"Morally justified" is a bit too strong a statement; even ethically justified is probably even too strong. "Personally justified" is just the right amount of flavor.
Copyright is not a question of morality. It is not right vs. wrong, despite the brainwashing. There is nothing absolutely wrong about not paying for a copy that doesn't deprive anyone else of one and there's nothing absolutely right about paying for it.
But this is a conversation for another time and place... it's a long walk from where you obviously are to this understanding.
* A little piracy helps more than it hurts and is a generally nothing more than free advertising * Making content easy-to-use, open/DRM-free, accessible and reasonably priced deters piracy better than does antagonizing your own fans through legal bullying ("you'll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar") * Despite your best efforts, a negligible and inconsequential number of people are going to be freeloaders no matter what. These are people who are either unable to obtain it through "legitimate" means because it's (1) not made available to them, they (2) can't afford it, are (3) simply cheap or are (4) naive.
There are some sub-points on that third item:
(1) Unavailabliy: there is no excuse for this. These people are paying customers except that you won't take their money, so they turn to the only possible alternative. If it's unavailable to certain users becuase of their location, that's your own damn fault for keeping everything locked up in bullshit legal entanglements. There is clearly a market and reaching that market is a trivial expense in 2013. (2) Can't afford it: don't write these people off. They are in the market, just not yet. These are the same college students that use cracked copies of Photoshop, but who will later be purchasing it at the full ridiculous price from Adobe. (3) Just cheap: OK, you probably won't deter these people because they can't be detered. They don't care and it's not worth persuing them and becoming universally despised as a result. (4) Naive: they just don't know how these things actually work, they just assume that it's all on the up-and-up and that a computer is just a glorified stereo and VCR. And why wouldn't they? Radio's free, OTA TV is free, YouTube is free... the way to attract them is not to send letters threatening to riun their lives over 24 songs. You tell them, "look, here's the improved level of service and quality we can provide you for a reasonable price."
In essence, it's a matter of balance and legal bullying is the wrong way to go about tipping the scale when it's too heavy on the side you don't like. It sounds like/maybe/ they're just starting to get the slightest, subtle twinge of this realization.
At this point, they're still proliferated mostly just at airports; all other modes of transportation are minimally infiltrated.
So, yes, at this point, if everyone or the vast majority refused to fly, I'm sure the airlines would use their political connections and lobbying power to dissolve the TSA with haste.
I took a trip from the Midwest to the east coast a few weeks ago. Normally, this is about 4-5 hours of flying time and consumes 3/4 of a day with hurry-up-and-wait. But I decided I'd enough with the TSA's bullshit and took the train instead.
Not once was I stopped, groped or searched. I didn't need to go through any checkpoints or scanners. I didn't need to remove my shoes and strip half way down. I didn't have to take half the stuff out of my bag and then feverishly reassemble everything while a queue of annoyed people piled up behind me. I just bought my ticket and hopped on (what a concept, eh?)... and it's not like I was just hopping over from one podunk hick town to another, I went through Chicago and DC, not exactly calm places with lax security protocols.
But, on the other hand, the trip took two full days and two nights of travel each way, the coach seats were good, but useless for sleeping and the sleeper car I opted for on the subsequent nights were quite expensive.
So, yes, I've sacrificed convenience, money, time and comfort to defy the TSA and their bullshit. What have you done?
Right, I don't need that client email from a few years ago to remind me about a detail on a project. It'd be better just to look like an idiot in front of them.
Just because *you* don't need that archive doesn't mean everyone else doesn't need it.
Why the hell *not* keep a conveniently categorized, organized, sorted, indexed and searchable database of all your important electronic communications? A few gigs is nothing these days.
Find a mail program that you like and stick with it. Important factors to consider:
* How it stores the mail and attachments: mbox or other ASCII format good, proprietary binary format like PST, bad.
* How well it manages years and years worth of 10's or 100's of emails a day.
* How gracefully it fails from data corruption (this is where storage configurations that keep eggs in separate baskets are a very good thing indeed)
* Something with good importers. If not, there are 3rd party programs and services that claim to be able to convert from any mail client to another.
Personally, I've used Eudora for the last ten years (v7.x when it was still maintained by Qualcomm, not that godawful travesty Mozilla cobbled together, which is just Thunderbird dolled up to look slightly like Eudora but function nothing like it) and have scarcely considered anything else.
Yes, it's a bit goofy, requires some advanced trickery at times and the configuration screens might as well all be labeled "Miscellaneous", but it more than makes up for it...
No other mail client can come close to the MDI that lets you view endlessly configurable summaries of any number of mailboxes at a glance.
It stores all mail in plain text (close to mbox, but not quite... though close enough that you can grab an mbox file and trick Eudora into thinking it's a native file without any manual editing) and dumps all attachments as normal files into a single directory. Yes, that directory becomes kind of... well, huge, so it's kind of klunky in that way, but it does ensure that you can access those files at any time without having to deal with any interface beyond the operating system.
Mail consumes pretty much just what that amount of text and files would. Meta data and configuration takes up little else.
I have 10+ years (~3GB) of email and there are zero performance issues. It does offer the option of indexing mailboxes for faster searches as well.
It is truly the geek's mail client. I love this mail program so much, I will use it in a VM when it eventually becomes incompatible, but it works problem-free on Windows 7. And even in the event that it were somehow unusable, I'd still have access to all my mail; after all, it's just a bunch of flat text files.
Except that it's trivially easy to recover deleted files from an SD card, even after you've formatted it and put additional photos on it two or three times.
Honestly, it sounds... well, it has potential anyway. I seriously enjoyed three of the four movies mentioned (let's just play pretend and say that fourth one never happened, mmmkay?)
Fringe is over after a good run, V was canceled just as it was getting really good and there's not much else out there I can find with as much character depth.
How much longer are they going to keep making products for consumption instead of creation?
Windows 8 is the "other" in "every other version of Windows sucks," which means they better get their head out of their ass for Windows 9 (or whatever name they pick out of the hat next).
Otherwise, this is going to push their bread-and-butter business customers away from them and towards Linux. Who'd have thought that the year of the Linux desktop might actually end up being Microsoft's doing?
No. Kill one sector on an unencrypted drive and you may not lose anything or you may lose some of the file that uses that block or all of it. If you lose one sector of an encrypted container you lose at least that block of cypher text and likely the whole container.
Thank-you, this is a good explanation of exactly what I meant by the word "volatile".
There are a lot of similar and tangentially related responses, so I'll make this one post instead of responding inline to each one.
SETUP
My partitions look like this in gparted:
[ PRI/BOOT: Windows w/ TrueCrypt OS encryption ] [ EXTENDED: [ LOGICAL: normal, unencrypted partition where TrueCrypt file containers reside ] ]
Note that TrueCrypt replaces whatever existing bootloader is on the drive with its own so it can run pre-boot authentication to decrypt the OS.
Yes, I realize that I don't store any data on the OS/software partition, but there are still system caches, logs, databases and other potential data leaks to consider. For example, the encryption keys for the file containers get stored in the hiberfile. Without encrypting the OS, it would be fairly easy for an attacker to access the keys to the encrypted file containers. With the OS encrypted, this is not an issue.
BACKUP
I use TBU IFL (self contained bootable imaging software) to backup the OS partition in it's raw, encrypted form. Yes, this causes it to backup empty space and it takes quite a bit longer to run. Differential backups do work and are a smaller filesize than the original full backup, but they still take just as long.
From the research I've been doing on TrueCrypt's forums, it appears the reason that I can only restore these backups on the original drive is due an insufficiency in TrueCrypt's rescue system.
What I've found is that I can use Windows-based imaging software to backup the OS partition in it's decrypted form, restore the image to a new drive and re-encrypt it. It's a bit of a process, but it's still faster and easier than running the full TrueCrypt decryption process, copying the partition to the new drive and re-encrypting. I could use the imaging software's own encryption scheme to protect the image if I want.
When I backup my data, I do exactly what many have suggested here: back it up at the file level by using synchronization software to periodically compare and copy changed files (from inside the TrueCrypt volumes that I've already mounted) to an external drive which contains mounted TrueCrypt volumes of identical size.
FOLLOW-UP
So, to rephrase and answer some of my questions:
1: Non-Portable OS Backups
Solution in this context: use Windows-based imaging software to backup the system volume in its decrypted form. Use the encryption feature built into the imaging software to protect it.
2: Volatility of Data Containers
The problem is not backing up data inside the containers. The problem is that they are volatile. Any data corruption in the area of the partition where a container resides renders that container functionally useless and all contained files inaccessible. Basically, adding a layer of security also adds a layer of instability, but I don't currently see a better way of acheiving that security.
3: SSDs
Still not sure what to think about SSDs, all of my research has yielded mixed results from polar extremes of the spectrum.
Slashdot Mirror
But does it run Linux?
It really *is* April fools day.
Wait, what? Did I somehow stumble onto the wrong site?
You don't even want to know what they did to "Soft Kitty" from the Big Bang Theory...
Actually, I kinda do.
"Morally justified" is a bit too strong a statement; even ethically justified is probably even too strong. "Personally justified" is just the right amount of flavor.
Copyright is not a question of morality. It is not right vs. wrong, despite the brainwashing. There is nothing absolutely wrong about not paying for a copy that doesn't deprive anyone else of one and there's nothing absolutely right about paying for it.
But this is a conversation for another time and place ... it's a long walk from where you obviously are to this understanding.
Oh, wow, they'll give me "permission" to enjoy stuff on a device that *I OWN* after an arbitrary point in time?
Well shucks, how generous!
How about, we all just accept that:
* A little piracy helps more than it hurts and is a generally nothing more than free advertising
* Making content easy-to-use, open/DRM-free, accessible and reasonably priced deters piracy better than does antagonizing your own fans through legal bullying ("you'll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar")
* Despite your best efforts, a negligible and inconsequential number of people are going to be freeloaders no matter what. These are people who are either unable to obtain it through "legitimate" means because it's (1) not made available to them, they (2) can't afford it, are (3) simply cheap or are (4) naive.
There are some sub-points on that third item:
(1) Unavailabliy: there is no excuse for this. These people are paying customers except that you won't take their money, so they turn to the only possible alternative. If it's unavailable to certain users becuase of their location, that's your own damn fault for keeping everything locked up in bullshit legal entanglements. There is clearly a market and reaching that market is a trivial expense in 2013.
(2) Can't afford it: don't write these people off. They are in the market, just not yet. These are the same college students that use cracked copies of Photoshop, but who will later be purchasing it at the full ridiculous price from Adobe.
(3) Just cheap: OK, you probably won't deter these people because they can't be detered. They don't care and it's not worth persuing them and becoming universally despised as a result.
(4) Naive: they just don't know how these things actually work, they just assume that it's all on the up-and-up and that a computer is just a glorified stereo and VCR. And why wouldn't they? Radio's free, OTA TV is free, YouTube is free... the way to attract them is not to send letters threatening to riun their lives over 24 songs. You tell them, "look, here's the improved level of service and quality we can provide you for a reasonable price."
In essence, it's a matter of balance and legal bullying is the wrong way to go about tipping the scale when it's too heavy on the side you don't like. It sounds like /maybe/ they're just starting to get the slightest, subtle twinge of this realization.
At this point, they're still proliferated mostly just at airports; all other modes of transportation are minimally infiltrated.
So, yes, at this point, if everyone or the vast majority refused to fly, I'm sure the airlines would use their political connections and lobbying power to dissolve the TSA with haste.
I took a trip from the Midwest to the east coast a few weeks ago. Normally, this is about 4-5 hours of flying time and consumes 3/4 of a day with hurry-up-and-wait. But I decided I'd enough with the TSA's bullshit and took the train instead.
Not once was I stopped, groped or searched. I didn't need to go through any checkpoints or scanners. I didn't need to remove my shoes and strip half way down. I didn't have to take half the stuff out of my bag and then feverishly reassemble everything while a queue of annoyed people piled up behind me. I just bought my ticket and hopped on (what a concept, eh?) ... and it's not like I was just hopping over from one podunk hick town to another, I went through Chicago and DC, not exactly calm places with lax security protocols.
But, on the other hand, the trip took two full days and two nights of travel each way, the coach seats were good, but useless for sleeping and the sleeper car I opted for on the subsequent nights were quite expensive.
So, yes, I've sacrificed convenience, money, time and comfort to defy the TSA and their bullshit. What have you done?
And I'd be right behind you!
Little Kim Jong Un found his toy soldier collection and wants to play war.
If this were actually serious, they'd be bombed into the stone-age before they managed to actually do anything.
Oh, wait...
More tracking.
Aw, sonofabitch, posting from a phone doesn't always work out. Just stop reading after the first "flat text files".
Right, I don't need that client email from a few years ago to remind me about a detail on a project. It'd be better just to look like an idiot in front of them.
Just because *you* don't need that archive doesn't mean everyone else doesn't need it.
Why the hell *not* keep a conveniently categorized, organized, sorted, indexed and searchable database of all your important electronic communications? A few gigs is nothing these days.
Find a mail program that you like and stick with it. Important factors to consider:
* How it stores the mail and attachments: mbox or other ASCII format good, proprietary binary format like PST, bad.
* How well it manages years and years worth of 10's or 100's of emails a day.
* How gracefully it fails from data corruption (this is where storage configurations that keep eggs in separate baskets are a very good thing indeed)
* Something with good importers. If not, there are 3rd party programs and services that claim to be able to convert from any mail client to another.
Personally, I've used Eudora for the last ten years (v7.x when it was still maintained by Qualcomm, not that godawful travesty Mozilla cobbled together, which is just Thunderbird dolled up to look slightly like Eudora but function nothing like it) and have scarcely considered anything else.
Yes, it's a bit goofy, requires some advanced trickery at times and the configuration screens might as well all be labeled "Miscellaneous", but it more than makes up for it...
No other mail client can come close to the MDI that lets you view endlessly configurable summaries of any number of mailboxes at a glance.
It stores all mail in plain text (close to mbox, but not quite ... though close enough that you can grab an mbox file and trick Eudora into thinking it's a native file without any manual editing) and dumps all attachments as normal files into a single directory. Yes, that directory becomes kind of ... well, huge, so it's kind of klunky in that way, but it does ensure that you can access those files at any time without having to deal with any interface beyond the operating system.
Mail consumes pretty much just what that amount of text and files would. Meta data and configuration takes up little else.
I have 10+ years (~3GB) of email and there are zero performance issues. It does offer the option of indexing mailboxes for faster searches as well.
It is truly the geek's mail client. I love this mail program so much, I will use it in a VM when it eventually becomes incompatible, but it works problem-free on Windows 7. And even in the event that it were somehow unusable, I'd still have access to all my mail; after all, it's just a bunch of flat text files.
Except that it's trivially easy to recover deleted files from an SD card, even after you've formatted it and put additional photos on it two or three times.
Honestly, it sounds ... well, it has potential anyway. I seriously enjoyed three of the four movies mentioned (let's just play pretend and say that fourth one never happened, mmmkay?)
Fringe is over after a good run, V was canceled just as it was getting really good and there's not much else out there I can find with as much character depth.
Bring it on!
"Right to defy gravity"
Was broadening.
And your solution puts the onus on the user to become an expert in software.
Oh, baloney.
You're not asking them to download some source code and compile it (and all the headaches of requisite compilers and dependencies and so on)
Just provide them with a direct link to a non-shitty browser and the installation process holds their hand the entire way.
Oh, yeah? Well, you're now breathing manually.
How much longer are they going to keep making products for consumption instead of creation?
Windows 8 is the "other" in "every other version of Windows sucks," which means they better get their head out of their ass for Windows 9 (or whatever name they pick out of the hat next).
Otherwise, this is going to push their bread-and-butter business customers away from them and towards Linux. Who'd have thought that the year of the Linux desktop might actually end up being Microsoft's doing?
Get a Mac.
I know I said I was open, but ... not *that* open.
No. Kill one sector on an unencrypted drive and you may not lose anything or you may lose some of the file that uses that block or all of it. If you lose one sector of an encrypted container you lose at least that block of cypher text and likely the whole container.
Thank-you, this is a good explanation of exactly what I meant by the word "volatile".
lulz ... well, thanks for the entertainment. I was actually beginning to think was nobody more paranoid than I am. Thanks for quelling that.
There are a lot of similar and tangentially related responses, so I'll make this one post instead of responding inline to each one.
SETUP
My partitions look like this in gparted:
Note that TrueCrypt replaces whatever existing bootloader is on the drive with its own so it can run pre-boot authentication to decrypt the OS.
Yes, I realize that I don't store any data on the OS/software partition, but there are still system caches, logs, databases and other potential data leaks to consider. For example, the encryption keys for the file containers get stored in the hiberfile. Without encrypting the OS, it would be fairly easy for an attacker to access the keys to the encrypted file containers. With the OS encrypted, this is not an issue.
BACKUP
I use TBU IFL (self contained bootable imaging software) to backup the OS partition in it's raw, encrypted form. Yes, this causes it to backup empty space and it takes quite a bit longer to run. Differential backups do work and are a smaller filesize than the original full backup, but they still take just as long.
From the research I've been doing on TrueCrypt's forums, it appears the reason that I can only restore these backups on the original drive is due an insufficiency in TrueCrypt's rescue system.
What I've found is that I can use Windows-based imaging software to backup the OS partition in it's decrypted form, restore the image to a new drive and re-encrypt it. It's a bit of a process, but it's still faster and easier than running the full TrueCrypt decryption process, copying the partition to the new drive and re-encrypting. I could use the imaging software's own encryption scheme to protect the image if I want.
When I backup my data, I do exactly what many have suggested here: back it up at the file level by using synchronization software to periodically compare and copy changed files (from inside the TrueCrypt volumes that I've already mounted) to an external drive which contains mounted TrueCrypt volumes of identical size.
FOLLOW-UP
So, to rephrase and answer some of my questions:
1: Non-Portable OS Backups
Solution in this context: use Windows-based imaging software to backup the system volume in its decrypted form. Use the encryption feature built into the imaging software to protect it.
2: Volatility of Data Containers
The problem is not backing up data inside the containers. The problem is that they are volatile. Any data corruption in the area of the partition where a container resides renders that container functionally useless and all contained files inaccessible. Basically, adding a layer of security also adds a layer of instability, but I don't currently see a better way of acheiving that security.
3: SSDs
Still not sure what to think about SSDs, all of my research has yielded mixed results from polar extremes of the spectrum.