As I've said before, the United States Patent Office is a tool of the US government designed to grant commercial advantage to US companies.
The chance of getting your patent granted and the speed with which this is accomplished has nothing to do with the merits of the application.
On the contrary it's a function of the "Apple Pie" rating of the patent filer. The "Apple Pie" rating is a metric of how American the patent filer is.
For example, IBM and Microsoft are large well-established US corporations whose activities are likely to benefit the US government and economy in general. Thus, their Apple Pie rating is high and patents are granted without a second thought.
Contrast this to a foreign company held in an Allied company such as Britain, Germany or Australia. Such companies would have a much lower Apple Pie rating but would be prioritised above an applicant from Iran or the Sudan.
Essentially it's legal intellectual piracy. The patent office is riddled with incompetence and corruption. No-one notices since it's not immediately obvious what the stakes are.
IBM alone files thousands of patents a year. Ever wonder just what obvious, predated, prior-art patents they've got a lock on. Go on in and have a look. The malfeasance of the US patent office is both astonishing and disgusting.
Hilary how lame art thou? Let me count the ways..
on
RIAA to DoS Pirates?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Check out how they're going to do this, it's hilarious.
The software technology, according to industry sources, would essentially act as a downloader, repeatedly requesting the same file and downloading it very slowly, essentially preventing others from accessing the file. While stopping short of a full denial-of-service attack, the method could substantially clog the target computer's Internet connection.
Hello? The clue meter is reading zero. Another big doh for the RIAA.
It's unclear yet how much time and money any record label or industry group is willing to devote to the project. Given the huge number of file-swappers online, using this kind of direct-action technique against even a small percentage of song-traders could quickly soak up technical and financial resources.
You're not kidding. DDOS attacks rely on the fact that you've hacked a shitload of luser's computers to do your bidding which are all focused on (usually) just one target. How do the geniuses at the RIAA think they're going to DDOS a million people at once?
My advice: Ignore it. These people are technical buffoons. Remember that a lot of press-speak from the RIAA is focused upon manipulating public officials to put through the legislation they require. This press-release is trying to legitimise hacking for them alone.
Actually I've got an idea. If they do try this, how about some of our nastier hackers get together, identify the source IP's of the RIAA machines and simply hack them to death. After all, how secure will their machines be? They still don't understand technology, so I suggest we give them an idea of just how nasty the big wide world can be.
For an insight into the MAST program and its precursor START, slashdotters could do worse than click on the link at the bottom of the article.
Briefly, the START program proved the advantage of spherical tokomaks over conventional tokomaks. A tokomak is a torus shaped confinement vessel responsible for generating the magnetic field.
START was so successful, that MANY researchers world-wide are now using spherical tokomaks. The issue now is not "can we sustain a fusion reaction" but "can we do so efficiently."
Currently we can't which is why there's been no press releases. At this point it's purely an efficiency problem.
As an interesting aside, I noticed a page with some interesting uses for spherical tokomaks. One in particular caught my eye:
-- QUOTE --
Actinide Burner
Another idea for using the source of neutrons generated by a spherical tokamak is to "burn" unwanted long-lived actinides present in the spent fuel from a nuclear (fission) power station.
By transmuting these into shorter-lived nuclides, the waste burden from conventional nuclear power could be alleviated.
Nope under privatisation Telstra had to allow usage of the network infrastructure for most systems - this was before cable was thought of so
each vendor ran their own (and fibre links and mobile etc)
Isn't that what I just said? Optus and Vodafone had to construct parallel mobile network infrastructures. Optus had to lay their own cable. Telstra had to "allow" access to the POTS infrastructure but did so at prices that made fair competition impossible.
I am an optus at home customer and i pull down 600-800 mb a day without problems - they average it out over a 14 day period - so if you have a light day or 2 your are covered - i have gone over 1gb a day and never got chipped - they work an average cutting out the top and bottom 5% - it not as bad as non customers point out
I know the system, however I really wasn't going to bore our American friends with the gritty details. It averages out to around 400Mbytes/day. That's close enough for me. And it's very bad for a company which advertised unlimited broadband access then reneged. That's a breach of consumer law.
You Said:
Oh, at around $100/month too. Roughly US$50/month. This is on a 12 month contract after paying setup fees of $350.
I say:
Optus@home - Contract Rate - 18 Months @ $75AU a month (if you have cable tv and phone thru them its less - i pay $53 month - Non Contract rate - $65Au month
Telstra( my brother is an ADSL Customer) $75AU/Mnth and a $250 Install fee - plus their service does not work (he hasnt paid for it in 6
months and they havent asked him too until they get it right)
Telstra ADSL is over $100/month unless you're preselected with them, in which case it kicks back to $89. I know because I have it.
You Said:
This latest move by Optus is a stunt designed to try and cap their broadband expenses. Basically the company is going down and is trimming costs prior to looking for a buyer.
I say: They have a buyer (see below) and thats not the reason - they are doing this stuff to appear like a nice corporate citizen to the Singaporean Govt - you know they have a major stakeholding in SingTel and they are a right wing and repressive gov
Who also doesn't seem to believe in copyright? Singapore is a pirate mecca. No, this is simple cost cutting as they only look at the accounts of people who have high download usage. Have a look at the article and read between the lines. It's fairly obvious.
Grew up in the country and my family lives in the far west of QLD - this is load of crap the oppostion parties and vested interests would love
you to listen to - prices have not risen that much but they have a bit as the GOVERNMENT no longer subsidises the services and it costs money to provide them (shock horror). Alternative carriers wont go in there as it does not make economic sense without govt help - we are talking about small numbers of people with huge infrastructre costs - whos going to pay for it - no company will spend billions on a commercially unviable system (think about what happend to iridium) Do you live in the country ?
Mobile prices are simply unbelievable. They're by far the biggest proportion of Telstra profits. Cost of service has not risen yet Telstra has just slugged us with an extra $30/year for line rental. Care to explain how costs *haven't* risen?
And by what logic do you determine that having a non-government subsidised telecommunications carrier is a good thing? Ye gods man, it's infrastructure for goodness sake. Why do you think we pay taxes? Merely so the government can spend $300 million/year on 290 politicians? Don't be absurd. We've already paid for this infrastructure, it came out of our taxes.
And by the way? Vested interests? What vested interests? You mean Liberal party mates being thrown contracts by Government ministers?
I say: Optus at home customer here and i dont live in hell, i have an excellent service and its fast - the fact is that in life you get what you pay for - this is a country with a 18 million population spread across a large land mass, these services are expensive to provide and thus it costs money - you can point at the US and say they have cheap access - they have 350+ million people - thats a lot more customers.
That's nice except it's a complete furphy. The broadband services I refer to are only available in limited, densely packed urban areas. Of course these are no more expensive to wire up than any typical US city, so your argument is null and void.
Second, these services are not expensive. ADSL uses existing infrastructure with clever DSP algorithms at either end. Intra-continental bandwidth is ridiculously cheap as the packets can dart across a variety of transport layers.
I'll grant you this. Telstra is clearly incapable of running a network, they just don't have a clue. However, this is their own problem.
And dont forget the other vendors out there with cable and ADSL - I-hug, Burst net, etc (do a web search)
Oh please. Everyone else out there is either heinously limited in the service they're offering or prodigiously expensive. There *is* no broadband competition in Australia, there's just a Duopoly.
In closing i offer this comment (lifted from whirlpool) Why is broadband so damn expensive?
While the price could come down a bit further, it's not really all that expensive. Given our exchange rate, we pay similar prices for broadband
as people in America.
That'd be nice except the service is not true broadband. It's narrowband dressed in broadband clothing. Most US DSL and cable companies don't impose 64Kb/sec bandwidth limits and time-based download limits. You can argue till you're blue in the face, but there's simply no justification for capping intra-continental bandwidth, it doesn't cost the providers a red cent. Unused bandwidth isn't a commodity you can save and sell later on, it just goes to waste.
Australian users have to absorb the cost of building cross-pacific pipelines like the Southern Cross Cable (http://www.southerncrosscables.com/), which is in itself over 30 thousand kilometres of multi-core fibre optic cable. Even after the pipeline is built, Australian companies have to pay American networks for the ability to "plug in" to the internet.
We don't absorb it at all, Southern Cross Cable is a private consortium which onsells bandwidth. It's a purely commercial venture.
As for the cost. You can bet it's not the 19c/MByte that Telstra likes to charge. Not by a long shot.
Dial-up internet can be more costly than you think. You could be paying anywhere between 20 cents to one dollar per day in phone calls (that's between $6 and $30 per month), not to mention the cost of line rental for a second phone line, something that most regular internet users
need when using dial-up.
Well you had me up to this point, but every time one of you idiots trots out this mantra I know I'm talking with a Telstra or Optus stooge. You guys can't resist poking dial-up in the eye every chance you get. Oh well, another conversation wasted.
Oh, and I've had broadband for 18 months. First cable, then ADSL.
Broadband internet access in Australia is essentially handled by a Duopoly. These are Cable and Wireless' Optus Communications and the partially privatised Telstra corporation.
Telstra is the new incarnation of the original government run telecommunications provider. It has an enormous fixed line and mobile market share . This is a legacy of it's longstanding monopoly position.
Having said that, it was - up until a few years ago - a fully government owned and run monopoly. Coverage of the Australian continent is very good and the infrastructure is extremely sound.
Prices were enforced through regulation which also enforced a minimum quality of service.
Partial privatisation of Telstra combined with market de-regulation was supposed to bring the benefits of competition.
Optus Communications was one of the new players.
Telstra was allowed to maintain control of the infrastructure including the local loop.
Competitors were forced to pay exorbitant rates to provide access to fixed line customers.
Mobile communications required the construction of parallel infrastructures. Ditto for cable infrastructures which was constructed over the last 3 years. No cable existed prior to that time. (Frankly we didn't miss it all that much.)
The big 3 mobile providers are Telstra, Optus and Vodafone. Pretty much all of the others rent network access from one of these three.
Broadband access is limited to the cable infrastructures of Telstra and Optus. The only ADSL provider is - you guessed it - Telstra, since they control the entire POTS infrastructure.
Other broadband providers are either extremely regional and limited or rent capacity from one of these two.
So, you have a choice. Both companies advertised unlimited broadband access. Both companies have reneged on such deals and the telecommunications ombudsman and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission don't wish to pursue them.
Since they're a duopoly, there's nothing to stop them from pulling any stunt they want. Their 'unlimited' broadband connections are simply fast pipes for web browsing, nothing more. Download on the Optus network are capped at 10 times the average daily download.
So you can download 400Mbytes/day on Optus@Home.
Telstra is even worse. The cable and ADSL data rate is capped to 512K/128K and you're now limited to a download of 3G/month.
You read it right. 3G a month on a broadband connection.
Oh, at around $100/month too. Roughly US$50/month. This is on a 12 month contract after paying setup fees of $350.
This latest move by Optus is a stunt designed to try and cap their broadband expenses. Basically the company is going down and is trimming costs prior to looking for a buyer.
Currently they're trying to sell themselves to SingTel, but one of their satellites is also used by the Australian Defence Force for signal intelligence. Naturally we're rather concerned about the Singapore government spying on us should they get their hands on Optus.
The Federal minister for telecommunications is a luddite who spends most of his time scheming to sell the rest of Telstra off so he can make himself a fortune.
Since privatisation, quality of service has declined, prices have risen and rural areas have suffered. Telstra barely answers to the government now, a fully privatised organisation doesn't bear thinking about.
Essentially we're in broadband hell. Just be thankful you're not us.
Consumers have a taste for this and they like it. There's no way they're going to let you take it away from them now.
Basically the RIAA doesn't get it. They're running scared since there role as distributors is under threat.
Once artists realise that labels are just glorified Ad men, the power will start to shift to Web-based opinion makers. Or maybe not the Web, but whatever consensual networked reality (be it networked PDAs or whatever) that all the 21'st century kids are going to be plugged into.
It's simple. We don't want to be exploited any more. We're not buying your ripoff collections that surround a song we like with absolute drek.
We're buying only the songs we want, when we want and how we want. We will NEVER pay for the same song twice ever again, so you can stick those "Greatest Hits" and "Best of" collections where the sun doesn't shine.
Once we've bought a song, we'll play it wherever, whenever and however we like. We'll mix it, we'll scratch it, we'll sample it, we'll screw with it in any way shape or form we desire. We'll burn it onto cd, flash it into our MP3 player or mobile phone.
We'll share the music we like with our friends like our parents used to do with tapes. When we like an artist, we'll support them. We'll buy their music because we want them to make more.
And you sweetie?
We'll you're just surplus to requirements.
In the digital world you have no purpose. You're a relic from a bygone age. A robber-baron who's built her castle by ripping off the labours of a million artists.
Frankly scrag, you can fuck right off. You're simply not welcome here.
I doubt Gamecube's slippage is going to make any difference to unit sales. Nintendo's main strengths have always been Shigeru Miyamato's launch titles and sheer marketing power.
They screwed up with the N64 by choosing cartridge media instead of CD's. That single decision cost them more than any other event in their company's history. It essentially gave the mid-late 90's to Sony.
PlayStation 2's aren't doing stunningly well by any means. Last I heard Mickeysoft still hasn't come up with a comprehensive online strategy for the X-Box. Given their inability to cope with security issues, I can see why. That hard disk is a nice fat target for anyone with a Mickeysoft grudge and some time. The fallout from a successful mass hack would be intense.
The world has moved on since the X-Box announcement. In a year, the X-Box is going to start hitting the low-end edge of the PC curve. Newer graphics tech will make it look old. Sure it has the total lack of configuration issues common to all consoles, but Sony and Nintendo have got the games.
And those Japanese dudes do know how to design console games.
And seriously. Does anyone want to play Halo with that X-Box controller instead of mouse and keyboard? I think I'll pass.
Of course it may become more attractive if Nvidia keeps X-Box and higher level graphics chipsets at an unreasonably high price. (Hmm... Mickeysoft leverage the best chipsets in the business and prevent consumers from buying competing tech in one fell swoop?)
This is so typical of some Slashdot submitters. Any news about Microsoft is mangled into something bad about the company, regardless whether this really is the case or not.
Microsoft is a bad corporate citizen. The reason Slashdot participants criticise Microsoft is because we have the technical expertise to understand the impacts and motivations behind their decisions. The disability that makes you a cretin is your own problem.
People who badmounth a company (whether it be Microsoft or another) using information like this as an argument should either shut up or be sued and punished for spreading mis-information.
Companies which engage in monopolistic and anti-competitive behaviour, which take advantages of the average politician's technophobia and sheer inability to come to grips with the realities of the information age, should be broken up, their chief executives tried for usury and their employees sent to gaol.
Gee, this is easy. Got any more brilliant blanket statements? Anyone can make 'em up.
It's a perfect example of double standards: when Windows crashes this is always the fault of Microsoft, not of bad drivers or programs which access Windows internals, while in fact they often are (especially video drivers). When Microsoft tries to do something about it, it's suddenly only done for promotion of their own firewall software
Windows crashes because Microsoft can't design or engineer properly. They represent the peak of incompetence in software engineering and the very worst example of what runaway capitalism can do.
Here, cretin, have a clue. Microsoft are deliberately forcing ZoneAlarm and BlackIce out to prevent them from blocking the OS from snooping on your computer. Shock horror! How terrible if Microsoft's OS can't report back to Redmond HQ. It's a deliberate program of corporate sabotage.
As for the 'redesign' to comply with XP. This is sheer rubbish. ZoneAlarm and BlackIce will be fed API's which Microsoft 'authorised' applications can bypass. Microsoft has a problem with these applications because they're effective in returning network control to the user.
This kind of user configurability is something which Microsoft abhors. Bill's fondest wish is to turn the OS into a data mine that he can subsequently sell to advertisers.
You may not like your privacy, but many people do. I see no reason why they should give it up because of cretins like yourself whose inability to think is only exceeded by their hero-worship of an anti-competitive monopolist with a lot of money.
If we as a species ever develop compelling virtual reality, we'll lock ourselves inside it and never come out.
Why is 60% of internet traffic expended on sexual content? (Yeah, I'm guessing here but I'll bet the number is startlingly higher than you'd expect.)
Basically, we're just a species of complete wankers.
Listen, I totally agree that most patents that are out there for software is completely bull$hit. But, what about those companies who have created such a complex algorithm for a product and have it coded in a product? I work for such a company(I really can't explain the algorithm that'd be a breach of contract). The product is based on an extremely fault-resilient algorithm for broadcasting encoded data.
This algorithm is patented, and I completely agree with it. I don't buy that by patenting certain things we're stifling innovation or hurting anyone.
There are plenty of other companies still creating algorithms, it's just that ours is by far the most scalable and most creative(IMO). We're the industry leader in the market we're in, but by no means are we of M$ caliber.
You get what's called 'competitive advantage.' You get to use an (allegedly) superior algorithm for your particular application. And you get to use it for as long as it takes someone else to come up with either the same algorithm, a functionally equivalent algorithm, a better algorithm, or an acceptable algorithm that isn't as good as yours but makes no different in the competitive marketplace.
That's all you deserve. By what logic do you assume that:
A) Your algorithm is going to make any kind of *difference* to your product that will translate to dollars and cents. Either the algorithm has to make the product significantly BETTER to the point where this influences product consumers or it makes the product CHEAPER to produce in some fashion. If it accomplishes neither of these goals, then why do you deserve to charge others for its use?
B) You're the only ones capable of coming up with this algorithm? If someone comes up with the same algorithm independently, why shouldn't they also be allowed to utilise the fruits of their labour? Oh, only YOU are allowed to do that because YOU'RE FIRST? What kind of screwed up logic is that?
C) That designing and implementing the algorithm allows you to prevent someone from coming up with a functionally equivalent algorithm? Oh, because you jumped through a legal set of hoops FIRST, you get to stop other people from innovating?
D) That someone can't do better than your algorithm? They're not allowed to innovate and create superior technology because you've already come up with the inferior version it's based upon?
Incidentally is your algorithm based upon anything else? Does it sit in glorious isolation or does it rely upon ideas made freely available by previous software pioneers?
I'm betting it's not. In practice it's impossible to claim total originality in software seeing as software itself is based upon concepts of computing by pioneers such as Turing, Von Neumann and so forth.
In other words, having made use of unpatented ideas, algorithms and technologies to create an algorithm you wish to patent, I say fuck you jack and fuck your company.
"If I see further it's because I stood on the shoulders of giants, not because I chopped off my competitors' legs." - Cryptimus
The American Patent Office is doing exactly what the government of the United States wants it to do. Assign rights to any and every idea to American companies to enable them to attempt to control any and all lucrative technologies.
Essentially the Patent Office is all about IP. It is actively engaged in the practice of encouraging intellectual piracy by US corporations. The sheer breadth of the obvious solutions granted patent status is impossible to comprehend unless you're prepared to drown yourself in the paperwork.
Most people are aware that the demise of the cold war has seen US government intelligence agencies focus their energies upon corporate espionage. This is designed to give US companies an advantage over foreign rivals by engaging in activies that are illegal domestically but are apparently okay when your competition is foreign.
Is it too much of a conceptual leap to understand that the US Patent Office is a piece of legal legerdemain designed to accomplish exactly the same goals?
Patents are being granted to US companies at rates that defy justification. IBM alone files thousands of patents a year. Yet the US Patent Office continues to grant patents willy-nilly to so-called 'inventions' that are clearly obvious or predated by previous work.
This isn't simple incompetence, it's deliberate culpability. Rather than a program of stupidity, beauracratic inefficiency or simple mis-understanding, it's an extremely active policy of Intellectual Piracy.
Indeed, there exists a US company (at least one) whose entire purpose is to conduct patent searches in foreign domains for new ideas with the intent of subsequently patenting these ideas in the US before the real inventor does so.
Then the US pressures foreign governements into looking kindly upon any patents which have already been 'legitimised' by the US patent office. Those governments with a shred of common sense laugh themselves silly and tell Uncle Sam to fuck off.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Intellectual Piracy. Have a nice day.
Please forgive the double post. I meant to reply to the main article but screwed up.
Having worked in the gaming industry, I can only give you a glimpse of the staggering levels of protection offered to consumers by government regulation. It's truly awe-inspiring.
The Australian State of Victoria successfully introduced poker machines in the early 1990's. Probity was of primary concern. Under no circumstances were gaming machines ever to either cheat a player or be capable of allowing the players to cheat.
Any breach of this rule - even accidentally - results in investigation by the Federal police.
As I said a glimpse. The monitoring system is a central host. All machines are connected via TCP/IP. Machines must respond to authentication and checksum validation at any time. Machine logic systems are sealed. Unsealing the system renders the machine unusable until a reset is hand performed by a government auditor with a unique one-time code.
Gaming logic must be able to survive power down, network disconnection, logic unsealing or any combination of these. If a game is in progress when any disabling event occurs, it must resume and play to completion upon system restoration.
Gaming transactions are monitored and validated by the central host. The random #'s are tracked and results compared. Any machine which violates this causality is disabled.
ALL gaming source code is subject to validation by government auditors. Any programmer attempting to incorporate any suspicious code would immediately be prosecuted.
By government decree, all gaming machines must return a minimum of 87% of their intake. Each game must be submitted with a probability analysis and accompanying source code.
Basically, gaming in Victoria is clean.
Now, when you gamble in an online casino, guess what protection you have.
None.
Gambling is stupid anyway, but online casinos can rip you off blind in ways that traditional gambling venues never can. They're uncontrolled, with no requirement for any sort of probity. Don't give me any bullshit about market forces either, it won't wash. Fundamentally, online casinos are crooked and can get away with it because the only way to PROVE they're crooked is to take massive samples of the games to prove the percentages don't add up.
Here's an example. User spins up a $1,000,000 win on an online game. Gaming program decides that's a bad thing and alters it to a $500 win. Or nothing. Basically online casinos offer ZERO protection to the consumer and should be stamped out. If you HAVE to have gambling, then at least gambling regulated by government decree lets the consumer know what they're getting into. Online casinos are a scam just like any "make-money-fast" pyramid scheme.
In this context, the legislation is not only desirable but quite clever. It puts the onus for blocking Australian gamblers upon the casino itself and you can be sure their desire to protect their revenue flow will radically exceed any measures that the government could ever install.
Yeah, sure you could use overseas accounts or any other means to circumvent the legislation but by that time the legislation's already achieved it's purpose. To prevent online gambling from becoming an impulse purchase. If you have to actually go to any trouble to gamble, chances are you're going to forget it.
Having worked in the gaming industry, I can only give you a glimpse of the staggering levels of protection offered to consumers by government regulation. It's truly awe-inspiring.
The Australian State of Victoria successfully introduced poker machines in the early 1990's. Probity was of primary concern. Under no circumstances were gaming machines ever to either cheat a player or be capable of allowing the players to cheat.
Any breach of this rule - even accidentally - results in investigation by the Federal police.
As I said a glimpse. The monitoring system is a central host. All machines are connected via TCP/IP. Machines must respond to authentication and checksum validation at any time. Machine logic systems are sealed. Unsealing the system renders the machine unusable until a reset is hand performed by a government auditor with a unique one-time code.
Gaming logic must be able to survive power down, network disconnection, logic unsealing or any combination of these. If a game is in progress when any disabling event occurs, it must resume and play to completion upon system restoration.
Gaming transactions are monitored and validated by the central host. The random #'s are tracked and results compared. Any machine which violates this causality is disabled.
ALL gaming source code is subject to validation by government auditors. Any programmer attempting to incorporate any suspicious code would immediately be prosecuted.
By government decree, all gaming machines must return a minimum of 87% of their intake. Each game must be submitted with a probability analysis and accompanying source code.
Basically, gaming in Victoria is clean.
Now, when you gamble in an online casino, guess what protection you have.
None.
Gambling is stupid anyway, but online casinos can rip you off blind in ways that traditional gambling venues never can. They're uncontrolled, with no requirement for any sort of probity. Don't give me any bullshit about market forces either, it won't wash. Fundamentally, online casinos are crooked and can get away with it because the only way to PROVE they're crooked is to take massive samples of the games to prove the percentages don't add up.
Here's an example. User spins up a $1,000,000 win on an online game. Gaming program decides that's a bad thing and alters it to a $500 win. Or nothing. Basically online casinos offer ZERO protection to the consumer and should be stamped out. If you HAVE to have gambling, then at least gambling regulated by government decree lets the consumer know what they're getting into. Online casinos are a scam just like any "make-money-fast" pyramid scheme.
In this context, the legislation is not only desirable but quite clever. It puts the onus for blocking Australian gamblers upon the casino itself and you can be sure their desire to protect their revenue flow will radically exceed any measures that the government could ever install.
Yeah, sure you could use overseas accounts or any other means to circumvent the legislation but by that time the legislation's already achieved it's purpose. To prevent online gambling from becoming an impulse purchase. If you have to actually go to any trouble to gamble, chances are you're going to forget it.
According to the submitted website, it appears that RMS said:
Do you know anyone who has an idea of what SONY's real motives are for this secrecy?
This is the crux of the entire argument regarding "free(dom)" of the project. Why, oh why, is it that Sony would not want someone to release Free code that runs on their platform?
Why?
Is it an argument for the almighty buck?
Is it a historical corporate paranoia?
Is it that their technology is so weak that simply seeing a bunch of API calls will allow competition to surpass them?
Oh good grief. Do you have any idea what the cost model for a console is? Here's a gross simplification:
Every PS/2 that Sony currently makes costs them around US$450 to manufacture. Go have a look and see how much a PS/2 sells for. Then factor in the development costs and do the numbers. Where do you think they make their money?
Answer: It's the software. Sony makes money on titles shipped, not on the actual console. Obviously it's in their interests to ensure that software sells as well as possible. To this end Sony decides who can develop and publish for their console.
Why? Quick history lesson. Back in the early 80's the Atari 2600 was king and those early game developers lived in a land flowing with milk and honey. Then the videogame bubble burst. One of the primary reasons attributed to this was the Z-grade standard of software available for the console. Any idiot with an assembler could throw together a so-called "game" and get it out on the shelves. Consumers got sick to death of buying crud and just stopped buying altogether.
Nintendo, Sega and Sony learned that particular lesson very well. If you make a console ensure it has QUALITY titles available or you *will* go broke. That's why Sony restricts access to PS/2 development information. If they don't they're killing the goose. Given the massive investment required to actually produce a console, I think their approach is justified.
I am considering getting a PS2. Now I am drastically having to reconsider. And I'm not joking.
Sony couldn't care less. Really. They market the PS/2 to teenagers interested in entertainment, not slashdotters with obscure conspiracy theories. It's their console, they've made the investment, they've built the market. If you want to develop for it then you have to play by their rules. If you don't want to then tough. There are plenty of people who do.
For all his lauded status, Stallman seems surprisingly ignorant. He has no idea what a console is and has never heard of the DirectX API. Given that console and DirectX targetted games sell more units - in total - than any desktop application or OS, I find this somewhat odd.
Frankly I think Jorrit was talking to the wrong person. Game development wouldn't even be remotely feasible in Stallman's universe. Indeed, I'm sure he'd deride it as unethical. After all, how can creating entertainment for the masses compare with writing software to do something actually useful?
Having said all that, I think Jorrit's intention to make Crystal Space available for the PS/2 is misguided. It benefits no-one but Sony and their authorised developers.
It does not provide developers with access to the PS/2 platform because Sony controls the PS/2 and decides which software will be published. If you're an authorised PS/2 developer you don't need Crystal Space (indeed there are probably very valid reasons for *not* wanting to use it).
If you do need Crystal Space (because you're on a tight budget) you're unlikely to be granted PS/2 development status. I think targetting Crystal Space at the PS/2 is a waste of time.
Web servers can't read your registry, plain and simple.
This is of course complete rubbish. A web server can do anything given a compliant client. There is no inherent security or functional limitation built into a web-server that prevents it doing exactly that.
The only possible way is if you ran an ActiveX control or an executable(scripting languages can't do this) that accessed the registry, but if you did that, it would be your own fault. Its certainly not the default behavior for a browser to access and send registry values to web servers.
Wrong. You have no idea what any closed proprietary web browser does or is capable of. The assumption that a web browser does not - or worse, can not - read and transmit information from any part of a client system is a fundamental mistake.
In any case, much of the functionality on microsoft.com is built around ActiveX controls. Windows Update for example. I guess anyone who wants to update their OS deserves what they get don't they?
However the registry and the information a browser sends are two very different things. There is no way a web server can get to your registry. And there are no secret API's that only Microsoft knows about. It would be way too much of a security risk, and someone would have blown the whistle a long time ago.
Like the security risk inherent in their ludicrously insecure Outlook client for example? Or the multitude of security risks that have plagued Internet Explorer from day one? Not to mention the ludicrously insecure concept of letting a browser run binaries on a client system. Gee those explorer chappies certainly do have security on the brain don't they?
We already know Internet Explorer keeps more information than it lets on. I don't know how many times I've seen yet another article on the information Internet Explorer maintains on the client machine. The fact that no-one has found a particular feature does not mean it does not exist.
IE is a closed system. It is proprietary. The code is not available for peer review. Therefore no independent validation can be made regarding its security. Given the right stimulus from a web server, IE could theoretically be made to dance a jig.
A web server *can* get to the registry on your machine if there exists on your machine a client that has the facility to send out that kind of information. Mind you that would require an organisation that constructs both web servers and web browsers? Hmm... how many companies do that?
Oh and as for secret API's. Nah, in this day and age you'd only expect that from a company with a history of doing that sort of thing.........
Oh wow.......
wait a sec.... I've got this intense feeling of deja vu.....
Slashdot Mirror
The chance of getting your patent granted and the speed with which this is accomplished has nothing to do with the merits of the application.
On the contrary it's a function of the "Apple Pie" rating of the patent filer. The "Apple Pie" rating is a metric of how American the patent filer is.
For example, IBM and Microsoft are large well-established US corporations whose activities are likely to benefit the US government and economy in general. Thus, their Apple Pie rating is high and patents are granted without a second thought.
Contrast this to a foreign company held in an Allied company such as Britain, Germany or Australia. Such companies would have a much lower Apple Pie rating but would be prioritised above an applicant from Iran or the Sudan.
Essentially it's legal intellectual piracy. The patent office is riddled with incompetence and corruption. No-one notices since it's not immediately obvious what the stakes are.
IBM alone files thousands of patents a year. Ever wonder just what obvious, predated, prior-art patents they've got a lock on. Go on in and have a look. The malfeasance of the US patent office is both astonishing and disgusting.
My advice: Ignore it. These people are technical buffoons. Remember that a lot of press-speak from the RIAA is focused upon manipulating public officials to put through the legislation they require. This press-release is trying to legitimise hacking for them alone.
Actually I've got an idea. If they do try this, how about some of our nastier hackers get together, identify the source IP's of the RIAA machines and simply hack them to death. After all, how secure will their machines be? They still don't understand technology, so I suggest we give them an idea of just how nasty the big wide world can be.
mozilla features
faulty codepaths multiply
watch bugzilla feed
For an insight into the MAST program and its precursor START, slashdotters could do worse than click on the link at the bottom of the article.
Briefly, the START program proved the advantage of spherical tokomaks over conventional tokomaks. A tokomak is a torus shaped confinement vessel responsible for generating the magnetic field.
START was so successful, that MANY researchers world-wide are now using spherical tokomaks. The issue now is not "can we sustain a fusion reaction" but "can we do so efficiently."
Currently we can't which is why there's been no press releases. At this point it's purely an efficiency problem.
As an interesting aside, I noticed a page with some interesting uses for spherical tokomaks. One in particular caught my eye:
-- QUOTE --
Actinide Burner
Another idea for using the source of neutrons generated by a spherical tokamak is to "burn" unwanted long-lived actinides present in the spent fuel from a nuclear (fission) power station.
By transmuting these into shorter-lived nuclides, the waste burden from conventional nuclear power could be alleviated.
-- END QUOTE --
Now that's a useful fringe benefit.
Cryptimus
Nope under privatisation Telstra had to allow usage of the network infrastructure for most systems - this was before cable was thought of so each vendor ran their own (and fibre links and mobile etc)
Isn't that what I just said? Optus and Vodafone had to construct parallel mobile network infrastructures. Optus had to lay their own cable. Telstra had to "allow" access to the POTS infrastructure but did so at prices that made fair competition impossible.
I am an optus at home customer and i pull down 600-800 mb a day without problems - they average it out over a 14 day period - so if you have a light day or 2 your are covered - i have gone over 1gb a day and never got chipped - they work an average cutting out the top and bottom 5% - it not as bad as non customers point out
I know the system, however I really wasn't going to bore our American friends with the gritty details. It averages out to around 400Mbytes/day. That's close enough for me. And it's very bad for a company which advertised unlimited broadband access then reneged. That's a breach of consumer law.
You Said: Oh, at around $100/month too. Roughly US$50/month. This is on a 12 month contract after paying setup fees of $350.
I say:
Optus@home - Contract Rate - 18 Months @ $75AU a month (if you have cable tv and phone thru them its less - i pay $53 month - Non Contract rate - $65Au month
Telstra( my brother is an ADSL Customer) $75AU/Mnth and a $250 Install fee - plus their service does not work (he hasnt paid for it in 6 months and they havent asked him too until they get it right)
Telstra ADSL is over $100/month unless you're preselected with them, in which case it kicks back to $89. I know because I have it.
You Said:
This latest move by Optus is a stunt designed to try and cap their broadband expenses. Basically the company is going down and is trimming costs prior to looking for a buyer. I say: They have a buyer (see below) and thats not the reason - they are doing this stuff to appear like a nice corporate citizen to the Singaporean Govt - you know they have a major stakeholding in SingTel and they are a right wing and repressive gov
Who also doesn't seem to believe in copyright? Singapore is a pirate mecca. No, this is simple cost cutting as they only look at the accounts of people who have high download usage. Have a look at the article and read between the lines. It's fairly obvious.
Grew up in the country and my family lives in the far west of QLD - this is load of crap the oppostion parties and vested interests would love you to listen to - prices have not risen that much but they have a bit as the GOVERNMENT no longer subsidises the services and it costs money to provide them (shock horror). Alternative carriers wont go in there as it does not make economic sense without govt help - we are talking about small numbers of people with huge infrastructre costs - whos going to pay for it - no company will spend billions on a commercially unviable system (think about what happend to iridium) Do you live in the country ?
Mobile prices are simply unbelievable. They're by far the biggest proportion of Telstra profits. Cost of service has not risen yet Telstra has just slugged us with an extra $30/year for line rental. Care to explain how costs *haven't* risen?
And by what logic do you determine that having a non-government subsidised telecommunications carrier is a good thing? Ye gods man, it's infrastructure for goodness sake. Why do you think we pay taxes? Merely so the government can spend $300 million/year on 290 politicians? Don't be absurd. We've already paid for this infrastructure, it came out of our taxes.
And by the way? Vested interests? What vested interests? You mean Liberal party mates being thrown contracts by Government ministers?
I say: Optus at home customer here and i dont live in hell, i have an excellent service and its fast - the fact is that in life you get what you pay for - this is a country with a 18 million population spread across a large land mass, these services are expensive to provide and thus it costs money - you can point at the US and say they have cheap access - they have 350+ million people - thats a lot more customers.
That's nice except it's a complete furphy. The broadband services I refer to are only available in limited, densely packed urban areas. Of course these are no more expensive to wire up than any typical US city, so your argument is null and void.
Second, these services are not expensive. ADSL uses existing infrastructure with clever DSP algorithms at either end. Intra-continental bandwidth is ridiculously cheap as the packets can dart across a variety of transport layers.
I'll grant you this. Telstra is clearly incapable of running a network, they just don't have a clue. However, this is their own problem.
And dont forget the other vendors out there with cable and ADSL - I-hug, Burst net, etc (do a web search)
Oh please. Everyone else out there is either heinously limited in the service they're offering or prodigiously expensive. There *is* no broadband competition in Australia, there's just a Duopoly.
In closing i offer this comment (lifted from whirlpool) Why is broadband so damn expensive? While the price could come down a bit further, it's not really all that expensive. Given our exchange rate, we pay similar prices for broadband as people in America.
That'd be nice except the service is not true broadband. It's narrowband dressed in broadband clothing. Most US DSL and cable companies don't impose 64Kb/sec bandwidth limits and time-based download limits. You can argue till you're blue in the face, but there's simply no justification for capping intra-continental bandwidth, it doesn't cost the providers a red cent. Unused bandwidth isn't a commodity you can save and sell later on, it just goes to waste.
Australian users have to absorb the cost of building cross-pacific pipelines like the Southern Cross Cable (http://www.southerncrosscables.com/), which is in itself over 30 thousand kilometres of multi-core fibre optic cable. Even after the pipeline is built, Australian companies have to pay American networks for the ability to "plug in" to the internet.
We don't absorb it at all, Southern Cross Cable is a private consortium which onsells bandwidth. It's a purely commercial venture.
As for the cost. You can bet it's not the 19c/MByte that Telstra likes to charge. Not by a long shot.
Dial-up internet can be more costly than you think. You could be paying anywhere between 20 cents to one dollar per day in phone calls (that's between $6 and $30 per month), not to mention the cost of line rental for a second phone line, something that most regular internet users need when using dial-up.
Well you had me up to this point, but every time one of you idiots trots out this mantra I know I'm talking with a Telstra or Optus stooge. You guys can't resist poking dial-up in the eye every chance you get. Oh well, another conversation wasted.
Oh, and I've had broadband for 18 months. First cable, then ADSL.
A little background.
Broadband internet access in Australia is essentially handled by a Duopoly. These are Cable and Wireless' Optus Communications and the partially privatised Telstra corporation.
Telstra is the new incarnation of the original government run telecommunications provider. It has an enormous fixed line and mobile market share . This is a legacy of it's longstanding monopoly position.
Having said that, it was - up until a few years ago - a fully government owned and run monopoly. Coverage of the Australian continent is very good and the infrastructure is extremely sound.
Prices were enforced through regulation which also enforced a minimum quality of service.
Partial privatisation of Telstra combined with market de-regulation was supposed to bring the benefits of competition.
Optus Communications was one of the new players.
Telstra was allowed to maintain control of the infrastructure including the local loop.
Competitors were forced to pay exorbitant rates to provide access to fixed line customers.
Mobile communications required the construction of parallel infrastructures. Ditto for cable infrastructures which was constructed over the last 3 years. No cable existed prior to that time. (Frankly we didn't miss it all that much.)
The big 3 mobile providers are Telstra, Optus and Vodafone. Pretty much all of the others rent network access from one of these three.
Broadband access is limited to the cable infrastructures of Telstra and Optus. The only ADSL provider is - you guessed it - Telstra, since they control the entire POTS infrastructure.
Other broadband providers are either extremely regional and limited or rent capacity from one of these two.
So, you have a choice. Both companies advertised unlimited broadband access. Both companies have reneged on such deals and the telecommunications ombudsman and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission don't wish to pursue them.
Since they're a duopoly, there's nothing to stop them from pulling any stunt they want. Their 'unlimited' broadband connections are simply fast pipes for web browsing, nothing more. Download on the Optus network are capped at 10 times the average daily download.
So you can download 400Mbytes/day on Optus@Home.
Telstra is even worse. The cable and ADSL data rate is capped to 512K/128K and you're now limited to a download of 3G/month.
You read it right. 3G a month on a broadband connection.
Oh, at around $100/month too. Roughly US$50/month. This is on a 12 month contract after paying setup fees of $350.
This latest move by Optus is a stunt designed to try and cap their broadband expenses. Basically the company is going down and is trimming costs prior to looking for a buyer.
Currently they're trying to sell themselves to SingTel, but one of their satellites is also used by the Australian Defence Force for signal intelligence. Naturally we're rather concerned about the Singapore government spying on us should they get their hands on Optus.
The Federal minister for telecommunications is a luddite who spends most of his time scheming to sell the rest of Telstra off so he can make himself a fortune.
Since privatisation, quality of service has declined, prices have risen and rural areas have suffered. Telstra barely answers to the government now, a fully privatised organisation doesn't bear thinking about.
Essentially we're in broadband hell. Just be thankful you're not us.
Too late Hilary.
Consumers have a taste for this and they like it. There's no way they're going to let you take it away from them now.
Basically the RIAA doesn't get it. They're running scared since there role as distributors is under threat.
Once artists realise that labels are just glorified Ad men, the power will start to shift to Web-based opinion makers. Or maybe not the Web, but whatever consensual networked reality (be it networked PDAs or whatever) that all the 21'st century kids are going to be plugged into.
It's simple. We don't want to be exploited any more. We're not buying your ripoff collections that surround a song we like with absolute drek.
We're buying only the songs we want, when we want and how we want. We will NEVER pay for the same song twice ever again, so you can stick those "Greatest Hits" and "Best of" collections where the sun doesn't shine.
Once we've bought a song, we'll play it wherever, whenever and however we like. We'll mix it, we'll scratch it, we'll sample it, we'll screw with it in any way shape or form we desire. We'll burn it onto cd, flash it into our MP3 player or mobile phone.
We'll share the music we like with our friends like our parents used to do with tapes. When we like an artist, we'll support them. We'll buy their music because we want them to make more.
And you sweetie?
We'll you're just surplus to requirements.
In the digital world you have no purpose. You're a relic from a bygone age. A robber-baron who's built her castle by ripping off the labours of a million artists.
Frankly scrag, you can fuck right off. You're simply not welcome here.
I doubt Gamecube's slippage is going to make any difference to unit sales. Nintendo's main strengths have always been Shigeru Miyamato's launch titles and sheer marketing power.
They screwed up with the N64 by choosing cartridge media instead of CD's. That single decision cost them more than any other event in their company's history. It essentially gave the mid-late 90's to Sony.
PlayStation 2's aren't doing stunningly well by any means. Last I heard Mickeysoft still hasn't come up with a comprehensive online strategy for the X-Box. Given their inability to cope with security issues, I can see why. That hard disk is a nice fat target for anyone with a Mickeysoft grudge and some time. The fallout from a successful mass hack would be intense.
The world has moved on since the X-Box announcement. In a year, the X-Box is going to start hitting the low-end edge of the PC curve. Newer graphics tech will make it look old. Sure it has the total lack of configuration issues common to all consoles, but Sony and Nintendo have got the games.
And those Japanese dudes do know how to design console games.
And seriously. Does anyone want to play Halo with that X-Box controller instead of mouse and keyboard? I think I'll pass.
Of course it may become more attractive if Nvidia keeps X-Box and higher level graphics chipsets at an unreasonably high price. (Hmm... Mickeysoft leverage the best chipsets in the business and prevent consumers from buying competing tech in one fell swoop?)
But then... they wouldn't do that... would they?
Here, cretin, have a clue. Microsoft are deliberately forcing ZoneAlarm and BlackIce out to prevent them from blocking the OS from snooping on your computer. Shock horror! How terrible if Microsoft's OS can't report back to Redmond HQ. It's a deliberate program of corporate sabotage.
As for the 'redesign' to comply with XP. This is sheer rubbish. ZoneAlarm and BlackIce will be fed API's which Microsoft 'authorised' applications can bypass. Microsoft has a problem with these applications because they're effective in returning network control to the user.
This kind of user configurability is something which Microsoft abhors. Bill's fondest wish is to turn the OS into a data mine that he can subsequently sell to advertisers. You may not like your privacy, but many people do. I see no reason why they should give it up because of cretins like yourself whose inability to think is only exceeded by their hero-worship of an anti-competitive monopolist with a lot of money.
If we as a species ever develop compelling virtual reality, we'll lock ourselves inside it and never come out. Why is 60% of internet traffic expended on sexual content? (Yeah, I'm guessing here but I'll bet the number is startlingly higher than you'd expect.) Basically, we're just a species of complete wankers.
See DVD region protection.
See RPC2 DVD Drive.
See RPC2 DVD Drive refuse to play DVD.
See user download hacked RPC1 firmware.
See user flash RPC1 firmware to drive.
See drive play DVD.
See user laugh hysterically at MPAA.
See user buy 'protected' CD.
See CD-ROM drive fail to copy CD.
See user download hacked CD writer firmware.
See user flash or burn new firmware.
See user copy 'protected' cd.
See user laugh hysterically at RIAA.
See ludicrous company in Tel Aviv selling snake oil to gullible executives crash and burn.
Cryptimus
P.S. See user laugh at claims that audio waveforms can do anything other than damage your speakers. Delicate ciruitry indeed.
Listen, I totally agree that most patents that are out there for software is completely bull$hit. But, what about those companies who have created such a complex algorithm for a product and have it coded in a product? I work for such a company(I really can't explain the algorithm that'd be a breach of contract). The product is based on an extremely fault-resilient algorithm for broadcasting encoded data.
This algorithm is patented, and I completely agree with it. I don't buy that by patenting certain things we're stifling innovation or hurting anyone.
There are plenty of other companies still creating algorithms, it's just that ours is by far the most scalable and most creative(IMO). We're the industry leader in the market we're in, but by no means are we of M$ caliber.
You get what's called 'competitive advantage.' You get to use an (allegedly) superior algorithm for your particular application. And you get to use it for as long as it takes someone else to come up with either the same algorithm, a functionally equivalent algorithm, a better algorithm, or an acceptable algorithm that isn't as good as yours but makes no different in the competitive marketplace.
That's all you deserve. By what logic do you assume that:
A) Your algorithm is going to make any kind of *difference* to your product that will translate to dollars and cents. Either the algorithm has to make the product significantly BETTER to the point where this influences product consumers or it makes the product CHEAPER to produce in some fashion. If it accomplishes neither of these goals, then why do you deserve to charge others for its use?
B) You're the only ones capable of coming up with this algorithm? If someone comes up with the same algorithm independently, why shouldn't they also be allowed to utilise the fruits of their labour? Oh, only YOU are allowed to do that because YOU'RE FIRST? What kind of screwed up logic is that?
C) That designing and implementing the algorithm allows you to prevent someone from coming up with a functionally equivalent algorithm? Oh, because you jumped through a legal set of hoops FIRST, you get to stop other people from innovating?
D) That someone can't do better than your algorithm? They're not allowed to innovate and create superior technology because you've already come up with the inferior version it's based upon?
Incidentally is your algorithm based upon anything else? Does it sit in glorious isolation or does it rely upon ideas made freely available by previous software pioneers?
I'm betting it's not. In practice it's impossible to claim total originality in software seeing as software itself is based upon concepts of computing by pioneers such as Turing, Von Neumann and so forth.
In other words, having made use of unpatented ideas, algorithms and technologies to create an algorithm you wish to patent, I say fuck you jack and fuck your company.
"If I see further it's because I stood on the shoulders of giants, not because I chopped off my competitors' legs." - Cryptimus
Don't be so bloody naive.
The American Patent Office is doing exactly what the government of the United States wants it to do. Assign rights to any and every idea to American companies to enable them to attempt to control any and all lucrative technologies.
Essentially the Patent Office is all about IP. It is actively engaged in the practice of encouraging intellectual piracy by US corporations. The sheer breadth of the obvious solutions granted patent status is impossible to comprehend unless you're prepared to drown yourself in the paperwork.
Most people are aware that the demise of the cold war has seen US government intelligence agencies focus their energies upon corporate espionage. This is designed to give US companies an advantage over foreign rivals by engaging in activies that are illegal domestically but are apparently okay when your competition is foreign.
Is it too much of a conceptual leap to understand that the US Patent Office is a piece of legal legerdemain designed to accomplish exactly the same goals?
Patents are being granted to US companies at rates that defy justification. IBM alone files thousands of patents a year. Yet the US Patent Office continues to grant patents willy-nilly to so-called 'inventions' that are clearly obvious or predated by previous work.
This isn't simple incompetence, it's deliberate culpability. Rather than a program of stupidity, beauracratic inefficiency or simple mis-understanding, it's an extremely active policy of Intellectual Piracy.
Indeed, there exists a US company (at least one) whose entire purpose is to conduct patent searches in foreign domains for new ideas with the intent of subsequently patenting these ideas in the US before the real inventor does so.
Then the US pressures foreign governements into looking kindly upon any patents which have already been 'legitimised' by the US patent office. Those governments with a shred of common sense laugh themselves silly and tell Uncle Sam to fuck off.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Intellectual Piracy. Have a nice day.
Please forgive the double post. I meant to reply to the main article but screwed up.
Having worked in the gaming industry, I can only give you a glimpse of the staggering levels of protection offered to consumers by government regulation. It's truly awe-inspiring.
The Australian State of Victoria successfully introduced poker machines in the early 1990's. Probity was of primary concern. Under no circumstances were gaming machines ever to either cheat a player or be capable of allowing the players to cheat.
Any breach of this rule - even accidentally - results in investigation by the Federal police.
As I said a glimpse. The monitoring system is a central host. All machines are connected via TCP/IP. Machines must respond to authentication and checksum validation at any time. Machine logic systems are sealed. Unsealing the system renders the machine unusable until a reset is hand performed by a government auditor with a unique one-time code.
Gaming logic must be able to survive power down, network disconnection, logic unsealing or any combination of these. If a game is in progress when any disabling event occurs, it must resume and play to completion upon system restoration.
Gaming transactions are monitored and validated by the central host. The random #'s are tracked and results compared. Any machine which violates this causality is disabled.
ALL gaming source code is subject to validation by government auditors. Any programmer attempting to incorporate any suspicious code would immediately be prosecuted.
By government decree, all gaming machines must return a minimum of 87% of their intake. Each game must be submitted with a probability analysis and accompanying source code.
Basically, gaming in Victoria is clean.
Now, when you gamble in an online casino, guess what protection you have.
None.
Gambling is stupid anyway, but online casinos can rip you off blind in ways that traditional gambling venues never can. They're uncontrolled, with no requirement for any sort of probity. Don't give me any bullshit about market forces either, it won't wash. Fundamentally, online casinos are crooked and can get away with it because the only way to PROVE they're crooked is to take massive samples of the games to prove the percentages don't add up.
Here's an example. User spins up a $1,000,000 win on an online game. Gaming program decides that's a bad thing and alters it to a $500 win. Or nothing. Basically online casinos offer ZERO protection to the consumer and should be stamped out. If you HAVE to have gambling, then at least gambling regulated by government decree lets the consumer know what they're getting into. Online casinos are a scam just like any "make-money-fast" pyramid scheme.
In this context, the legislation is not only desirable but quite clever. It puts the onus for blocking Australian gamblers upon the casino itself and you can be sure their desire to protect their revenue flow will radically exceed any measures that the government could ever install.
Yeah, sure you could use overseas accounts or any other means to circumvent the legislation but by that time the legislation's already achieved it's purpose. To prevent online gambling from becoming an impulse purchase. If you have to actually go to any trouble to gamble, chances are you're going to forget it.
Having worked in the gaming industry, I can only give you a glimpse of the staggering levels of protection offered to consumers by government regulation. It's truly awe-inspiring.
The Australian State of Victoria successfully introduced poker machines in the early 1990's. Probity was of primary concern. Under no circumstances were gaming machines ever to either cheat a player or be capable of allowing the players to cheat.
Any breach of this rule - even accidentally - results in investigation by the Federal police.
As I said a glimpse. The monitoring system is a central host. All machines are connected via TCP/IP. Machines must respond to authentication and checksum validation at any time. Machine logic systems are sealed. Unsealing the system renders the machine unusable until a reset is hand performed by a government auditor with a unique one-time code.
Gaming logic must be able to survive power down, network disconnection, logic unsealing or any combination of these. If a game is in progress when any disabling event occurs, it must resume and play to completion upon system restoration.
Gaming transactions are monitored and validated by the central host. The random #'s are tracked and results compared. Any machine which violates this causality is disabled.
ALL gaming source code is subject to validation by government auditors. Any programmer attempting to incorporate any suspicious code would immediately be prosecuted.
By government decree, all gaming machines must return a minimum of 87% of their intake. Each game must be submitted with a probability analysis and accompanying source code.
Basically, gaming in Victoria is clean.
Now, when you gamble in an online casino, guess what protection you have.
None.
Gambling is stupid anyway, but online casinos can rip you off blind in ways that traditional gambling venues never can. They're uncontrolled, with no requirement for any sort of probity. Don't give me any bullshit about market forces either, it won't wash. Fundamentally, online casinos are crooked and can get away with it because the only way to PROVE they're crooked is to take massive samples of the games to prove the percentages don't add up.
Here's an example. User spins up a $1,000,000 win on an online game. Gaming program decides that's a bad thing and alters it to a $500 win. Or nothing. Basically online casinos offer ZERO protection to the consumer and should be stamped out. If you HAVE to have gambling, then at least gambling regulated by government decree lets the consumer know what they're getting into. Online casinos are a scam just like any "make-money-fast" pyramid scheme.
In this context, the legislation is not only desirable but quite clever. It puts the onus for blocking Australian gamblers upon the casino itself and you can be sure their desire to protect their revenue flow will radically exceed any measures that the government could ever install.
Yeah, sure you could use overseas accounts or any other means to circumvent the legislation but by that time the legislation's already achieved it's purpose. To prevent online gambling from becoming an impulse purchase. If you have to actually go to any trouble to gamble, chances are you're going to forget it.
Do you know anyone who has an idea of what SONY's real motives are for this secrecy?
This is the crux of the entire argument regarding "free(dom)" of the project. Why, oh why, is it that Sony would not want someone to release Free code that runs on their platform?
Why?
Is it an argument for the almighty buck?
Is it a historical corporate paranoia?
Is it that their technology is so weak that simply seeing a bunch of API calls will allow competition to surpass them?
Oh good grief. Do you have any idea what the cost model for a console is? Here's a gross simplification:
Every PS/2 that Sony currently makes costs them around US$450 to manufacture. Go have a look and see how much a PS/2 sells for. Then factor in the development costs and do the numbers. Where do you think they make their money?
Answer: It's the software. Sony makes money on titles shipped, not on the actual console. Obviously it's in their interests to ensure that software sells as well as possible. To this end Sony decides who can develop and publish for their console.
Why? Quick history lesson. Back in the early 80's the Atari 2600 was king and those early game developers lived in a land flowing with milk and honey. Then the videogame bubble burst. One of the primary reasons attributed to this was the Z-grade standard of software available for the console. Any idiot with an assembler could throw together a so-called "game" and get it out on the shelves. Consumers got sick to death of buying crud and just stopped buying altogether.
Nintendo, Sega and Sony learned that particular lesson very well. If you make a console ensure it has QUALITY titles available or you *will* go broke. That's why Sony restricts access to PS/2 development information. If they don't they're killing the goose. Given the massive investment required to actually produce a console, I think their approach is justified.
I am considering getting a PS2. Now I am drastically having to reconsider. And I'm not joking.
Sony couldn't care less. Really. They market the PS/2 to teenagers interested in entertainment, not slashdotters with obscure conspiracy theories. It's their console, they've made the investment, they've built the market. If you want to develop for it then you have to play by their rules. If you don't want to then tough. There are plenty of people who do.
For all his lauded status, Stallman seems surprisingly ignorant. He has no idea what a console is and has never heard of the DirectX API. Given that console and DirectX targetted games sell more units - in total - than any desktop application or OS, I find this somewhat odd.
Frankly I think Jorrit was talking to the wrong person. Game development wouldn't even be remotely feasible in Stallman's universe. Indeed, I'm sure he'd deride it as unethical. After all, how can creating entertainment for the masses compare with writing software to do something actually useful?
Having said all that, I think Jorrit's intention to make Crystal Space available for the PS/2 is misguided. It benefits no-one but Sony and their authorised developers.
It does not provide developers with access to the PS/2 platform because Sony controls the PS/2 and decides which software will be published. If you're an authorised PS/2 developer you don't need Crystal Space (indeed there are probably very valid reasons for *not* wanting to use it).
If you do need Crystal Space (because you're on a tight budget) you're unlikely to be granted PS/2 development status. I think targetting Crystal Space at the PS/2 is a waste of time.
Cryptimus
This is of course complete rubbish. A web server can do anything given a compliant client. There is no inherent security or functional limitation built into a web-server that prevents it doing exactly that.
The only possible way is if you ran an ActiveX control or an executable(scripting languages can't do this) that accessed the registry, but if you did that, it would be your own fault. Its certainly not the default behavior for a browser to access and send registry values to web servers.
Wrong. You have no idea what any closed proprietary web browser does or is capable of. The assumption that a web browser does not - or worse, can not - read and transmit information from any part of a client system is a fundamental mistake.
In any case, much of the functionality on microsoft.com is built around ActiveX controls. Windows Update for example. I guess anyone who wants to update their OS deserves what they get don't they?
However the registry and the information a browser sends are two very different things. There is no way a web server can get to your registry. And there are no secret API's that only Microsoft knows about. It would be way too much of a security risk, and someone would have blown the whistle a long time ago.
Like the security risk inherent in their ludicrously insecure Outlook client for example? Or the multitude of security risks that have plagued Internet Explorer from day one? Not to mention the ludicrously insecure concept of letting a browser run binaries on a client system. Gee those explorer chappies certainly do have security on the brain don't they?
We already know Internet Explorer keeps more information than it lets on. I don't know how many times I've seen yet another article on the information Internet Explorer maintains on the client machine. The fact that no-one has found a particular feature does not mean it does not exist.
IE is a closed system. It is proprietary. The code is not available for peer review. Therefore no independent validation can be made regarding its security. Given the right stimulus from a web server, IE could theoretically be made to dance a jig.
A web server *can* get to the registry on your machine if there exists on your machine a client that has the facility to send out that kind of information. Mind you that would require an organisation that constructs both web servers and web browsers? Hmm... how many companies do that?
Oh and as for secret API's. Nah, in this day and age you'd only expect that from a company with a history of doing that sort of thing.........
Oh wow.......
wait a sec.... I've got this intense feeling of deja vu.....
Cryptimus