go?
Actually, it looks like they're just square-wave beeps to me. It should be pretty easy to play .wav files. All you'd need to do is set an 8-bit greyscale palette and actually generate sine waves. From there playing mp3 and Vorbis files is easy. Just dump the output of mpg123 or ogg123 into the new program. Unfortunately, the electron gun turns off during retraces so there will be tiny chunks of the audio that drop out, but that shouldn't be much more than a low hum. The only problem I can see is that the processor might not be fast enough to push that much data to the screen every vertical refresh.
If you actually take the time to read RedHat's proposal, you'll find that they're offering unlimited free support with no time limit.
First of all, as others have pointed out, this approach is economically infeasable because of the way CD's are manufactured. Also, this type of watermark is vulnerable to a collusion attack: You and a group of buddies each get a copy, average the copies together, and then release that. The process of averaging together the copies will almost certainly dillute out the watermark.
Does this agreement change anything? What's going to happen to Microsoft and its monopoly in the coming years?
This is not what the DNS was designed for.
Do you possess envelopes of a type or in a quantity not reasonably justified by a peaceful purpose?
It's a bit of a processor hog compared to MP3 (maybe something like twice the processing time), but remember that MP3 decoders have been around for a while and have gone through several iterations of optimization and tuning, whereas the Ogg codec is still under heavy development. The optimization process hasn't even started yet.
You're thinking of mid-side stereo. Joint stereo lets the encoder choose between real and mid-side stereo as it deems fit. That way if there's a section of the audio that has strong stereo separation it'll switch to two-channel stereo with a slight degradation in fidelity (to maintain bitrate).
Reminds me of a movie called Brazil in which a guy (I don't remember his name) is accidentally entered into some sort of criminal database because a fly fell into a typewriter (they used typewriters in that particular future). Government police stormed his home, took him away, and then tortured and killed him. Obviously the US wouldn't be that bad, but it's still something to think about.
Actually, try looking here.
No, I meant "write up a document describing how this would work, and maybe I'll listen to you and not filter you out as -1, Troll". Frankly, I don't see how what you propose would be workable without some sort of high-bandwidth global satellite broadcasting system that carries all the traffic on the Internet. Feel free to correct me.