Will they never learn? They're distributing the decryption keys on the CD; this harebrained scheme thus relies on wishful thinking (namely, that nobody will succeed in reading the keys). Well, good luck to them. I'm sure the crackers and the cryptography experts will get a good laugh out of this.
Let's hear it from renowned cryptography guru Bruce Schneier:
Digital files cannot be made uncopyable, any more than water can be made not wet.
1. Capture a large market share (become a quasi-monopoly) by giving away your product for free or significantly below cost. But remember to leave some competitors (barely) alive unless you want to have the DOJ breathing down your neck.
2. Wait until the opportunity costs of switching to a different product have become high enough for the majority of your user base, then
> Moderators are insane. I see no evidence that meta moderation works (as I've suspected all along) and I am consistently disappointed with the results of the system.
I agree, metamoderation as it's currently implemented is severely broken. Consider this proposal in yerricde's journal. What do you think?
>She could have posted using the anonymous server in Norway (wasn't that where it was?)
Finland: anon.penet.fi, closed down in 1996 after COS forced Johan Helsingius (the site admin) to reveal the identity of one of its users. Here's a history of the service.
>Member states may impose more draconian laws than are required by it.
With the movie industry apparently lobbying for exactly those draconian laws, I see a bleak future ahead for the rights of the customers in the EU.
The Swiss weren't forced to introduce the new law since de jure they're not part of the EU (de facto - because of the geographical location and the need to do business with EU countries - they must harmonize their laws to a large extent).
We used to have a rather level-headed stance on IP issues in Switzerland until recently (no DMCA-like law, copies for private use are allowed), and all of a sudden, boom: without big fanfare, without public discussion, the rights of the consumer are restricted in favor of the movie industry. I don't have any evidence to back this up, but my suspicion is that there's been some quiet undercover lobbying to sneak the relevant paragraphs into a law which, at its heart, was supposed to promote local movie production but ends up restricting the rights of the consumers and violating the hallowed principles of free trade.
A quick Google on IP issues in Switzerland revealed the shocking (to me) proposed new Article 70a of the URG (the IP law), which prohibits circumvention of technical measures intended to protect intellectual property or related rights. Can you say DMCA?
My bet is that similar restrictions as those currently in effect in Switzerland and Germany will be commonplace in the EU soon, and that other countries will follow.
Wholesale import of non-RC2 DVDs is forbidden by law in Germany and, since 1 August 2002, in Switzerland. I don't know about other countries, but the outlook for the EU is not good.
I can still legally import RC1 DVDs from the US as a private person here in Switzerland, but this takes time and is rather expensive because of overseas shipping and customs expenses. Stores such as MediaMarkt used to have a good assortment of RC1 DVDs at reasonable prices, but this is now illegal. Since the primary reason to switch to DVD for me was the possibility to see a movie in English with English subtitles, I have practically stopped buying DVDs locally (the RC2 versions are often missing features from the US releases, and the English language audio track has permanent German subtitles).
Bottom line: Thanks to the industry's ridiculous policies, the money they get from me is down to about 1/3 of what it used to be. Maybe I'm the only one, but if not, they'll sure find a way to blame the slump in sales to "piracy" instead of acknowledging that they're shooting themselves in the foot.
And, by the way: How is this compatible with the "free trade" idea so cherished by many politicians today? Does "free trade" really mean "free trade as long as we can profit from it"?
The unit uses a NiMH battery which means that there may be a memory problem so make sure it has a good first charge. Once and awhile it is good to totally drain the battery and recharge it totally, this is called refreshing.
NiMH rechargeable batteries have a negligible memory effect (the correct technical term would be voltage depression). References:
My experience is that most so-called memory effect problems with NiCd and NiMH rechargeables can be traced back to cheap charger units which overcharge the batteries. Use a microprocessor controlled charger whenever possible, it may be a little more expensive at first but it will save you trouble in the long run.
>Not unless they have a mobile link to a freeCDDB-type database for the titles - Who wants 2000 songs all unlabled?
The Pioneer PEH-P900HDD car unit mentioned in other comments has a built-in CDDB (I wonder how they plan to keep it up-to-date, though - does anyone know?). Sony probably has a similar scheme.
>Plus, once you rip them in the car, I doubt it would ever be possible to move them indoors.
The Pioneer "features" a memory stick slot for this purpose. Unfortunately you can only use DRM-crippled "MagicGate" memory sticks for the transfer - gaaaack.
I'd like to replace the MD unit in my car with a HD-based player, but neither the Sony nor the Pioneer unit fits the bill. What I want is to rip at home (including correct song info, not the typo-infested stuff that comes from Gracenote) and transfer the songs to a 10 or 20 gig HD-based unit in the car via CD-RW or a portable USB2/1394 HD. And I won't buy anything featuring DRM, ever.
If the motherboard supports temperature and fan monitoring (and the power supply and processor fan supply a fan clock to the monitoring circuit) you can install an utility like MBM (Windows) or lm_sensors (linux) together with a shutdown utility like "ShutDown NOW!" (http://www.dworld.de according to my link list, but the site seems to be down).
If a temperature, voltage or fan speed exceeds the limit set by you or falls below it, the system is shut down after a warning.
This site is dedicated to the one and only real PC keyboard. Quoting from it: Geeks will debate about the best keyboard in existence long after the sun supernovas. I happen to really like the IBM Model M. The fact that I have collected more than two dozen of the keyboards is testament to that. Or that I am clinically insane.
I have six of them: two at work, one at home, three spares (not that I think I'd ever need them, given the amount of abuse these babies can take, but I don't want to take any chances).
>Unfortunately, at least in this part of the world, mingetty really is rather rude if you parse it right (ie wrong). And it is rather widespread in Linux distros.
It's difficult to find a name that doesn't have negative connotations in some language spoken around the world, as many product managers have unwittingly discovered. Big businesses employ branding agencies to help them find good brand and product names, Open Source advocates can't afford the exhorbitant fees they demand (and then they come up with names like "Opteron", gack).
Regarding "mingetty": in Swiss German (at least in the dialects spoken in the eastern parts of Switzerland) it's understood as "My godfather" if pronounced the right way.:-)
Yep, but google for "md5sums" and look at the results. Apparently, they are used for authenticity checks more often than not (there is an MD5SUMS file, but the individual files are not GPG-signed...).
A user named uid0 made an excellent point in an usenet thread about the backdoored dsniff/fragroute/fragrouter utilities on monkey.org:
This makes one wonder a question that would be best posed to the community; the purpose of MD5/SHA/etc is to provide unequivocal evidence as to the validity of a piece of data. More often than not, such files are kept in the same, vulnerable, location as the actual data. Clearly one can see the downfall of such a system.
Quoting from the letter from Dolby laboratories (emphasis mine): --- AC-3 code and its components are the exclusive property of Dolby Laboratories (San Francisco, California) and are registered as such with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
[...]
Without a license, you may not distribute or utilize the AC-3 code or its components and doing so exposes you to civil liability including money damages.
[...]
Dolby Laboratories considers the unauthorized use and distribution of the AC-3 technologies a direct threat and will pursue their legal right to extent permissible by law.
--- It doesn't exactly look like Dolby laboratories is interested in attracting audio professionals from the Open Source community, does it?
"Who should be the members of such a crew if it were to be launched?"" Well, what about me, a large stack of books and my laptop?
Wouldn't the crew of Starship Enterprise be vastly more qualified than you? My vote goes to Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura and Chapel, with the possible addition of Seven of Nine if it's feasible.
I would love a case that looks like a piece of hi-fi, something i could place in my component stack (as a media/coms device) and it wouldnt look out of place,my dvd,amp,cd,video,console etc are not in big ugly boxes so why should my computer be any different ?
The FutureClient by Signum Data looks interesting. Cool looks (IMO), heatpipe cooling, near-silent. Now if the price came down a little...
The current PC hardware platform is in dire need of redesign, and I'm not even talking about "features" like the infamous A20 gate. Most cases on the market are badly designed knockoffs with bad EMI and sound insulation and lousy looks. Yes, this goes even for all the expensive aluminum cases I've seen.
Why does the inside of a typical PC look like the site of an explosion in a wire factory?
Why do we still have those stupid power connectors that can be a royal pain to pry off instead of a unified power bus?
Where are those cool slide-in media bays which were part of the PC99 (IIRC) design?
Why do I have to stock sets of metric and imperial screws? (BTW, Torx rules, forget Phillips!)
Does a typical PC really need upwards of 6 fans of varying diameter, RPM and noise emission in order to keep its parts from frying? An intelligent air-duct design would keep down costs and noise emissions.
Wouldn't it be better to have a standard connector for front-panel switches and LEDs instead of the tangle of wires and unkeyed connectors which I always manage to get working only on the second try?
Why do my hands look like I tried to wrestle a porcupine after a motherboard and drive switch?
Intel and Microsoft claim leadership on hardware and software design of the PC platform, and they're both screwing it up badly. I won't even start to bitch about Microsoft, but hey Intel, what happened to those futuristic case designs? (warning - site needs Flash)
The c't S.V.P - the Sound and Video Platform [Article in German, use the Fish]. Plays music CDs, MP3 and other compressed formats, VCD, DivX:-), DVD (5.1 sound), is a digital VCR, CD burner/copier, surf terminal and E-Mail client (built-in LCD), remote-controllable and practically noiseless. This is the *AAs nightmare, cool:-)
The only drawback I can see is the price - it's basically a full-featured PC with a TFT display, which is still quite expensive.
The S.V.P is windows-only for now, but c't is working on a Linux version. It would be cool if this could be made into a community project with translated documentation; it deserves to get better recognition worldwide.
Forget about these, the Orgasmatron is definitively the gadget that the 70s promised but that never was delivered. Talk about technology that has the potential to uproot (no pun intended) society.
>maybe one day they'll figure out how to make dual read heads with independent actuator arms (i.e at 0 degrees, and at 180 degrees) on the same platter.
The Seagate Barracuda 2HP used dual read/write heads to achieve blazing (for that time) performance - 2HP is short for "Two Heads Parallel".
See also this page, which has a write-up on the 2HP and why the concept ultimately did not catch on, as well as some other examples of unusual disk technologies.
My electricity bill (normally about US$40) is debited to my bank account monthly. Imagine my surprise one month last fall when I found myself billed for the equivalent of US$ 12 million according to the debit slip mailed to me by the bank.
Turns out someone at the bank had messed around with the printer form so that the running total of the credits to the power company got printed instead of the debit to the individual customer (the charges to the accounts were correct, only the debit notices were screwed up). I heard they had a really busy week in the customer service department of that bank after that incident.
And then there was the programming team responsible for the same bank's ATM code maintenance who thought that December 24 would be a good date to distribute a new version of the software nationwide. Of course, this release had a serious bug which caused all ATMs of that bank to go belly-up on the year's busiest shopping day, with customers screaming bloody murder because they could not pay for their last-minute Christmas shopping (in Switzerland, the ATM card is used for online point-of-sale transactions and not everybody has a credit card).
Slashdot Mirror
>I feel that punishment should mirror characteristics of the crime itself.
That's an interesting idea. I'm sure this would reduce the amount of goatse trolling here on slashdot significantly.
Will they never learn? They're distributing the decryption keys on the CD; this harebrained scheme thus relies on wishful thinking (namely, that nobody will succeed in reading the keys). Well, good luck to them. I'm sure the crackers and the cryptography experts will get a good laugh out of this.
Let's hear it from renowned cryptography guru Bruce Schneier:
Digital files cannot be made uncopyable, any more than water can be made not wet.
(Source - good read, btw)
Phrased a little differently:
1. Capture a large market share (become a quasi-monopoly) by giving away your product for free or significantly below cost. But remember to leave some competitors (barely) alive unless you want to have the DOJ breathing down your neck.
2. Wait until the opportunity costs of switching to a different product have become high enough for the majority of your user base, then
3. jack up the sales price or the licensing fees
4. PROFIT!!!
> Moderators are insane. I see no evidence that meta moderation works (as I've suspected all along) and I am consistently disappointed with the results of the system.
I agree, metamoderation as it's currently implemented is severely broken. Consider this proposal in yerricde's journal. What do you think?
>She could have posted using the anonymous server in Norway (wasn't that where it was?)
Finland: anon.penet.fi, closed down in 1996 after COS forced Johan Helsingius (the site admin) to reveal the identity of one of its users. Here's a history of the service.
Here's Waldheims message to other civilizations.
Oh, the irony in hearing Waldheim say "We step out of your solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship"...
>Member states may impose more draconian laws than are required by it.
With the movie industry apparently lobbying for exactly those draconian laws, I see a bleak future ahead for the rights of the customers in the EU.
The Swiss weren't forced to introduce the new law since de jure they're not part of the EU (de facto - because of the geographical location and the need to do business with EU countries - they must harmonize their laws to a large extent).
We used to have a rather level-headed stance on IP issues in Switzerland until recently (no DMCA-like law, copies for private use are allowed), and all of a sudden, boom: without big fanfare, without public discussion, the rights of the consumer are restricted in favor of the movie industry. I don't have any evidence to back this up, but my suspicion is that there's been some quiet undercover lobbying to sneak the relevant paragraphs into a law which, at its heart, was supposed to promote local movie production but ends up restricting the rights of the consumers and violating the hallowed principles of free trade.
A quick Google on IP issues in Switzerland revealed the shocking (to me) proposed new Article 70a of the URG (the IP law), which prohibits circumvention of technical measures intended to protect intellectual property or related rights. Can you say DMCA?
My bet is that similar restrictions as those currently in effect in Switzerland and Germany will be commonplace in the EU soon, and that other countries will follow.
Wholesale import of non-RC2 DVDs is forbidden by law in Germany and, since 1 August 2002, in Switzerland. I don't know about other countries, but the outlook for the EU is not good.
I can still legally import RC1 DVDs from the US as a private person here in Switzerland, but this takes time and is rather expensive because of overseas shipping and customs expenses. Stores such as MediaMarkt used to have a good assortment of RC1 DVDs at reasonable prices, but this is now illegal. Since the primary reason to switch to DVD for me was the possibility to see a movie in English with English subtitles, I have practically stopped buying DVDs locally (the RC2 versions are often missing features from the US releases, and the English language audio track has permanent German subtitles).
Bottom line: Thanks to the industry's ridiculous policies, the money they get from me is down to about 1/3 of what it used to be. Maybe I'm the only one, but if not, they'll sure find a way to blame the slump in sales to "piracy" instead of acknowledging that they're shooting themselves in the foot.
And, by the way: How is this compatible with the "free trade" idea so cherished by many politicians today? Does "free trade" really mean "free trade as long as we can profit from it"?
Quoting from the article (emphasis mine):
The unit uses a NiMH battery which means that there may be a memory problem so make sure it has a good first charge. Once and awhile it is good to totally drain the battery and recharge it totally, this is called refreshing.
NiMH rechargeable batteries have a negligible memory effect (the correct technical term would be voltage depression). References:
Duracell (HTML)
Duracell (PDF, more exhaustive)
Energizer (search for voltage depression)
Greenbatteries
My experience is that most so-called memory effect problems with NiCd and NiMH rechargeables can be traced back to cheap charger units which overcharge the batteries. Use a microprocessor controlled charger whenever possible, it may be a little more expensive at first but it will save you trouble in the long run.
>Not unless they have a mobile link to a freeCDDB-type database for the titles -
Who wants 2000 songs all unlabled?
The Pioneer PEH-P900HDD car unit mentioned in other comments has a built-in CDDB (I wonder how they plan to keep it up-to-date, though - does anyone know?). Sony probably has a similar scheme.
>Plus, once you rip them in the car, I doubt it would ever be possible to move them indoors.
The Pioneer "features" a memory stick slot for this purpose. Unfortunately you can only use DRM-crippled "MagicGate" memory sticks for the transfer - gaaaack.
I'd like to replace the MD unit in my car with a HD-based player, but neither the Sony nor the Pioneer unit fits the bill. What I want is to rip at home (including correct song info, not the typo-infested stuff that comes from Gracenote) and transfer the songs to a 10 or 20 gig HD-based unit in the car via CD-RW or a portable USB2/1394 HD. And I won't buy anything featuring DRM, ever.
If the motherboard supports temperature and fan monitoring (and the power supply and processor fan supply a fan clock to the monitoring circuit) you can install an utility like MBM (Windows) or lm_sensors (linux) together with a shutdown utility like "ShutDown NOW!" (http://www.dworld.de according to my link list, but the site seems to be down).
If a temperature, voltage or fan speed exceeds the limit set by you or falls below it, the system is shut down after a warning.
This site is dedicated to the one and only real PC keyboard. Quoting from it: Geeks will debate about the best keyboard in existence long after the sun supernovas. I happen to really like the IBM Model M. The fact that I have collected more than two dozen of the keyboards is testament to that. Or that I am clinically insane.
I have six of them: two at work, one at home, three spares (not that I think I'd ever need them, given the amount of abuse these babies can take, but I don't want to take any chances).
Thanks for the link, Dan. Where are my modpoints when I need them?
Love your site, BTW.
Quoting Bruce Schneier from his Why computers are insecure article:
Security engineering involves programming Satan's computer.
And Satan's computer is hard to test.
(source)
Other memorable statements by Bruce Schneier can be found here and here.
>Unfortunately, at least in this part of the world, mingetty really is rather rude if you parse it right (ie wrong). And it is rather widespread in Linux distros.
:-)
It's difficult to find a name that doesn't have negative connotations in some language spoken around the world, as many product managers have unwittingly discovered. Big businesses employ branding agencies to help them find good brand and product names, Open Source advocates can't afford the exhorbitant fees they demand (and then they come up with names like "Opteron", gack).
Regarding "mingetty": in Swiss German (at least in the dialects spoken in the eastern parts of Switzerland) it's understood as "My godfather" if pronounced the right way.
Yep, but google for "md5sums" and look at the results. Apparently, they are used for authenticity checks more often than not (there is an MD5SUMS file, but the individual files are not GPG-signed...).
A user named uid0 made an excellent point in an usenet thread about the backdoored dsniff/fragroute/fragrouter utilities on monkey.org:
This makes one wonder a question that would be best posed to the community; the purpose of MD5/SHA/etc is to provide unequivocal evidence as to the validity of a piece of data. More often than not, such files are kept in the same, vulnerable, location as the actual data. Clearly one can see the downfall of such a system.
(source)
0. As a favored guest at my dinner table
Pass the ketchup, please.
> One thing noticeably missing from the Debian package listing [xdv.org] is AC3 support.
Two words: software patents.
Quoting from the letter from Dolby laboratories (emphasis mine):
---
AC-3 code and its components are the exclusive property of Dolby Laboratories (San Francisco, California) and are registered as such with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
[...]
Without a license, you may not distribute or utilize the AC-3 code or its components and doing so exposes you to civil liability including money damages.
[...]
Dolby Laboratories considers the unauthorized use and distribution of the AC-3 technologies a direct threat and will pursue their legal right to extent permissible by law.
---
It doesn't exactly look like Dolby laboratories is interested in attracting audio professionals from the Open Source community, does it?
"Who should be the members of such a crew if it were to be launched?""
Well, what about me, a large stack of books and my laptop?
Wouldn't the crew of Starship Enterprise be vastly more qualified than you? My vote goes to Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura and Chapel, with the possible addition of Seven of Nine if it's feasible.
I would love a case that looks like a piece of hi-fi, something i could place in my component stack (as a media/coms device) and it wouldnt look out of place,my dvd,amp,cd,video,console etc are not in big ugly boxes so why should my computer be any different ?
The FutureClient by Signum Data looks interesting. Cool looks (IMO), heatpipe cooling, near-silent. Now if the price came down a little...
The current PC hardware platform is in dire need of redesign, and I'm not even talking about "features" like the infamous A20 gate. Most cases on the market are badly designed knockoffs with bad EMI and sound insulation and lousy looks. Yes, this goes even for all the expensive aluminum cases I've seen.
Why does the inside of a typical PC look like the site of an explosion in a wire factory?
Why do we still have those stupid power connectors that can be a royal pain to pry off instead of a unified power bus?
Where are those cool slide-in media bays which were part of the PC99 (IIRC) design?
Why do I have to stock sets of metric and imperial screws? (BTW, Torx rules, forget Phillips!)
Does a typical PC really need upwards of 6 fans of varying diameter, RPM and noise emission in order to keep its parts from frying? An intelligent air-duct design would keep down costs and noise emissions.
Wouldn't it be better to have a standard connector for front-panel switches and LEDs instead of the tangle of wires and unkeyed connectors which I always manage to get working only on the second try?
Why do my hands look like I tried to wrestle a porcupine after a motherboard and drive switch?
Intel and Microsoft claim leadership on hardware and software design of the PC platform, and they're both screwing it up badly. I won't even start to bitch about Microsoft, but hey Intel, what happened to those futuristic case designs? (warning - site needs Flash)
From the hax0rz at German c't magazine:
:-)
The c't S.V.P - the Sound and Video Platform [Article in German, use the Fish]. Plays music CDs, MP3 and other compressed formats, VCD, DivX:-), DVD (5.1 sound), is a digital VCR, CD burner/copier, surf terminal and E-Mail client (built-in LCD), remote-controllable and practically noiseless. This is the *AAs nightmare, cool
The only drawback I can see is the price - it's basically a full-featured PC with a TFT display, which is still quite expensive.
The S.V.P is windows-only for now, but c't is working on a Linux version. It would be cool if this could be made into a community project with translated documentation; it deserves to get better recognition worldwide.
> transporters and communicators?
Forget about these, the Orgasmatron is definitively the gadget that the 70s promised but that never was delivered. Talk about technology that has the potential to uproot (no pun intended) society.
:P
>maybe one day they'll figure out how to make dual read heads with independent actuator arms (i.e at 0 degrees, and at 180 degrees) on the same platter.
The Seagate Barracuda 2HP used dual read/write heads to achieve blazing (for that time) performance - 2HP is short for "Two Heads Parallel".
See also this page, which has a write-up on the 2HP and why the concept ultimately did not catch on, as well as some other examples of unusual disk technologies.
My electricity bill (normally about US$40) is debited to my bank account monthly. Imagine my surprise one month last fall when I found myself billed for the equivalent of US$ 12 million according to the debit slip mailed to me by the bank.
Turns out someone at the bank had messed around with the printer form so that the running total of the credits to the power company got printed instead of the debit to the individual customer (the charges to the accounts were correct, only the debit notices were screwed up). I heard they had a really busy week in the customer service department of that bank after that incident.
And then there was the programming team responsible for the same bank's ATM code maintenance who thought that December 24 would be a good date to distribute a new version of the software nationwide. Of course, this release had a serious bug which caused all ATMs of that bank to go belly-up on the year's busiest shopping day, with customers screaming bloody murder because they could not pay for their last-minute Christmas shopping (in Switzerland, the ATM card is used for online point-of-sale transactions and not everybody has a credit card).