Other environments, where you may only be using the service for an hour or less (cafe, airport, etc.) will have a hard time justifying a cost that makes the credit card processing worthwhile.
In my experience this isn't true of airports, and it's also contradictory to what TFA says. Quite the contrary, airports are a rich source of people traveling on business who are going to expense their Internet service and who consider -- rightly or wrongly! -- their time to be sufficiently valuable to justify the expense. At BOS yesterday I was using an AP for (I believe it was) $8/2 hours and could see two others within a row or two of me doing the same... which means there were probably many more since I wasn't going out of my way to look. Many other airports have similarly priced services.
A further point about airports is that they don't need a courtesy "hook" to reel in the customer. It's effectively a monopoly situation -- if you want to fly, you have to be there, no need for them to sweeten the pot.
Matter of opinion I suppose. The Squeezebox/SliMP3 has a display and remote, so you don't have to hop up and run to your computer to change tracks. I have no desire to have a computer in my living room with my stereo, so I keep my MP3 server in my basement and access it through a SliMP3. The AE, however nifty, can't do that for me, so for me, Apple loses.
Actually Article II of the Constitution says that you need to be "a natural born citizen" of the United States. According to The Washington Post,
the First Congress, on March 26, 1790, approved an act that declared, "The children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond sea, or outside the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens of the United States."
So no, you don't need to have been born in the U.S.A., though AFAIK this has never been tested.
I think it's too facile to say that running your web browser in an untrusted box is an adequate answer. There are all sorts of reasons why it's not. Just for starters, it's horrible from the user experience perspective. Yeah, fast user switching is neato, but it's not meant to be a way to switch between apps which is effectively what you're proposing. Using it that way moves the user experience all the way back to the days of Andy Hertzfeld's Switcher, before System 6 introduced Multifinder.
You're right in your second paragraph though -- Apple does need to fix this. Until they do, I'd prefer to use the hack of moving/deleting/retargeting/changing permissions on the Help app rather than reverting to a 1986 UI.
By the way, do you run Safari in its own untrusted account?
(I don't even want to get into the discussion of how the logical conclusion of the approach you're espousing would be a separate, untrusted account for every single app you run.)
I also copied and slightly modified this text and sent it to my state senators.
(I assume you mean your state's U.S. Senators.) Has an equivalent Senate bill been introduced? If not, what did you hope to achieve with your letters? No criticism should be inferred; I'd really like to know -- I'd write my own Senators if I could figure out something more actionable to tell them than "hey, this DMCRA thing in the House is cool."
This bill not only allows for making backups, but [etc]. Yep. Actually the bill is shockingly readable by mere mortals. Here's the text. (If that dodgy-looking URL doesn't work go to the Thomas page and query for "HR 107".)
Anyone interested in a fictional exploration of Catholicism and extraterrestrial life ought to take a look at the SF classic A Case of Conscience by James Blish. This or this Google search will find you lots of reviews and discussion. The book is still in print.
Blish has also written some other good religious-themed SF. Note that though it uses religion as a theme, it's not tract fiction, not even very good tract fiction like that of C. S. Lewis. It just uses religion as a fascinating element of the plot, it doesn't preach.
If you're too lazy|busy|whatever to write your own letter, here's your source for the click-to-send version. Sure, it's probably not as good as writing your own, but it's way better than doing nothing. (I do wish the EFF would give me a way to tell them I'd written, without forcing me to use their form letter.)
For extra credit, vote with your wallet: put a donation in an envelope and send it to Rep. Boucher along with a thank-you note. A Slashdot's worth of $5 donations might be an interesting counterweight to Big Entertainment's big bribes^H^H^H^H^H^Hdonations.
Eh? I didn't read TFA in its entirety, but the eye-candy video I watched presented it shooting down an artillery shell and an artillery rocket. If it is intended as an ABM device (and I wouldn't be surprised if the range was too short for that) then it's only one of the uses.
Since you're using iTMS as an example, here's a post describing real, non-infringing uses for applications which strip Apple's DRM. In the end, the fact is that despite the tiresome repetition of the strawman, any fool can see that Apple's DRM does not permit all reasonable uses.
To bring this back around to the original topic, I for one will be glad if the DMCA insanity is rolled back so that useful applications like playfair can be developed without being gagged by the legal system.
While TFA seems pretty lame, there is a related issue that I think Apple should be taken to task for. That is, security updates should only patch security holes. They should never, never, never be used to roll out new functionality, or worse still cripple old functionality.
What I am ranting about is the fact that QT 6.5.1 crippled the QT APIs. Per iVolume, "Apple crippled all programming interfaces of QuickTime 6.5.1 so that applications have no chance to get hands on decoded audio data of songs in copy protected AAC format (extension ".m4p") even though the computer is authorized for the corresponding song." This is true, I checked.
My main point here is not to flame about DRM (though that's always fun) but rather to point out that Apple has used a security update as a trojan horse to remove valuable functionality from my system. I, and anyone else who cares about certain iTunes-LAME functionality or iVolume functionality, am stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea -- either install Apple's trojan and lose the use of these tools, or not install it and leave a security hole open. (N.b. I'll be quite surprised if those are the only two affected apps; they're just the ones I have personally confirmed to have been broken.)
It's irresponsible, short-sighted and just plain stupid because if they pull too many stunts like this their customers will stop trusting them and will hesitate to install "security" patches for fear of what other surprises they might contain (sound familiar?).
I don't know why you bother either, because you're wrong. The iTunes->CD->MP3 route (or the even less stupid "encode with iTunes-LAME" route) is not as good as un-DRM'ing the files. I find it bizarre that people continue to assert that it is.
Here's why:
I have a biggish music library that I manage with iTunes. One of the ways I play my music back is through a SliMP3. Of course, the Slim can't play the DRM'd files, but the server software will happily play back normal AACs by transcoding them on the fly. (If I had a more recent Slim there'd be no transcoding needed to another compressed format since it'll play straight-up AIFF natively, but that's beside the point).
Anyway, I'd like to have my AACs in my music library in their native format, not transcoded, since as everyone knows you lose fidelity when you transcode. I'd like to keep them in my music library, not elsewhere in my filesystem, because that's the tool I use to manage my music files. I'd like to have the music in a form I can play through my Slim. And I don't want to have dups of the songs floating around my library, for reasons which should be obvious.
Right now I cannot have all these things at once. It would be fine with me if there were a way to stream the music to my Slim without stripping the DRM from the files -- this makes at least as much sense copyrightologically as it does to let me play it on my iPod. But that failing, stripping the DRM from the AAC and leaving it otherwise alone, as playfair is supposed to do, fulfills all my requirements.
So yeah, I know I can work around the limitations imposed by the DRM (and I do), but to claim that doing so is just as good as doing it The Right Way is -- at best -- to miss the point.
This means that the itunes server is adding this to every song that is downloaded.. Talk about overhead.
Oh, I think the overhead of adding your email address to the download is pretty trivial, compared to the overhead of encrypting the music. Yep, your download is custom-encrypted just for you, with your own personal key.
Claiming the only reason to crack the DRM is to share it means you're either stupid, or the RIAA's shill.
Yes, although I'd add the possibility that the parent poster just hasn't thought very hard about the issue (I guess you might lump that under "stupid" but I prefer not to).
N.b. another pair of devices supporting AAC (through transcoding to MP3 or AIFF) but not Fairplay are the fine, fine SliMP3 and SqueezeBox.
Personally, I think the cards are great. For some useless information that'll drive someone else's imagination, I get steaks at half-off: $4.99/lb instead of $9.85/lb.
And at stores that don't have loyalty cards, they have this thing called "sale prices." They work kind of like loyalty card prices except that you you don't need to fork over a card to get 'em. Instead of exchanging "useless" (or not) information for a good price, you exchange, er, money.
Your point about using false information to get the card is fair. For my own part, I use the things so seldom that I can't be bothered to use up valuable pocket space carrying one. I find that often the cashier scans a store "courtesy card" instead. I think that's fine but it really does make me wonder what percentage of data being collected is of good quality. Sigh, probably most of it as long as people value their privacy so cheaply ("useless information").
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Other environments, where you may only be using the service for an hour or less (cafe, airport, etc.) will have a hard time justifying a cost that makes the credit card processing worthwhile.
In my experience this isn't true of airports, and it's also contradictory to what TFA says. Quite the contrary, airports are a rich source of people traveling on business who are going to expense their Internet service and who consider -- rightly or wrongly! -- their time to be sufficiently valuable to justify the expense. At BOS yesterday I was using an AP for (I believe it was) $8/2 hours and could see two others within a row or two of me doing the same... which means there were probably many more since I wasn't going out of my way to look. Many other airports have similarly priced services.
A further point about airports is that they don't need a courtesy "hook" to reel in the customer. It's effectively a monopoly situation -- if you want to fly, you have to be there, no need for them to sweeten the pot.
Apple wins.
Matter of opinion I suppose. The Squeezebox/SliMP3 has a display and remote, so you don't have to hop up and run to your computer to change tracks. I have no desire to have a computer in my living room with my stereo, so I keep my MP3 server in my basement and access it through a SliMP3. The AE, however nifty, can't do that for me, so for me, Apple loses.
Actually Article II of the Constitution says that you need to be "a natural born citizen" of the United States. According to The Washington Post,
So no, you don't need to have been born in the U.S.A., though AFAIK this has never been tested.
I think it's too facile to say that running your web browser in an untrusted box is an adequate answer. There are all sorts of reasons why it's not. Just for starters, it's horrible from the user experience perspective. Yeah, fast user switching is neato, but it's not meant to be a way to switch between apps which is effectively what you're proposing. Using it that way moves the user experience all the way back to the days of Andy Hertzfeld's Switcher, before System 6 introduced Multifinder.
You're right in your second paragraph though -- Apple does need to fix this. Until they do, I'd prefer to use the hack of moving/deleting/retargeting/changing permissions on the Help app rather than reverting to a 1986 UI.
By the way, do you run Safari in its own untrusted account?
(I don't even want to get into the discussion of how the logical conclusion of the approach you're espousing would be a separate, untrusted account for every single app you run.)
In fact, if you make a user just for possibly unsafe stuff you're pretty well protected.
Only if you're willing to treat "clicking on a link in a web page" as "possibly unsafe".
Yes.
See this post for a link to the full text.
I also copied and slightly modified this text and sent it to my state senators.
(I assume you mean your state's U.S. Senators.) Has an equivalent Senate bill been introduced? If not, what did you hope to achieve with your letters? No criticism should be inferred; I'd really like to know -- I'd write my own Senators if I could figure out something more actionable to tell them than "hey, this DMCRA thing in the House is cool."
This bill not only allows for making backups, but [etc]. Yep. Actually the bill is shockingly readable by mere mortals. Here's the text. (If that dodgy-looking URL doesn't work go to the Thomas page and query for "HR 107".)
Anyone interested in a fictional exploration of Catholicism and extraterrestrial life ought to take a look at the SF classic A Case of Conscience by James Blish. This or this Google search will find you lots of reviews and discussion. The book is still in print.
Blish has also written some other good religious-themed SF. Note that though it uses religion as a theme, it's not tract fiction, not even very good tract fiction like that of C. S. Lewis. It just uses religion as a fascinating element of the plot, it doesn't preach.
Hear, hear.
If you're too lazy|busy|whatever to write your own letter, here's your source for the click-to-send version. Sure, it's probably not as good as writing your own, but it's way better than doing nothing. (I do wish the EFF would give me a way to tell them I'd written, without forcing me to use their form letter.)
For extra credit, vote with your wallet: put a donation in an envelope and send it to Rep. Boucher along with a thank-you note. A Slashdot's worth of $5 donations might be an interesting counterweight to Big Entertainment's big bribes^H^H^H^H^H^Hdonations.
This system defends against balistic missiles.
Eh? I didn't read TFA in its entirety, but the eye-candy video I watched presented it shooting down an artillery shell and an artillery rocket. If it is intended as an ABM device (and I wouldn't be surprised if the range was too short for that) then it's only one of the uses.
Since you're using iTMS as an example, here's a post describing real, non-infringing uses for applications which strip Apple's DRM. In the end, the fact is that despite the tiresome repetition of the strawman, any fool can see that Apple's DRM does not permit all reasonable uses.
To bring this back around to the original topic, I for one will be glad if the DMCA insanity is rolled back so that useful applications like playfair can be developed without being gagged by the legal system.
While TFA seems pretty lame, there is a related issue that I think Apple should be taken to task for. That is, security updates should only patch security holes. They should never, never, never be used to roll out new functionality, or worse still cripple old functionality.
What I am ranting about is the fact that QT 6.5.1 crippled the QT APIs. Per iVolume, "Apple crippled all programming interfaces of QuickTime 6.5.1 so that applications have no chance to get hands on decoded audio data of songs in copy protected AAC format (extension ".m4p") even though the computer is authorized for the corresponding song." This is true, I checked.
My main point here is not to flame about DRM (though that's always fun) but rather to point out that Apple has used a security update as a trojan horse to remove valuable functionality from my system. I, and anyone else who cares about certain iTunes-LAME functionality or iVolume functionality, am stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea -- either install Apple's trojan and lose the use of these tools, or not install it and leave a security hole open. (N.b. I'll be quite surprised if those are the only two affected apps; they're just the ones I have personally confirmed to have been broken.)
It's irresponsible, short-sighted and just plain stupid because if they pull too many stunts like this their customers will stop trusting them and will hesitate to install "security" patches for fear of what other surprises they might contain (sound familiar?).
I don't know why you bother either, because you're wrong. The iTunes->CD->MP3 route (or the even less stupid "encode with iTunes-LAME" route) is not as good as un-DRM'ing the files. I find it bizarre that people continue to assert that it is.
Here's why:
I have a biggish music library that I manage with iTunes. One of the ways I play my music back is through a SliMP3. Of course, the Slim can't play the DRM'd files, but the server software will happily play back normal AACs by transcoding them on the fly. (If I had a more recent Slim there'd be no transcoding needed to another compressed format since it'll play straight-up AIFF natively, but that's beside the point).
Anyway, I'd like to have my AACs in my music library in their native format, not transcoded, since as everyone knows you lose fidelity when you transcode. I'd like to keep them in my music library, not elsewhere in my filesystem, because that's the tool I use to manage my music files. I'd like to have the music in a form I can play through my Slim. And I don't want to have dups of the songs floating around my library, for reasons which should be obvious.
Right now I cannot have all these things at once. It would be fine with me if there were a way to stream the music to my Slim without stripping the DRM from the files -- this makes at least as much sense copyrightologically as it does to let me play it on my iPod. But that failing, stripping the DRM from the AAC and leaving it otherwise alone, as playfair is supposed to do, fulfills all my requirements.
So yeah, I know I can work around the limitations imposed by the DRM (and I do), but to claim that doing so is just as good as doing it The Right Way is -- at best -- to miss the point.
Shouldn't this have been posted six days ago?
(One way or another, this thing is certainly a joke.)
This means that the itunes server is adding this to every song that is downloaded.. Talk about overhead.
Oh, I think the overhead of adding your email address to the download is pretty trivial, compared to the overhead of encrypting the music. Yep, your download is custom-encrypted just for you, with your own personal key.
Claiming the only reason to crack the DRM is to share it means you're either stupid, or the RIAA's shill.
Yes, although I'd add the possibility that the parent poster just hasn't thought very hard about the issue (I guess you might lump that under "stupid" but I prefer not to).
N.b. another pair of devices supporting AAC (through transcoding to MP3 or AIFF) but not Fairplay are the fine, fine SliMP3 and SqueezeBox.
Hear, hear.
Personally, I think the cards are great. For some useless information that'll drive someone else's imagination, I get steaks at half-off: $4.99/lb instead of $9.85/lb.
And at stores that don't have loyalty cards, they have this thing called "sale prices." They work kind of like loyalty card prices except that you you don't need to fork over a card to get 'em. Instead of exchanging "useless" (or not) information for a good price, you exchange, er, money.
Your point about using false information to get the card is fair. For my own part, I use the things so seldom that I can't be bothered to use up valuable pocket space carrying one. I find that often the cashier scans a store "courtesy card" instead. I think that's fine but it really does make me wonder what percentage of data being collected is of good quality. Sigh, probably most of it as long as people value their privacy so cheaply ("useless information").