But evidence obtained illegally by non-law enforcement (i.e. RIAA goons) can be used by law enforcement to get a rubberstamp to kick down your door, hog tie you, and take your PC away to be stripped down and get the "legal" evidence.
What percentage of American DVD purchasers do you think understand what region encoding is?
I'll guess 5%, for the simple reason that Region 1 is the motherlode both for producers and consumers. Why should Region 1 consumers care, they get the good toys. It's us poor saps in the rest of the world who get screwed over DVD. In Region 2 we typically pay 50% more for half the content delivered 3 months later - or buy Region 1 imports and cross our fingers that our hacked players won't spit them out.
So this is an interesting story, but it's just the thick end of the wedge shoving itself (unlubricated) up our cornchutes. The precedent for this was set years ago.
Realistically, you can hire a GOOD defense attorney for anywhere from $1000 to $2500
If I paid $1000 in legal fees in a precedent setting case, versus a corporate budget, I'd expect to them to lock me up and throw away the keys, for being a moron if for no other reason.
there's always a small chance of being found wrongly guilty (genuine statistics put it closer to 1-2% BTW)
Should we remove all current legal systems and replace them with whatever omniscient system you used to determine that? Or is it more likely that you're spouting pure horse puckey?
I know long association with the legal system leads to complacency and a degree of pragmatic cynicism, but for those of us without mommy to defend them, this is pretty scary stuff. You must be aware that lower court judges and Joe Juror make decisions not based on facts but on whether you're a "purple haired teenager". You're screwed as soon as the opening argument accuses you of being a wicked computer pirate, just like those Commie Arab Canadian terrorist hackers that Stacey Implants was talking about on NBC last night. What have the facts got to do with it?
No mention of how much strength is lost by adding the glue. So, is this going to make the materials more fragile (for the same section/volume/mass)? Anyway retaining 75% of the original strength is no great shakes, especially in safety critical applications.
Frankly, we'd be better coming up with a composite that highlighted damage (glowglue?), rather than trying to paper over the cracks.
It actually looks (based on their claims) like a half decent scheme, but they seem to be keener to pan PDA's than to promote their own security. I suppose it'll come down to whether anyone can be bothered putting in the effort to crack it.
A related issue is that I can't find mentioned anywhere on their site how the purchasing/licensing works. In all jurisdictions that I know of, when you buy a paper book, you purchase a transferable license tied to the medium. You sell the book, you sell the license. With an eBook, what are you buying, what do you actually own, for how long, and what can you do with it?
Do you own the data? And is it both the encrypted and unencrypted forms? Can you re-sell the data, and if so, how? Or is it (more likely) just a personal license to view the data? Can you lend your eBook (and licenses) to a friend to read? Can you rent or sell an eBook if it has data on it? Do the licenses expire ("leasences")?
Picture this EULA inside a paper book: "You may not sell or lend this book. You may place it in a bookshelf, but may not sell it as part of a bookshelf. Ownership of this book remains with OmniGlobalHyperMegaCorp Publishing Inc., breach of these terms may result in this book being seized." Hmmm.
Netrek handled this issue decades ago. All of the source code was readily available, but if you wanted to connect to any of the public servers you would be required to have an RSA signed binary.
Ah, nostalgia. Spoofing my Rogerborg client past the Netrek RSA check was my introduction to hacking. Frankly, I couldn't have done it without the source.
On the other hand, because of the almost religious belief in the security of the RSA check, other players refused to believe I was using a hacked client, even though the client kindly broadcast itself as such.
Open source makes it easier for cheats, but faux security makes it easier for cheats to prosper. Should be interesting to see how this one pans out.
>the spammer [..] may be in his business because
> of factors outside his control like debt or
> bills for an illness in the family, etc
Why, I had not thought of that, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention in such an impressively verbose manner. I find myself filled with an all encompassing love for the spammer subspecies. Let's all hug.
Slashdot Mirror
But evidence obtained illegally by non-law enforcement (i.e. RIAA goons) can be used by law enforcement to get a rubberstamp to kick down your door, hog tie you, and take your PC away to be stripped down and get the "legal" evidence.
Anyone know at what temperature eyeballs are damaged? >Didn't the Red Cross already go ape about lasers designed to blind?
And no, I don't understand what the Marines are doing with a policing weapon. But I'd rather they had it than the police did.
What percentage of American DVD purchasers do you think understand what region encoding is?
I'll guess 5%, for the simple reason that Region 1 is the motherlode both for producers and consumers. Why should Region 1 consumers care, they get the good toys. It's us poor saps in the rest of the world who get screwed over DVD. In Region 2 we typically pay 50% more for half the content delivered 3 months later - or buy Region 1 imports and cross our fingers that our hacked players won't spit them out.
So this is an interesting story, but it's just the thick end of the wedge shoving itself (unlubricated) up our cornchutes. The precedent for this was set years ago.
Realistically, you can hire a GOOD defense attorney for anywhere from $1000 to $2500
If I paid $1000 in legal fees in a precedent setting case, versus a corporate budget, I'd expect to them to lock me up and throw away the keys, for being a moron if for no other reason.
there's always a small chance of being found wrongly guilty (genuine statistics put it closer to 1-2% BTW)
Should we remove all current legal systems and replace them with whatever omniscient system you used to determine that? Or is it more likely that you're spouting pure horse puckey?
I know long association with the legal system leads to complacency and a degree of pragmatic cynicism, but for those of us without mommy to defend them, this is pretty scary stuff. You must be aware that lower court judges and Joe Juror make decisions not based on facts but on whether you're a "purple haired teenager". You're screwed as soon as the opening argument accuses you of being a wicked computer pirate, just like those Commie Arab Canadian terrorist hackers that Stacey Implants was talking about on NBC last night. What have the facts got to do with it?
No mention of how much strength is lost by adding the glue. So, is this going to make the materials more fragile (for the same section/volume/mass)? Anyway retaining 75% of the original strength is no great shakes, especially in safety critical applications.
Frankly, we'd be better coming up with a composite that highlighted damage (glowglue?), rather than trying to paper over the cracks.
It actually looks (based on their claims) like a half decent scheme, but they seem to be keener to pan PDA's than to promote their own security. I suppose it'll come down to whether anyone can be bothered putting in the effort to crack it.
A related issue is that I can't find mentioned anywhere on their site how the purchasing/licensing works. In all jurisdictions that I know of, when you buy a paper book, you purchase a transferable license tied to the medium. You sell the book, you sell the license. With an eBook, what are you buying, what do you actually own, for how long, and what can you do with it?
Do you own the data? And is it both the encrypted and unencrypted forms? Can you re-sell the data, and if so, how? Or is it (more likely) just a personal license to view the data? Can you lend your eBook (and licenses) to a friend to read? Can you rent or sell an eBook if it has data on it? Do the licenses expire ("leasences")?
Picture this EULA inside a paper book: "You may not sell or lend this book. You may place it in a bookshelf, but may not sell it as part of a bookshelf. Ownership of this book remains with OmniGlobalHyperMegaCorp Publishing Inc., breach of these terms may result in this book being seized." Hmmm.
Netrek handled this issue decades ago. All of the source code was readily available, but if you wanted to connect to any of the public servers you would be required to have an RSA signed binary.
Ah, nostalgia. Spoofing my Rogerborg client past the Netrek RSA check was my introduction to hacking. Frankly, I couldn't have done it without the source.
On the other hand, because of the almost religious belief in the security of the RSA check, other players refused to believe I was using a hacked client, even though the client kindly broadcast itself as such.
Open source makes it easier for cheats, but faux security makes it easier for cheats to prosper. Should be interesting to see how this one pans out.
GPL is like a hive of Borgs, assimilating the world.
And that would be bad because...?
If you don't like GPL, feel free to write everything from scratch. Rumour is, there's still a market for software like that.
>the spammer [..] may be in his business because
> of factors outside his control like debt or
> bills for an illness in the family, etc
Why, I had not thought of that, and I thank you for bringing it to my attention in such an impressively verbose manner. I find myself filled with an all encompassing love for the spammer subspecies. Let's all hug.