On a separate note, wouldn't it be easy to manufacture counterfeit dongles?
I don't think it would be easy but of course I bet it could be done. It still would be much more difficult for the average joe to buy a counterfeit dongle rather than just get an activation key from somewhere. Thats what it is about, stopping the average joe, the hardcore people are not the majority so much less has to be done to worry about them.
There are some really good USB dongle makers out there that provide dongles for software protection. At my company we recently switched to WIBU Systems dongles for our forensic products and they are great. They can be used to encrypt/decrypt portions of the executables as well as to store encrypted data and are easy to setup so software will ONLY run if the dongle is plugged in. They are extremely easy to use as well. Check them out here:
We previously had been using Rainbow Technologies Sentinel keys but they were a big headache. You had to have a file license tied to each individual dongle which caused many headaches when customers lost their original install discs among many other problems. Read about the Sentinel dongle here:
Working with the Rainbow dongles really made me dispise dongles because people called in with problems ALL the time. After we switched to the other brand nearly a year ago I have only had ONE person call in with a dongle problem and it was because they had not installed the driver for it. My view of dongles did a 180 and I think they are great for software protection now. Another neat thing about the Wibu dongles is they can have many "slots" in them so that you don't need a separate dongle for all of the different companies software out there. If another company uses the Wibu dongles and you already have a Wibu dongle that has slots open then the new company can send you a file to reprogram your key so that it can be used for the new software as well. Granted, this hasn't really happened in my experience but at least the option is there. Another cool thing is if the software you are using is configured for it you can even "share" a dongle over a network and the licenses in it can be "checked out" so you don't have to hassle with carrying the dongles around.
Another thing is I have not heard of the Wibu dongles being cracked so they seem pretty secure in my eyes. I am sure if they were put into use at the magnatude of coming with every copy of Windows Vista that much more effort would be put into cracking them but I still think it could work since the majority of people would not hassle with ordering a counterfeit dongle and would probably end up just purchasing the software.
they shouldn't have DRM'd their operating system with "activation"
I agree with most of your points but not the one above. MS has the most pirated OS on earth, what do you expect them to do? Just keep making it easy for people to run illegitimate copies? If you are in the software business then I would hope you undertand how big of a problem pirated software is at the consumer level (I am guessing you are not based on your view piont but I could be wrong). One of the things I work on at my job is a consumer level data recovery application for CD/DVD media and pirated copies of it can be found ALL OVER the internet as well as our forensic level products. If we just turned a blind eye to it and didn't try to increase the security of our applications to protect our software we would go broke. That doesn't sound fair to me. If you have a need for something I have put long, hard hours into then I would hope you would give me the decency and actually pay for it. That just does not seem to be the case with many, many people, they just think everything should be free. I wouldn't say we have hardcore DRM but we do take measures, including activation, to protect our software.
Seriously, what is the big deal about entering a code to activate software you have purchased? Does the whole 10 seconds it takes matter to you that much? As long as they do it right (ie keep it simple and don't lock out valid customers), which I believe MS has done, then I don't have a problem with it. It is very unintrusive, takes nearly no time at all, and even though it wants to revalidate 1-2 times a year the time it takes is minimal. Really the only people activation hurts is those who want to buy one copy of some software package and install it on as many machines as they wish. I am sorry but if you bought one license that describes it being only a license for one machine then don't bitch about not being able to run it on more than that.
The only thing I can think of that would make you happy yet would still help them protect their software would be instead of activation they would ship a USB dongle with every retail copy of Windows which you would of course need to have plugged in to let the OS run. Would that make you happy?
Get back to me when you have a good arguement about how the "activation DRM" is such a bad thing to have.
I think the plan for now is to move to Macs, triple booting OS X, Ubuntu and XP. With XP networking disabled it should be fairly safe to use and it won't really matter that they stop providing security updates. MS software is fine if kept properly litterboxed.
I take it this is not a server machine if it is setup to dual boot and if so why disable networking on XP? If you are not a complete retard then it is extremely easy to setup and run an XP machine to be safe connected to the net. You must be super paranoid.
My external hard drive (120gb) has been good for well over two years now. Plus, I've dropped the thing several times. I never had a cd-rw work for more than a few weeks or a dvd-rw for a few days due to scratches.
Well I have had 2 external HD's fail in the last 3 years and zero of my DVD's fail. It's all anecdotal evidence.
Most likely the reason your discs started to fail was either you were not taking care of them AT ALL (since they failed so quickly), they were just low quality media, and/or your drive was crap. I work in the computer forensic field specializing in optical media and I have worked with quite a few drives and a whole lot of media so I have pretty good insight into this. I mean good God man what were you doing to this media to have it fail so quickly? I wouldn't trust RW media with the sole copy of any data but I have used CD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RW discs for years to shuffle data between different computers without much trouble. Just keep them in a case when they are not in use and out of extreme temperatures and sunlight and your discs should last a long time. Write once media is even more bullet proof as long as it is cared for and of good quality.
Hard drives and discs both have their pros and cons but I think because of how easy it is to transport discs compared to HD's as well as the costs involved that discs will be around for quite some more time. The best example I can think of off the top of my head is if you had a bunch of high definition video you wanted to send to your friend/relative who didn't have broadband and they lived far away from you would you rather mail them a couple of discs or a few hard drives?
Okay, there is a HUGE difference between seeking out volunteer work on your own to gain experience and having people just expect things for free. All I was saying was since people seem to expect the local computer nerd to help them for free whenever they have a problem that it has the effect of driving the costs down since so many people do provide that help for free.
Back when I was fresh out of college and searching for a job I did everything I could to gain experience and since I moved back to my small hometown with no software developing demand I ended up working on some FOSS I was interested in which was great. I did not mind doing that at all and I highly recommend others do the same. Had my church or some other not for profit in town needed some coding done I most likely would have done it for little cost or even free depending on what the project was. But now that I am employed I probably would not just go do some programming for anyone who had a need and wanted it done for free unless it was something I was interested in.
Basically what I am getting at is if a person goes and seeks out volunteer work that is great, but to have people asking for it all the time (fully expecting the free help) it can be really annoying and as I mentioned in the original post most people wouldn't ask a trademan they know for free work all the time. Sure, sometimes people will install a car part for free or some other little job but at least it is not expected of them (not even offering something small like some beer) and if they were to say no they would not be looked at like a freak which usually happens to the nerd who says no to fixing some aquaintances virus/spyware infested machine for the 100th time.
What happened is now a lot of people feel this type of work is worth little because so many do it for free.
I totally agree. Would I ask my mechanic friend to come over and overhaul my engine for free, or my painter friend to come paint my house for free, or my electrician friend to come re-wire my house for free? Hell no I wouldn't and if I did I am sure they would call me crazy if I asked.
On the other hand since I "know computers" I have people asking for help with all types of computer problems all the time and even some people asking me to build a website, etc for their businesses and they want it for free. Sure, for my grandma, parents, or girlfriend I will probably do it but other than that I did not go to college and get an interesting job as a software developer to spend my free time doing stuff that doesn't even interest me for free. For something small I may swap some jobs or accept a case of beer or something like that but for the most part I have told people to not bother asking.
The point is cloning is too new to know if any risks are present since no long term tests have been done yet and this would at least let people have a choice to be a guinee pig or not. Personally I would prefer not to be one.
This is similar to some of the genetically modified/genetically engineered foods that are available which could have long term health effects and from what I have heard some have even shown some effects in the short term. The last time I checked the legislation in the US would not require genetically modified foods to be labeled such which pissed me off.
I want the choice to know what is going into my body and it is not like marking such foods as genetically engineered or the product of a cloned animal/plant would be that hard to do.
I replied before I saw your other posts because I usually open an article at work and read through the responses throughout the day so I end up missing later posts so sorry if you corrected yourself.
It just gets annoying hearing all the "it's not theft" responses by people who stick to a rigid definition of the word and while I agree it is not theft since it does not deprive me of something I once had it still affects me in a way that is similar to theft. If everyone were to pirate the software I make then my company would go out of business do to not having any money which is pretty damn similar to what would happen if someone were to come rob the company blind. The end result is the same and no matter how you look at it is is at least IP theft so it is not like NO theft is going on.
By your logic, if I make a burger at home, I'm stealing from McDonald's.
While I agree that piracy is not theft in the general sense your example of the hamburger is flawed. If you make a burger at home you bought/raised the meat, then formed it into patties yourself, and then cooked it yourself. You did everything yourself. The "theft" with piracy is like you mentioned copyright infringement and is theft of intellectual property. To make a fair comparison using your hamburger analogy it would be someone seeing software they liked, making their own implementation (not just copying the execuatable!), and then selling/using that.
Also, you have absolutely no proof that any Chinese have pirated Vista, you are just assuming and libeling a whole country.
Piracy is rampant there and if they pirate everything else why would they not pirate Vista? I also know people who have been there that said Vista is available for something like $1-10 which other people in this thread have backed up so it seems pretty likely to me. People make assumptions (and usually correct ones) based on reputation and in this case China is the piracy capitol of the world so assuming they have pirate copies of Vista available is an assumption that has a high probability of being correct.
Maybe they don't want Vista because it SUCKS, hmm, you ever think of that smart boy?
If they didn't want it why are pirated copies available? Oh, you meant they didn't want to pay for it, that is different. If the price is too high that is one thing but I know many people who pirate software that they can afford to purchase they just don't want to spend the money on it. Who cares if a company spent 100s/1000s/10000s/etc of man hours developing it, I should get it for free, I am only copying bits, I am not stealing anything from them (only I am constantly using the software for my own benefit).
Some of us depend on selling the software we make (at fair prices) to feed ourselves and our families. While Piracy is not true "theft" it can/does have an impact on us financially. All I ask is that if there is software that does something specialized for you and you don't want to spend the time making your own implementation at least support the people who created that software for you.
Since DVD does not have a raw mode like CD it will just fail completely when there is a problem with the ECC. It really sucks but there is just no way around it with a consumer level drive.
Well there are a couple of things to consider when looking at the probability of the failure per disc comparing CD to DVD. Overall the general concensus is DVD is safer due to MUCH better error correction. However, there are other things to consider such as if the error correcting codes (ECC) on the disc is damaged can you still maybe access the data on the disc?
With a CD you have 2352 bytes per sector to work with and it depends on the recording mode as to how much of the sector is dedicated to ECC. You can have audio mode in which case no ECC exists and you have 2352 bytes per sector all dedicated to storage, mode 1 (the most common) in which case you have 2048 bytes per sector to use for storing data and then 16 bytes for the sector header and then 288 bytes for ECC, and then various forms of mode 2 which has less ECC compared to mode 1 or no ECC at all. The advantage to mode 2 recording is you can store more data on the disc but at the risk of having less error recovery and that is why mode 2 is common for VCD discs because mpeg video is resistant to bit errors and will not completely fail when a few errors exist. Mode 1 is safer for data that is important to you and it is the best for most data formats since bit errors can have drastic effects on many types of files.
DVD on the other hand only has only one recording mode which is 2048 bytes per sector and DVD+R does have a little bit more ECC compared to -R so I guess +R is a little safer although in my experience I have not seen much difference between the two formats. DVD dedicates much more to ECC due to the higher capacity and it truly is a safer format compared to CD ECC wise. However, DVD also applies ECC to 16 sectors at a time and has what are called ECC blocks and if you lose one of those you lose all 16 sectors.
Now here is the kicker. Like I mentioned if you lose one ECC block then 16 sectors of the disc are GONE, there is no way to get them back in a standard drive. With CD, if the ECC is screwed up you usually can still read the sector in RAW mode (it might take a few attempts) but at least you should be able to get some of the data back.
So, DVD has much better ECC although if something happens to that ECC you have no way to access the data on the disc while with CD you might be able to access the data although it may have bit errors. Personally, I will stick to DVD for backups but I am very careful to take care of the discs (keeping them in cases, out of sunlight, not touching the recording surface, etc). I like the higher ECC and as long as I take care of the discs they should not end up corrupted.
For what it is worth I work as a software developer in the field of computer forensics/data recovery specializing in optical media so I thought I could clear some of your misconceptions up.
But what does happen is that it takes longer and longer for the gorram computer to mount the cd/dvd. This is especially noticable when one inserts a damaged CD into a drive. the computer grunts and groans freaking for ever trying to decide it it is looking at a CD, and CD-R, D DVD-r, and DVD+R, a DVD. And each of these seems to have some different time consuming error protocol that involves trying to spin the thing at different speeds. Now they are going to be adding not one but two more protocols. And I imagine it won't be long before we have HDDVD-R and HDDVD+R and so on thrown on top of this.
This is NOT an issue with the drive (well a drive that is in good working order). A mounting problem is an issue with your OS. When you insert a disc into the drive the drive should go into what is called the "ready state" relatively quickly because all the drive does is basically tries to see if it can access the disc (it looks for a TOC among other things). When you insert a damaged disc the reason the computer grunts and groans is because the disc is damaged and it may be having trouble getting TOC information etc from the disc. The reason it is spinning up and down a whole bunch of different times is most likely because your OS is attempting to mount the disc and is trying to look for a file system on the disc and is having a lot of trouble doing so.
If you have an external case for a CD/DVD drive then a simple way to see that the problems you are seeing are the OS's fault is the next time you have a disc that exhibits the problems you mentioned above is to shut down the machine and then re-insert the disc into the drive. Most likely the light will blink a few times and the drive might spin up a little more than normal but the drive should stop trying to access the disc in much less time that when the computer was running.
As far as more formats coming out "adding more protocols" that is not really the case. Other than having to add different hardware the rest of how the drive acts should remain the same. The only way a drive is able to tell what kind of disc is inserted is by looking at what is called a profile number which is recorded at the factory on the disc and each type of disc has a different one. For example 0x9 is CD-R, 0xa is CD-RW, 0x11 is DVD-R, 0x1b is DVD+R, 0x2b is DVD+R DL, 0x51 is HD DVD-R and on and on. It really is not that much more overhead and sure a few more things might be added to the MMC standard but the drives functionality is nearly identical.
it's going to take minutes when you shove in that Bad CD before your computer lets you eject it.
You hit the nail on the head with this one without even knowing it. It is your COMPUTER ie the OS or some other software trying to access the disc that is locked up and has probably issued a command to lock the tray so that you cannot eject the disc by pressing the eject button on the drive.
Please stop blaming drives when it really is not the drives fault.
When you first setup the password on the stick you also set the number of password attempt amounts before the stick "self destructs", so at least it is up to the user to choose how many tries they think should be allowed. After reading the article it also became clear that it is easy to mod the stick so that it is fully read only which then allows you to enter as many passwords as you want since the chip then can't log previous password attempts and will keep saying "you have X amount of attempts left." where X stays at whatever the max amount of attempts was originally set to. Another interesting thing about the stick is the "self destruct" seems to infact just be "disallow access" controlled by a chip in the stick by voltage. So most likely if the chip "self destructs" you just have to apply the correct voltage to regain access.
Not in a fascist sue-your-ass way, but just in a banning your MAC address for life kind of way.
Banning a MAC is not really going to help since MAC addresses are easily modified. Since you need to login everytime you play WoW I would have to say banning the account would be more effective. Sure, the person could maybe go setup another account (or have someone else do it for them) but after getting banned a few times they hopefully would just quit doing whatever is getting them banned because it is too much of a hassle to keep setting up new accounts.
Also, this precedent they're going for is much too far reaching. We may tolerate laws against selling land mines, but most of us wouldn't tolerate government surveilance in every aspect of our lives to prevent the sale of landmines. We'll take the freedom, live with the risks, and place responsibility on the free individuals.
I mainly brought up the landmine analogy since your steak knife analogy was slightly flawed since a steak knife serves a main purpose other than killing people. I was not trying to say that the providers of the landmines should be punished for the actions of those who they sell the landmines too just that they should be punished for providing them the landmines.
I also wouldn't tolerate the government watching every aspect of my life but when I freely and openly provide something to people that allows them to violate laws/rules then I think I should be held liable for providing that service (but not liable for the actions of others using what I provide).
While I don't believe that Blizzard has a case saying accessing WoW's RAM violates their copyright rights I do believe they have the right to check for cheaters as well as should have the right to go after people who openly provide cheaters a way to cheat (especially when the people providing a way to cheat do so profitably). Blizzard just needs to find another way to sue Wowglider out of existence and as far as I know there is not currently a way to do that which is a shame. Not being able to stop the cheaters in WoW would force many people (myself included) to probably end up quitting if it got bad enough and that would end up costing Blizzard a lot of revenue as well as take away the fun of the game from the non-cheaters.
Wowglider didn't cause anyone to violate the ToS, the person using it made a consious choice to do so. What tool they used to do it is irrelevant. If I stab someone to death with a steak knife, would you say the maker of the steak knife caused me to murder someone?
While I agree that people should be liable for their own choices I think your steak knife arguement is a little flawed. A steak knife has a known main purpose which is to allow a person to eat tasty steak, it can be used to stab a person and commit a murder but that is not what its main purpose is.
Wowglider on the other hand has the main purpose of providing an automated way to play a WoW character which is clearly a violation of the TOS for a WoW account. Even on the front page of the Wowglider website they state "Glider is a tool that plays your World of Warcraft character for you, the way you want it. It grinds, it loots, it skins, it heals, it even farms soul shards... without you."
Wowglider would be more like having someone sell landmines to anybody and everybody. A landmine is made for the sole purpose of killing people and it serves no other purpose. Obviously there are laws against selling landmines to everybody (similar to the TOS for WoW not allowing automation) and anyone providing that means should be liable for their actions.
There is no wireless/wifi, how is this competition? Who wants to hook up an ethernet cable and run it across the room/living room etc. to the computer?
Me thinks Microsoft has no vision.
Umm do realize there is a wireless adapter that you can buy for the 360 so you don't have to run an ethernet cable to it? So wireless is not a problem since the 360 already has it. I think you have no vision (literally) since you could have found that information yourself with a 1 second search on google.
Another thing you can do if you don't want to pay the ~US$100 retail price for the MS wireless adapter that you can only use with your 360 is to pick up a wireless access point and then turn it into a network bridge and then use a short ethernet cord to plug into your 360 for wireless connectivity. That is what I did and it works great although I wish the AP I had allowed bridge mode functionality with WPA instead of only WEP. Oh well, at least I am not stuck with some piece of networking hardware that can only be used with my 360.
I'll agree that you can make Windows safer, and OSX, *BSD and Linux are not invulnerable to exploits, and that it only takes half a brain to run Windows.:)
Agreed, although I think someone with NO brain could run it too. I actually prefer Linux to Windows but like you I keep a Windows machine around for gaming and running other software that is Windows only. I know you aren't one of them but I just am sick of some of the *nix and Mac users who think their machines are invincible and that all Windows machines are easily hacked so that was why I said what I said. All that I am saying is that I won't give up using Windows just because the security is not as good as some other OS's because with good habits and locking the machine down well Windows can be pretty secure. I guess I am not as paranoid as some people.:-)
While I agree that it is funny they keep saying it is "the most secure" I wonder why you switched solely for security reasons unless you are only talking about server machines? For general use machines how many times has one of these old exploits been used against you? In my own experience I have never had any of the exploits used against me.
I find it funny that you say "The.ani exploit just reminds me of how glad I am that I switched to a Mac and Linux." because sure theoretically that vulnerability could be used against you but most likely it would not have been. I am sure there are plenty of exploits in Mac OS's and Linux OS's it is just not as many people are looking for ways to exploit them so it seems more one sided that Windows machines have all the exploits while Mac and Linux boxes are "virus-proof". Anyone with half a brain can safely and securely run a Windows box just as securely as a Mac/Linux box and I count myself as proof since I have been running XP Pro for about 5 years now and the only security breach I ever encountered was when my brother loaded kazaa on it without my knowledge and downloaded something that contained a virus.
That sucks that your 5000 doesn't work at all but I have an Infocus ScreenPlay 4805 that excepts 1080i and 1080p input without any hitches and downscales perfectly. I have had this work both over component cable, DVI, and VGA inputs. I find it strange that an older model will except more input resolutions than a newer model but that seems to be the case in this situation.
How can the war be over when high def DVD players account for less than 1% of all DVD player sales? Did you know that sales of ACTUAL high def DVD players have 200,000 HD-DVD players sold vs. 30,000 Blu-Ray players? You really can't count all of the PS3 sales in there since not everyone who has one uses it for a Blu-Ray player. The fact is it is still much cheaper to make HD-DVD players and HD-DVD media than it is to make the Blu-Ray counterparts. In my opinion the winner will be the first camp to get a cheap ($100-200) player available in Wal-Mart and HD-DVD has the edge there since the parts are cheaper.
I just did a quick check of Wal-Mart's available HD DVD players and they have a HD-DVD player for $378 while the Blu-Ray player is $898. Hmm, I wonder which one I would buy if I was on a budget. Here are the players:
The simply fact is that current DVD Emporium figures show Blu-Ray now outselling HD-DVD titles about 70% to 30%, trended Amazon data agrees with this assesment.
Wow, I wonder how those numbers came about. Could it be all of the free vouchers for Blu-Ray discs that Sony gave away to purchasers of the PS3? While that is a significant percentage difference if you look at how it got that way you should come to the conclusion that the numbers have been fudged a little do to the free vouchers.
Ask Microsoft, they are the ones that want the 360 to be a media hub. They would offer a Blu-Ray player for the same reason they offer a cheap HD-DVD option today, it's just the add-on at that point would be $50 and not $200. But it's pretty clear why they are not building HD-DVD into the console, so they have that option.
The reason they did not build the HD drive into the unit was because they didn't want to drive the price of it up and thats it. I can't find the article but there was someone at MS who was quoted saying that they didn't include it in the Elite version for the very fact that they wanted to give the users a choice instead of automatically driving the price up. If you look at this http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/56565.html there is this quote:
"Adding an HD DVD drive, now available as a plug-in accessory, "would have raised the Xbox cost another $200 and that would have gone over [the] PS3 price"
Why would it go over the PS3 cost? Because Sony is selling the PS3 at a pretty hefty loss to them. MS doesn't want to go that route and would instead just like to give the user the choice to spend the extra $200.
I also think that more people will purchase the HD-DVD drive once Halo 3 is released since it sounds like it will be an HD-DVD exclusive title. This will then add more potential players to the market and may result in increased HD-DVD movie sales.
Either way even if they had included the HD-DVD drive they still would have "had the option" to offer a Blu-Ray add-on if they wished. They did not leave the HD-DVD drive out because they are worried the format is going to die.
Believe what you wish but the fact remains that the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray war is far from over and it is much too early to declare a winner.
Tray loaders are a bitch to use vertically, which means the 360 has to be basically horizontal all the time
Umm my 360 is setup vertically and at first I was worried about it being a pain to load discs but it really is not a pain at all. The tray is designed well enough that after loading the disc it will not fall out so there is no problem at all. Next time try actually using the device in question before assuming something that is not true.
It doesn't seem clever though when you look at the historical success of console upgrades. People just do not buy them in huge numbers.
Who cares if upgrades aren't bought in huge numbers, that just proves that it is better to have an option since not as many people want it forced on them but there are people who do want the upgrade. If they included it from the start the added cost might cost them sales to some people who can't afford all the bells and whistles. By offering it as an upgrade it still allows those who wish to have the added benefits. I can afford one but I still am not so sure I want to dump 200 bucks on something that I can only use with my 360.
The flexibility they gained will be great when the market forces them to produce an external Blu-Ray player, but will make them end up looking a little silly.
The HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray war is FAR from over my friend, be careful with your predictions. I also highly doubt a Blu-Ray accessory will ever be available for the 360 since by the time the war is over (if Blu-Ray wins) then low cost Blu-Ray players will most likely be available so why would you buy one that only works with a 360?
I also forgot to ask if you have ever taken a look at the source for a large open source project because I have and most of the time it has looked like a nightmare to work on. You couldn't pay me enough money to work on most of the spaghetti code I have seen out there. Paying the $75 instead of pulling my hair out for hours sounds like a dirt cheap bargain to me.
Your time isn't always worth money directly, no matter what your mommy says.
Umm in this case the poster mentioned it would probably take about 3 hours of his time to edit OO while he could get something that already works and works well for $75. I am guessing this person is a programmer and most people I know who are programmers (myself included) only like to program things they find fun when they are not at work. So in essence the time spent getting OO changed into something useful for them would cost them $25AU an hour since it is not something they WANT to do. That would make the $75 for office 2007 look damn appealing to me
Slashdot Mirror
On a separate note, wouldn't it be easy to manufacture counterfeit dongles?
w are_keys.asp
I don't think it would be easy but of course I bet it could be done. It still would be much more difficult for the average joe to buy a counterfeit dongle rather than just get an activation key from somewhere. Thats what it is about, stopping the average joe, the hardcore people are not the majority so much less has to be done to worry about them.
There are some really good USB dongle makers out there that provide dongles for software protection. At my company we recently switched to WIBU Systems dongles for our forensic products and they are great. They can be used to encrypt/decrypt portions of the executables as well as to store encrypted data and are easy to setup so software will ONLY run if the dongle is plugged in. They are extremely easy to use as well. Check them out here:
http://wibu.com/wibukey.php
We previously had been using Rainbow Technologies Sentinel keys but they were a big headache. You had to have a file license tied to each individual dongle which caused many headaches when customers lost their original install discs among many other problems. Read about the Sentinel dongle here:
http://www.safenet-inc.com/products/sentinel/hard
Working with the Rainbow dongles really made me dispise dongles because people called in with problems ALL the time. After we switched to the other brand nearly a year ago I have only had ONE person call in with a dongle problem and it was because they had not installed the driver for it. My view of dongles did a 180 and I think they are great for software protection now. Another neat thing about the Wibu dongles is they can have many "slots" in them so that you don't need a separate dongle for all of the different companies software out there. If another company uses the Wibu dongles and you already have a Wibu dongle that has slots open then the new company can send you a file to reprogram your key so that it can be used for the new software as well. Granted, this hasn't really happened in my experience but at least the option is there. Another cool thing is if the software you are using is configured for it you can even "share" a dongle over a network and the licenses in it can be "checked out" so you don't have to hassle with carrying the dongles around.
Another thing is I have not heard of the Wibu dongles being cracked so they seem pretty secure in my eyes. I am sure if they were put into use at the magnatude of coming with every copy of Windows Vista that much more effort would be put into cracking them but I still think it could work since the majority of people would not hassle with ordering a counterfeit dongle and would probably end up just purchasing the software.
they shouldn't have DRM'd their operating system with "activation"
I agree with most of your points but not the one above. MS has the most pirated OS on earth, what do you expect them to do? Just keep making it easy for people to run illegitimate copies? If you are in the software business then I would hope you undertand how big of a problem pirated software is at the consumer level (I am guessing you are not based on your view piont but I could be wrong). One of the things I work on at my job is a consumer level data recovery application for CD/DVD media and pirated copies of it can be found ALL OVER the internet as well as our forensic level products. If we just turned a blind eye to it and didn't try to increase the security of our applications to protect our software we would go broke. That doesn't sound fair to me. If you have a need for something I have put long, hard hours into then I would hope you would give me the decency and actually pay for it. That just does not seem to be the case with many, many people, they just think everything should be free. I wouldn't say we have hardcore DRM but we do take measures, including activation, to protect our software.
Seriously, what is the big deal about entering a code to activate software you have purchased? Does the whole 10 seconds it takes matter to you that much? As long as they do it right (ie keep it simple and don't lock out valid customers), which I believe MS has done, then I don't have a problem with it. It is very unintrusive, takes nearly no time at all, and even though it wants to revalidate 1-2 times a year the time it takes is minimal. Really the only people activation hurts is those who want to buy one copy of some software package and install it on as many machines as they wish. I am sorry but if you bought one license that describes it being only a license for one machine then don't bitch about not being able to run it on more than that.
The only thing I can think of that would make you happy yet would still help them protect their software would be instead of activation they would ship a USB dongle with every retail copy of Windows which you would of course need to have plugged in to let the OS run. Would that make you happy?
Get back to me when you have a good arguement about how the "activation DRM" is such a bad thing to have.
I think the plan for now is to move to Macs, triple booting OS X, Ubuntu and XP. With XP networking disabled it should be fairly safe to use and it won't really matter that they stop providing security updates. MS software is fine if kept properly litterboxed.
I take it this is not a server machine if it is setup to dual boot and if so why disable networking on XP? If you are not a complete retard then it is extremely easy to setup and run an XP machine to be safe connected to the net. You must be super paranoid.
And cds/dvds are notoriously prone to scratches.
My external hard drive (120gb) has been good for well over two years now. Plus, I've dropped the thing several times. I never had a cd-rw work for more than a few weeks or a dvd-rw for a few days due to scratches.
Well I have had 2 external HD's fail in the last 3 years and zero of my DVD's fail. It's all anecdotal evidence.
Most likely the reason your discs started to fail was either you were not taking care of them AT ALL (since they failed so quickly), they were just low quality media, and/or your drive was crap. I work in the computer forensic field specializing in optical media and I have worked with quite a few drives and a whole lot of media so I have pretty good insight into this. I mean good God man what were you doing to this media to have it fail so quickly? I wouldn't trust RW media with the sole copy of any data but I have used CD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RW discs for years to shuffle data between different computers without much trouble. Just keep them in a case when they are not in use and out of extreme temperatures and sunlight and your discs should last a long time. Write once media is even more bullet proof as long as it is cared for and of good quality.
Hard drives and discs both have their pros and cons but I think because of how easy it is to transport discs compared to HD's as well as the costs involved that discs will be around for quite some more time. The best example I can think of off the top of my head is if you had a bunch of high definition video you wanted to send to your friend/relative who didn't have broadband and they lived far away from you would you rather mail them a couple of discs or a few hard drives?
Okay, there is a HUGE difference between seeking out volunteer work on your own to gain experience and having people just expect things for free. All I was saying was since people seem to expect the local computer nerd to help them for free whenever they have a problem that it has the effect of driving the costs down since so many people do provide that help for free.
Back when I was fresh out of college and searching for a job I did everything I could to gain experience and since I moved back to my small hometown with no software developing demand I ended up working on some FOSS I was interested in which was great. I did not mind doing that at all and I highly recommend others do the same. Had my church or some other not for profit in town needed some coding done I most likely would have done it for little cost or even free depending on what the project was. But now that I am employed I probably would not just go do some programming for anyone who had a need and wanted it done for free unless it was something I was interested in.
Basically what I am getting at is if a person goes and seeks out volunteer work that is great, but to have people asking for it all the time (fully expecting the free help) it can be really annoying and as I mentioned in the original post most people wouldn't ask a trademan they know for free work all the time. Sure, sometimes people will install a car part for free or some other little job but at least it is not expected of them (not even offering something small like some beer) and if they were to say no they would not be looked at like a freak which usually happens to the nerd who says no to fixing some aquaintances virus/spyware infested machine for the 100th time.
What happened is now a lot of people feel this type of work is worth little because so many do it for free.
I totally agree. Would I ask my mechanic friend to come over and overhaul my engine for free, or my painter friend to come paint my house for free, or my electrician friend to come re-wire my house for free? Hell no I wouldn't and if I did I am sure they would call me crazy if I asked.
On the other hand since I "know computers" I have people asking for help with all types of computer problems all the time and even some people asking me to build a website, etc for their businesses and they want it for free. Sure, for my grandma, parents, or girlfriend I will probably do it but other than that I did not go to college and get an interesting job as a software developer to spend my free time doing stuff that doesn't even interest me for free. For something small I may swap some jobs or accept a case of beer or something like that but for the most part I have told people to not bother asking.
The point is cloning is too new to know if any risks are present since no long term tests have been done yet and this would at least let people have a choice to be a guinee pig or not. Personally I would prefer not to be one.
This is similar to some of the genetically modified/genetically engineered foods that are available which could have long term health effects and from what I have heard some have even shown some effects in the short term. The last time I checked the legislation in the US would not require genetically modified foods to be labeled such which pissed me off.
I want the choice to know what is going into my body and it is not like marking such foods as genetically engineered or the product of a cloned animal/plant would be that hard to do.
I replied before I saw your other posts because I usually open an article at work and read through the responses throughout the day so I end up missing later posts so sorry if you corrected yourself.
It just gets annoying hearing all the "it's not theft" responses by people who stick to a rigid definition of the word and while I agree it is not theft since it does not deprive me of something I once had it still affects me in a way that is similar to theft. If everyone were to pirate the software I make then my company would go out of business do to not having any money which is pretty damn similar to what would happen if someone were to come rob the company blind. The end result is the same and no matter how you look at it is is at least IP theft so it is not like NO theft is going on.
By your logic, if I make a burger at home, I'm stealing from McDonald's.
While I agree that piracy is not theft in the general sense your example of the hamburger is flawed. If you make a burger at home you bought/raised the meat, then formed it into patties yourself, and then cooked it yourself. You did everything yourself. The "theft" with piracy is like you mentioned copyright infringement and is theft of intellectual property. To make a fair comparison using your hamburger analogy it would be someone seeing software they liked, making their own implementation (not just copying the execuatable!), and then selling/using that.
Also, you have absolutely no proof that any Chinese have pirated Vista, you are just assuming and libeling a whole country.
Piracy is rampant there and if they pirate everything else why would they not pirate Vista? I also know people who have been there that said Vista is available for something like $1-10 which other people in this thread have backed up so it seems pretty likely to me. People make assumptions (and usually correct ones) based on reputation and in this case China is the piracy capitol of the world so assuming they have pirate copies of Vista available is an assumption that has a high probability of being correct.
Maybe they don't want Vista because it SUCKS, hmm, you ever think of that smart boy?
If they didn't want it why are pirated copies available? Oh, you meant they didn't want to pay for it, that is different. If the price is too high that is one thing but I know many people who pirate software that they can afford to purchase they just don't want to spend the money on it. Who cares if a company spent 100s/1000s/10000s/etc of man hours developing it, I should get it for free, I am only copying bits, I am not stealing anything from them (only I am constantly using the software for my own benefit).
Some of us depend on selling the software we make (at fair prices) to feed ourselves and our families. While Piracy is not true "theft" it can/does have an impact on us financially. All I ask is that if there is software that does something specialized for you and you don't want to spend the time making your own implementation at least support the people who created that software for you.
Since DVD does not have a raw mode like CD it will just fail completely when there is a problem with the ECC. It really sucks but there is just no way around it with a consumer level drive.
Well there are a couple of things to consider when looking at the probability of the failure per disc comparing CD to DVD. Overall the general concensus is DVD is safer due to MUCH better error correction. However, there are other things to consider such as if the error correcting codes (ECC) on the disc is damaged can you still maybe access the data on the disc?
With a CD you have 2352 bytes per sector to work with and it depends on the recording mode as to how much of the sector is dedicated to ECC. You can have audio mode in which case no ECC exists and you have 2352 bytes per sector all dedicated to storage, mode 1 (the most common) in which case you have 2048 bytes per sector to use for storing data and then 16 bytes for the sector header and then 288 bytes for ECC, and then various forms of mode 2 which has less ECC compared to mode 1 or no ECC at all. The advantage to mode 2 recording is you can store more data on the disc but at the risk of having less error recovery and that is why mode 2 is common for VCD discs because mpeg video is resistant to bit errors and will not completely fail when a few errors exist. Mode 1 is safer for data that is important to you and it is the best for most data formats since bit errors can have drastic effects on many types of files.
DVD on the other hand only has only one recording mode which is 2048 bytes per sector and DVD+R does have a little bit more ECC compared to -R so I guess +R is a little safer although in my experience I have not seen much difference between the two formats. DVD dedicates much more to ECC due to the higher capacity and it truly is a safer format compared to CD ECC wise. However, DVD also applies ECC to 16 sectors at a time and has what are called ECC blocks and if you lose one of those you lose all 16 sectors.
Now here is the kicker. Like I mentioned if you lose one ECC block then 16 sectors of the disc are GONE, there is no way to get them back in a standard drive. With CD, if the ECC is screwed up you usually can still read the sector in RAW mode (it might take a few attempts) but at least you should be able to get some of the data back.
So, DVD has much better ECC although if something happens to that ECC you have no way to access the data on the disc while with CD you might be able to access the data although it may have bit errors. Personally, I will stick to DVD for backups but I am very careful to take care of the discs (keeping them in cases, out of sunlight, not touching the recording surface, etc). I like the higher ECC and as long as I take care of the discs they should not end up corrupted.
For what it is worth I work as a software developer in the field of computer forensics/data recovery specializing in optical media so I thought I could clear some of your misconceptions up.
But what does happen is that it takes longer and longer for the gorram computer to mount the cd/dvd. This is especially noticable when one inserts a damaged CD into a drive. the computer grunts and groans freaking for ever trying to decide it it is looking at a CD, and CD-R, D DVD-r, and DVD+R, a DVD. And each of these seems to have some different time consuming error protocol that involves trying to spin the thing at different speeds. Now they are going to be adding not one but two more protocols. And I imagine it won't be long before we have HDDVD-R and HDDVD+R and so on thrown on top of this.
This is NOT an issue with the drive (well a drive that is in good working order). A mounting problem is an issue with your OS. When you insert a disc into the drive the drive should go into what is called the "ready state" relatively quickly because all the drive does is basically tries to see if it can access the disc (it looks for a TOC among other things). When you insert a damaged disc the reason the computer grunts and groans is because the disc is damaged and it may be having trouble getting TOC information etc from the disc. The reason it is spinning up and down a whole bunch of different times is most likely because your OS is attempting to mount the disc and is trying to look for a file system on the disc and is having a lot of trouble doing so.
If you have an external case for a CD/DVD drive then a simple way to see that the problems you are seeing are the OS's fault is the next time you have a disc that exhibits the problems you mentioned above is to shut down the machine and then re-insert the disc into the drive. Most likely the light will blink a few times and the drive might spin up a little more than normal but the drive should stop trying to access the disc in much less time that when the computer was running.
As far as more formats coming out "adding more protocols" that is not really the case. Other than having to add different hardware the rest of how the drive acts should remain the same. The only way a drive is able to tell what kind of disc is inserted is by looking at what is called a profile number which is recorded at the factory on the disc and each type of disc has a different one. For example 0x9 is CD-R, 0xa is CD-RW, 0x11 is DVD-R, 0x1b is DVD+R, 0x2b is DVD+R DL, 0x51 is HD DVD-R and on and on. It really is not that much more overhead and sure a few more things might be added to the MMC standard but the drives functionality is nearly identical.
it's going to take minutes when you shove in that Bad CD before your computer lets you eject it.
You hit the nail on the head with this one without even knowing it. It is your COMPUTER ie the OS or some other software trying to access the disc that is locked up and has probably issued a command to lock the tray so that you cannot eject the disc by pressing the eject button on the drive.
Please stop blaming drives when it really is not the drives fault.
When you first setup the password on the stick you also set the number of password attempt amounts before the stick "self destructs", so at least it is up to the user to choose how many tries they think should be allowed. After reading the article it also became clear that it is easy to mod the stick so that it is fully read only which then allows you to enter as many passwords as you want since the chip then can't log previous password attempts and will keep saying "you have X amount of attempts left." where X stays at whatever the max amount of attempts was originally set to. Another interesting thing about the stick is the "self destruct" seems to infact just be "disallow access" controlled by a chip in the stick by voltage. So most likely if the chip "self destructs" you just have to apply the correct voltage to regain access.
Not in a fascist sue-your-ass way, but just in a banning your MAC address for life kind of way.
Banning a MAC is not really going to help since MAC addresses are easily modified. Since you need to login everytime you play WoW I would have to say banning the account would be more effective. Sure, the person could maybe go setup another account (or have someone else do it for them) but after getting banned a few times they hopefully would just quit doing whatever is getting them banned because it is too much of a hassle to keep setting up new accounts.
Also, this precedent they're going for is much too far reaching. We may tolerate laws against selling land mines, but most of us wouldn't tolerate government surveilance in every aspect of our lives to prevent the sale of landmines. We'll take the freedom, live with the risks, and place responsibility on the free individuals.
I mainly brought up the landmine analogy since your steak knife analogy was slightly flawed since a steak knife serves a main purpose other than killing people. I was not trying to say that the providers of the landmines should be punished for the actions of those who they sell the landmines too just that they should be punished for providing them the landmines.
I also wouldn't tolerate the government watching every aspect of my life but when I freely and openly provide something to people that allows them to violate laws/rules then I think I should be held liable for providing that service (but not liable for the actions of others using what I provide).
While I don't believe that Blizzard has a case saying accessing WoW's RAM violates their copyright rights I do believe they have the right to check for cheaters as well as should have the right to go after people who openly provide cheaters a way to cheat (especially when the people providing a way to cheat do so profitably). Blizzard just needs to find another way to sue Wowglider out of existence and as far as I know there is not currently a way to do that which is a shame. Not being able to stop the cheaters in WoW would force many people (myself included) to probably end up quitting if it got bad enough and that would end up costing Blizzard a lot of revenue as well as take away the fun of the game from the non-cheaters.
Wowglider didn't cause anyone to violate the ToS, the person using it made a consious choice to do so. What tool they used to do it is irrelevant. If I stab someone to death with a steak knife, would you say the maker of the steak knife caused me to murder someone?
While I agree that people should be liable for their own choices I think your steak knife arguement is a little flawed. A steak knife has a known main purpose which is to allow a person to eat tasty steak, it can be used to stab a person and commit a murder but that is not what its main purpose is.
Wowglider on the other hand has the main purpose of providing an automated way to play a WoW character which is clearly a violation of the TOS for a WoW account. Even on the front page of the Wowglider website they state "Glider is a tool that plays your World of Warcraft character for you, the way you want it. It grinds, it loots, it skins, it heals, it even farms soul shards... without you."
Take a look yourself: http://www.wowglider.com/
Wowglider would be more like having someone sell landmines to anybody and everybody. A landmine is made for the sole purpose of killing people and it serves no other purpose. Obviously there are laws against selling landmines to everybody (similar to the TOS for WoW not allowing automation) and anyone providing that means should be liable for their actions.
There is no wireless/wifi, how is this competition? Who wants to hook up an ethernet cable and run it across the room/living room etc. to the computer?
Me thinks Microsoft has no vision.
Umm do realize there is a wireless adapter that you can buy for the 360 so you don't have to run an ethernet cable to it? So wireless is not a problem since the 360 already has it. I think you have no vision (literally) since you could have found that information yourself with a 1 second search on google.
Another thing you can do if you don't want to pay the ~US$100 retail price for the MS wireless adapter that you can only use with your 360 is to pick up a wireless access point and then turn it into a network bridge and then use a short ethernet cord to plug into your 360 for wireless connectivity. That is what I did and it works great although I wish the AP I had allowed bridge mode functionality with WPA instead of only WEP. Oh well, at least I am not stuck with some piece of networking hardware that can only be used with my 360.
I'll agree that you can make Windows safer, and OSX, *BSD and Linux are not invulnerable to exploits, and that it only takes half a brain to run Windows. :)
:-)
Agreed, although I think someone with NO brain could run it too. I actually prefer Linux to Windows but like you I keep a Windows machine around for gaming and running other software that is Windows only. I know you aren't one of them but I just am sick of some of the *nix and Mac users who think their machines are invincible and that all Windows machines are easily hacked so that was why I said what I said. All that I am saying is that I won't give up using Windows just because the security is not as good as some other OS's because with good habits and locking the machine down well Windows can be pretty secure. I guess I am not as paranoid as some people.
While I agree that it is funny they keep saying it is "the most secure" I wonder why you switched solely for security reasons unless you are only talking about server machines? For general use machines how many times has one of these old exploits been used against you? In my own experience I have never had any of the exploits used against me.
.ani exploit just reminds me of how glad I am that I switched to a Mac and Linux." because sure theoretically that vulnerability could be used against you but most likely it would not have been. I am sure there are plenty of exploits in Mac OS's and Linux OS's it is just not as many people are looking for ways to exploit them so it seems more one sided that Windows machines have all the exploits while Mac and Linux boxes are "virus-proof". Anyone with half a brain can safely and securely run a Windows box just as securely as a Mac/Linux box and I count myself as proof since I have been running XP Pro for about 5 years now and the only security breach I ever encountered was when my brother loaded kazaa on it without my knowledge and downloaded something that contained a virus.
I find it funny that you say "The
That sucks that your 5000 doesn't work at all but I have an Infocus ScreenPlay 4805 that excepts 1080i and 1080p input without any hitches and downscales perfectly. I have had this work both over component cable, DVI, and VGA inputs. I find it strange that an older model will except more input resolutions than a newer model but that seems to be the case in this situation.
How can the war be over when high def DVD players account for less than 1% of all DVD player sales? Did you know that sales of ACTUAL high def DVD players have 200,000 HD-DVD players sold vs. 30,000 Blu-Ray players? You really can't count all of the PS3 sales in there since not everyone who has one uses it for a Blu-Ray player. The fact is it is still much cheaper to make HD-DVD players and HD-DVD media than it is to make the Blu-Ray counterparts. In my opinion the winner will be the first camp to get a cheap ($100-200) player available in Wal-Mart and HD-DVD has the edge there since the parts are cheaper.
0 874&catNavId=62055
I just did a quick check of Wal-Mart's available HD DVD players and they have a HD-DVD player for $378 while the Blu-Ray player is $898. Hmm, I wonder which one I would buy if I was on a budget. Here are the players:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.gsp?cat=54
The simply fact is that current DVD Emporium figures show Blu-Ray now outselling HD-DVD titles about 70% to 30%, trended Amazon data agrees with this assesment.
Wow, I wonder how those numbers came about. Could it be all of the free vouchers for Blu-Ray discs that Sony gave away to purchasers of the PS3? While that is a significant percentage difference if you look at how it got that way you should come to the conclusion that the numbers have been fudged a little do to the free vouchers.
Ask Microsoft, they are the ones that want the 360 to be a media hub. They would offer a Blu-Ray player for the same reason they offer a cheap HD-DVD option today, it's just the add-on at that point would be $50 and not $200. But it's pretty clear why they are not building HD-DVD into the console, so they have that option.
The reason they did not build the HD drive into the unit was because they didn't want to drive the price of it up and thats it. I can't find the article but there was someone at MS who was quoted saying that they didn't include it in the Elite version for the very fact that they wanted to give the users a choice instead of automatically driving the price up. If you look at this http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/56565.html there is this quote:
"Adding an HD DVD drive, now available as a plug-in accessory, "would have raised the Xbox cost another $200 and that would have gone over [the] PS3 price"
Why would it go over the PS3 cost? Because Sony is selling the PS3 at a pretty hefty loss to them. MS doesn't want to go that route and would instead just like to give the user the choice to spend the extra $200.
I also think that more people will purchase the HD-DVD drive once Halo 3 is released since it sounds like it will be an HD-DVD exclusive title. This will then add more potential players to the market and may result in increased HD-DVD movie sales.
Either way even if they had included the HD-DVD drive they still would have "had the option" to offer a Blu-Ray add-on if they wished. They did not leave the HD-DVD drive out because they are worried the format is going to die.
Believe what you wish but the fact remains that the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray war is far from over and it is much too early to declare a winner.
They work vertically.
Tray loaders are a bitch to use vertically, which means the 360 has to be basically horizontal all the time
Umm my 360 is setup vertically and at first I was worried about it being a pain to load discs but it really is not a pain at all. The tray is designed well enough that after loading the disc it will not fall out so there is no problem at all. Next time try actually using the device in question before assuming something that is not true.
It doesn't seem clever though when you look at the historical success of console upgrades. People just do not buy them in huge numbers.
Who cares if upgrades aren't bought in huge numbers, that just proves that it is better to have an option since not as many people want it forced on them but there are people who do want the upgrade. If they included it from the start the added cost might cost them sales to some people who can't afford all the bells and whistles. By offering it as an upgrade it still allows those who wish to have the added benefits. I can afford one but I still am not so sure I want to dump 200 bucks on something that I can only use with my 360.
The flexibility they gained will be great when the market forces them to produce an external Blu-Ray player, but will make them end up looking a little silly.
The HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray war is FAR from over my friend, be careful with your predictions. I also highly doubt a Blu-Ray accessory will ever be available for the 360 since by the time the war is over (if Blu-Ray wins) then low cost Blu-Ray players will most likely be available so why would you buy one that only works with a 360?
I also forgot to ask if you have ever taken a look at the source for a large open source project because I have and most of the time it has looked like a nightmare to work on. You couldn't pay me enough money to work on most of the spaghetti code I have seen out there. Paying the $75 instead of pulling my hair out for hours sounds like a dirt cheap bargain to me.
Your time isn't always worth money directly, no matter what your mommy says.
Umm in this case the poster mentioned it would probably take about 3 hours of his time to edit OO while he could get something that already works and works well for $75. I am guessing this person is a programmer and most people I know who are programmers (myself included) only like to program things they find fun when they are not at work. So in essence the time spent getting OO changed into something useful for them would cost them $25AU an hour since it is not something they WANT to do. That would make the $75 for office 2007 look damn appealing to me