. . . what digital "rights" management features are included in this product? Is the data encrypted between the machine and the USB sound card?
Are we staring into a bleak future of music protected by what are in fact USB serialized dongles masquerading as sound cards? Or am I just paranoid (note: that's a rhetorical question)?
I use throwaway numbers (like American Express Private Payments) to avoid being forced into a subscription for something I just want to buy once (e.g. Consumer Reports--you can't buy just a month; you have to commit to recurring billing. Solution: use a throwaway number. If I forget to cancel, no problem, charge bounces and CU cancels for me.)
Moral of the story? If you offer recurring billing, make sure there's a way for a customer to sign up short term or make a one-time purchase. If there's not, the customer will create one, causing the merchant potential headaches.
The reason that kind of crap doesn't happen except in your little fantasy world is that it creates people with nothing to lose. People with nothing to lose tend to become violent against the entities that made them that way. And even record company CEOs and their minions don't want to die. (No, Mr. Fed, that wasn't a threat, it was an opinion.)
The net will become an upper class "privilege" and will soon fizzle to a novelty if everything is "pay per view".
I've been saying things similar to this for years--the difference being that charging for "connect time" or bandwidth use would marginalize the Internet. I don't think the death of the "content providers" will kill it off; there are plenty of passionate people with something to share that aren't money-grubbers that will continue to provide interesting stuff. But bandwidth or connect charges will do it in for sure.
Am I the only one thinking that if Microsoft tried this, even optionally, that they'd be tarred, feathered, and hung in effigy for pushing us down the slippery slope to subscription software?
Microsoft released about a week ago updates to Windows XP that include compatability for EZ CD Creator 4. If you go to windowsupdate.microsoft.com, it will automatically be selected for installation.
Cool! Now I can uninstall that w@r3zed Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum that I had to "upgrade" a relative's computer with. He purchased a new CD-ROM drive after the release of XP, and it came bundled with the unusable version 4. Do you think Roxio had a free or nominally priced upgrade? Yeah, right. So I had to turn to Usenet to get him what he had already paid for.
Looks like probable cause for a search warrant for software piracy, terrorist activity, and obscene pornography to me. And I can already picture the prosecution detailing what's on each selectively chosen site, outlining your criminal state of mind for a jury. (Unless you're not a U.S. citizen, in which case you may well be before a military tribunal).
People are giving the/. editor that posted this article a bunch of crap because these people are just trying to make a buck. Take a minute and think about whether you would be where you are today without the free availability of technical knowledge that's a direct result of the free speech most of you enjoy.
Now picture yourself as the technically knowledgeable person you are, except that you're making ph@t bux under contract to one of these scum multinationals, helping to censor the Net in China or Saudi Arabia.
If you're not repulsed by that, you should be up against the wall with these traitors to humanity come the revolution.
I don't think those locking down the machines have leveraging VMware to allow their developers a custom environment in mind. Though that's not a bad idea.
That's a nice idea, but how do you propose to install VMware in a locked down environment? And suppose you're successful. Do you think that the network nazis won't notice Ethernet frames starting with 00:05:69, VMware's OUI (which you can't change) coming from your port on the switch? Not to mention that a legitimate license for VMware costs $300, and another $100 to upgrade everytime Bill releases a point release to Windows (XP requires such an upgrade, for example).
Just comply with their directives, while looking for a job someplace that respects talent.
Opera still passes the string "Opera" on the USER-AGENT string: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 2000) Opera 5.12 [en], even when masquerading as MSIE 5.0. The no-good slimebags are explicitly checking for it. To check what your browser is passing without much trouble, Junkbusters comes in handy.
When this war of escalation reaches the point at which all browsers except MSIE allow easy user tweaking of USER-AGENT, expect M$ to introduce something along the lines of "CUAAP," a.k.a. CU2AP or "Cryptographic User Agent Assurance Protocol." This will make it harder to spoof sites that lock out non M$ browsers, perhaps under penalty of law, and will dovetail nicely with their attempts to hijack the Internet with.net.
Do you want to be the exit server on the private route someone was using when they were doing something on the net that arouses the interest of $THREE_LETTER_AGENCY? I don't, and I doubt many others will, either.
Yesterday, I received the following message in response to questions about upcoming changes in services and offshore servers (emphasis mine):
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 09:56:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: InfoReplies@zeroknowledge.com
To: @freedom.net
Subject: Ref: "New anonymous browsing service"
Hello,
Thank you for your interest in Freedom. Currently, we are unable to release specific details about our upcoming privacy services; I wish I could provide you with more information.:(
As for the servers, the upgrades should be completed shortly, and more servers should appear on the network. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Regards,
Freedom Support Team
Have a question? Looking for answers? Visit our Knowledge Center for up-to-date solutions to common problems.
http://www.freedom.net/support/knowledge.html
Uh, yeah. I'm certain that Sanjeet or Chen at the screwdriver shop will support you 100% since you bought the board at retail, taking it back if you have intermittent stability problems. Not.
What law protects the records of the library books you've checked out? I've always assumed that it was the ethics of your librarian (or, now, the guy in charge of the backups of the checkout system) that kept them from giving that up.
Slashdot Mirror
Are we staring into a bleak future of music protected by what are in fact USB serialized dongles masquerading as sound cards? Or am I just paranoid (note: that's a rhetorical question)?
Moral of the story? If you offer recurring billing, make sure there's a way for a customer to sign up short term or make a one-time purchase. If there's not, the customer will create one, causing the merchant potential headaches.
I imagine that they had to commit crimes with your identity because it wasn't good for much else.
Especially when everyone knows the true religion was founded by Bob.
The reason that kind of crap doesn't happen except in your little fantasy world is that it creates people with nothing to lose. People with nothing to lose tend to become violent against the entities that made them that way. And even record company CEOs and their minions don't want to die. (No, Mr. Fed, that wasn't a threat, it was an opinion.)
I've been saying things similar to this for years--the difference being that charging for "connect time" or bandwidth use would marginalize the Internet. I don't think the death of the "content providers" will kill it off; there are plenty of passionate people with something to share that aren't money-grubbers that will continue to provide interesting stuff. But bandwidth or connect charges will do it in for sure.
But since it's a Linux vendor, I guess it's OK.
Thank you--I'll watch for that!
Cool! Now I can uninstall that w@r3zed Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum that I had to "upgrade" a relative's computer with. He purchased a new CD-ROM drive after the release of XP, and it came bundled with the unusable version 4. Do you think Roxio had a free or nominally priced upgrade? Yeah, right. So I had to turn to Usenet to get him what he had already paid for.
A simple IP address is not big deal. What would they do with that?
21:14 192.168.0.1 -> http www.2600.org
21:14 192.168.0.1 -> nntp news.premium.com
21:35 192.168.0.1 -> http astalavista.box.sk
21:40 192.168.0.1 -> http www.princeton.edu
21:42 192.168.0.1 -> http www.slashdot.org
21:43 192.168.0.1 -> http www.islamicjihad.com
21:44 192.168.0.1 -> http goatse.cx
21:45 192.168.0.1 -> irc irc.dalnet.net
21:50 192.168.0.1 -> http gnutellahosts.com
21:53 192.168.0.1 -> http dormroom.school.edu
.
.
.
Looks like probable cause for a search warrant for software piracy, terrorist activity, and obscene pornography to me. And I can already picture the prosecution detailing what's on each selectively chosen site, outlining your criminal state of mind for a jury. (Unless you're not a U.S. citizen, in which case you may well be before a military tribunal).
Thank you for the picturesque speech--I hope you don't mind if I steal that one!
Hell, I never even thought of it. They can't even detect that I'm sharing the connection? I'll get with the neighbors now! Thanks, CED Magazine!
Now picture yourself as the technically knowledgeable person you are, except that you're making ph@t bux under contract to one of these scum multinationals, helping to censor the Net in China or Saudi Arabia.
If you're not repulsed by that, you should be up against the wall with these traitors to humanity come the revolution.
What makes us so certain this hasn't already happened?
I don't think those locking down the machines have leveraging VMware to allow their developers a custom environment in mind. Though that's not a bad idea.
Just comply with their directives, while looking for a job someplace that respects talent.
When this war of escalation reaches the point at which all browsers except MSIE allow easy user tweaking of USER-AGENT, expect M$ to introduce something along the lines of "CUAAP," a.k.a. CU2AP or "Cryptographic User Agent Assurance Protocol." This will make it harder to spoof sites that lock out non M$ browsers, perhaps under penalty of law, and will dovetail nicely with their attempts to hijack the Internet with .net.
a) Have sufficient bandwidth to make such a service usable.
or
b) are prepared to go to prison when someone we can't identify grabs $ILLEGAL_MATERIAL from somewhere with our own machine as the exit server.
I admire the spirit, nonetheless.
Do you want to be the exit server on the private route someone was using when they were doing something on the net that arouses the interest of $THREE_LETTER_AGENCY? I don't, and I doubt many others will, either.
The open sourced client and routers are here.
Yesterday, I received the following message in response to questions about upcoming changes in services and offshore servers (emphasis mine):
:(
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 09:56:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: InfoReplies@zeroknowledge.com
To: @freedom.net
Subject: Ref: "New anonymous browsing service"
Hello,
Thank you for your interest in Freedom. Currently, we are unable to release specific details about our upcoming privacy services; I wish I could provide you with more information.
As for the servers, the upgrades should be completed shortly, and more servers should appear on the network. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Regards,
Freedom Support Team
Have a question? Looking for answers? Visit our Knowledge Center for up-to-date solutions to common problems.
http://www.freedom.net/support/knowledge.html
You mean like with child labor, slavery, and indentured servitude. Yep, I don't see how any red-blooded American couldn't be on board with that.
Uh, yeah. I'm certain that Sanjeet or Chen at the screwdriver shop will support you 100% since you bought the board at retail, taking it back if you have intermittent stability problems. Not.
What law protects the records of the library books you've checked out? I've always assumed that it was the ethics of your librarian (or, now, the guy in charge of the backups of the checkout system) that kept them from giving that up.
exactly vot ve vant them to think. Ve make beeg trouble for moose and squirrel for sure now.