I met the guy. I've seen pictures of him buried in his laptop in the middle of a crowd at trade shows. He was seriously ALONE with himself. Don't know why, but that's enough motivation to become suicidal for most.
I would like them to make the I-Opener more like an appliance:
Toasters don't come with monthly subscriptions.
Telephones can use whatever company you select.
Televisions and radios can view any channel you can receive.
Blenders, food processors, and even coffee makers can be used in ways which the designers never imagined.
The more versatile an appliance, the better. That's why washing machines have different cycles and dryers have "delicate" mode. That's why ovens have bake and broil elements. That's why microwave ovens and VCRs are programmable. That's why I can choose a different long distance company for my phone.
Let the customer choose how they want to use it. Sure, give them a rebate or something if they want to sign up with your service but don't take away their option to just buy the hardware and use it as they wish.
Besides, no one has any reason to believe that the i-Opener subscription service would be any good. How 'bout browser upgrades and plug-ins? Seems kind of limiting to me.
No matter what the data, text, graphics, software, sound, video... there simply is no way to restrict distribution.
If a user can see/hear it on their computer, then there is a way they can copy it too.
There is no way to restrict information once it has been disclosed. There is no way to enforce payment for static (non-interactive) information. Once one user gains access to it, they can distribute it in raw, un-restricted form.
This is the problem with Copyright. With the current technology, Copyright is unenforceable without gross violation of privacy.
Politicians pander to the crowd whose vote comes cheapest, and a politician's campaign promise is about as cheap as it gets. My personal opinion is that if geeks want to influence society they'll have to do it directly through technology.
More and more frequently there are examples of some public figure, some company, or some government coming to the shocking realization that it's a bad idea to take advantage of the same sort of people who invented the concept of "hack".
It's completely futile. Any encryption they implement can be emulated in software eventually. Just as was done with the CSS for DVDs.
Just imagine the user-interface problems this would cause! Can I do a screen-print? Will it stop a "kibitz"-like application from "sharing" a chunk of my screen?
What it comes down to is that the only way to succeed in copy protection is to convince your customers that it's in their own best interest not to copy your stuff without your permission.
Don't charge outrageous prices.
Allow copying with reasonable restrictions.
Prove that the money your customers send you will benefit them by continuing to produce new, quality products and/or advancing the state of the art.
It's not obvious, but it could be improved upon if the patent is published. Those improvements would be separately patentable, making the original patent more of a liability than an asset.
That's why the Google technology would be better handled as a Trade Secret.
Unfortunately, it may be too late for that if they didn't stress secrecy from the start.
You won't just need a weatherproof case, you'll need a computer which can take the temperature extremes.
No desktop type components are going to handle outdoor temperatures in any but the most mild climates (read, SEATTLE). Working with pole-mounted equipment design myself, I was surprised to find that even military-grade components may not be up to the task.
You'll at least need mil-spec components for the harsh environment you're describing.
Public key algorithms are used to pass a randomly generated session key for other algorithms, kind of like the key you hide inside the fake rock next to your back door. They should never be used to encrypt message data. Here's why:
Public key algorithms are very computationally intensive
Public key algorithms aren't cryptographically strong.
If you use a public key algorithm, such as RSA, to encrypt a message it would be a lot slower and you would be giving eavesdroppers tons and tons of cyphertext to crank through their cryptanalytic tools.
The "big idea" of public key algorithms is not that they're more secure but rather that they allow secure communications between parties without shared secrets. In other words, you don't need to clandestinely meet with your contact in a small shop in Switzerland to agree on a secret password or to swap one-time pads.
Each public-key pair is (warning, this is another loose analogy) like a phone number. I can call you from anywhere and only you will hear it ring. (I told you it was loose...) And once I've called you, I can be pretty sure that it's you on the other end instead of your neighbor.
That's why the pizza place asks for your phone number. If they call it, and you confirm your order you've just "signed" it.
C'mon. The 'net is more of a *vehicle* for those of us who WORK here than an addiction. You might as well tell a truck driver he's addicted to the road!
If you're not paying someone, then don't try to tell them what to do. When you catch yourself thinking, "He should do such-and-such" then DO IT YOURSELF.
Don't tell the other guy to change the name, he has just as much "right" to it as you do: NONE. Take your own advice, change the name of your code (maybe by adding your initials "P-jqh") to prevent confusion. Make the distinction clear and let the users decide.
This is no new thing. There are "flavors" of lots of different things. Look at "vi" and "emacs" for example.
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I met the guy. I've seen pictures of him buried in his laptop in the middle of a crowd at trade shows. He was seriously ALONE with himself. Don't know why, but that's enough motivation to become suicidal for most.
The more versatile an appliance, the better. That's why washing machines have different cycles and dryers have "delicate" mode. That's why ovens have bake and broil elements. That's why microwave ovens and VCRs are programmable. That's why I can choose a different long distance company for my phone.
Let the customer choose how they want to use it. Sure, give them a rebate or something if they want to sign up with your service but don't take away their option to just buy the hardware and use it as they wish.
Besides, no one has any reason to believe that the i-Opener subscription service would be any good. How 'bout browser upgrades and plug-ins? Seems kind of limiting to me.
If a user can see/hear it on their computer, then there is a way they can copy it too.
There is no way to restrict information once it has been disclosed. There is no way to enforce payment for static (non-interactive) information. Once one user gains access to it, they can distribute it in raw, un-restricted form.
This is the problem with Copyright. With the current technology, Copyright is unenforceable without gross violation of privacy.
Politicians pander to the crowd whose vote comes cheapest, and a politician's campaign promise is about as cheap as it gets. My personal opinion is that if geeks want to influence society they'll have to do it directly through technology.
Just imagine the user-interface problems this would cause! Can I do a screen-print? Will it stop a "kibitz"-like application from "sharing" a chunk of my screen?
What it comes down to is that the only way to succeed in copy protection is to convince your customers that it's in their own best interest not to copy your stuff without your permission.
That's why the Google technology would be better handled as a Trade Secret.
Unfortunately, it may be too late for that if they didn't stress secrecy from the start.
No desktop type components are going to handle outdoor temperatures in any but the most mild climates (read, SEATTLE). Working with pole-mounted equipment design myself, I was surprised to find that even military-grade components may not be up to the task.
You'll at least need mil-spec components for the harsh environment you're describing.
"Apparently" it may take a while to send out hundreds of 600kb e-mails. My guess is that not
everyone has received theirs yet.
- Public key algorithms are very computationally intensive
- Public key algorithms aren't cryptographically strong.
If you use a public key algorithm, such as RSA, to encrypt a message it would be a lot slower and you would be giving eavesdroppers tons and tons of cyphertext to crank through their cryptanalytic tools.The "big idea" of public key algorithms is not that they're more secure but rather that they allow secure communications between parties without shared secrets. In other words, you don't need to clandestinely meet with your contact in a small shop in Switzerland to agree on a secret password or to swap one-time pads.
Each public-key pair is (warning, this is another loose analogy) like a phone number. I can call you from anywhere and only you will hear it ring. (I told you it was loose...) And once I've called you, I can be pretty sure that it's you on the other end instead of your neighbor.
That's why the pizza place asks for your phone number. If they call it, and you confirm your order you've just "signed" it.
If you do, you're probably addicted, eh?
C'mon. The 'net is more of a *vehicle* for those of us who WORK here than an addiction. You might as well tell a truck driver he's addicted to the road!
It's a social aspect which can directly and drastically affect morale regardless of anyone's marital status.
If you're not paying someone, then don't try to tell them what to do. When you catch yourself thinking, "He should do such-and-such" then DO IT YOURSELF.
Don't tell the other guy to change the name, he has just as much "right" to it as you do: NONE. Take your own advice, change the name of your code (maybe by adding your initials "P-jqh") to prevent confusion. Make the distinction clear and let the users decide.
This is no new thing. There are "flavors" of lots of different things. Look at "vi" and "emacs" for example.
Rick.Miller@Linux.org
http://execpc.com/~rdmiller