Great rant, but a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of DRM, probably deliberately I might add, in order to highlight the fundamental misunderstandings of industry senior mgmt.
DRM is not implemented to end piracy, or prevent it. There is precious little that can stop that.
It is implemented to keep Joe Blow from handing out freebies to his Toms, Dicks and Harrys.
And that's all.
It keeps copying from being a *trivial* operation, and forces him to associate with absolute criminals if he wishes to get something for free. Most folks don't want to do that. Many don't make it past all the porn popups, in fact.;^)
So DRM works, but should always be simple enough and unobtrusive. Anything more is a liability.
Trying to design a "watertight and unbreakable" DRM, of the kind discussed in this article, is the perfect way to end that balance and hoist content providers by their own petard. (c.f.: Starforce, Sony rootkit)
So that's the kind of thing engineers should be saying "no" to, for the sake of their own company's continued profitability.
If they're going to try to use this for prosecution of copyright infringement, they're in for a rude awakening: It's called "reasonable doubt."
"Someone visited my home with a thumbnail drive."
"My box got r00ted."
"I don't know how they got that song with my name on it, but I didn't send it to them. You'd better investigate."
The name and email address does nothing to PROVE a physical violation of copyright, only the identity of the purchaser, and so, if they try to take this kind of thing to a court of law, they're going to find themselves in the losing corner.
This is nothing more than FUD, and nothing less than insulting. I won't be joining iTunes any time soon.
I would assume the patent application is for the way they *generate* the heat, not for the process of "using heat to cook." I'm pretty sure there's prior art on that one.;^)
(and why anyone would want to cook meat at TWICE the normal temperature of a common grill is beyond me. It sounds like a "Home Improvement" MORE POWER moment. 6 hours at 350F is not the same as 3 hours at 700F. Just ask Alton Brown.)
Ron Popeil is the marketing man every geek yearns in their heart to be, and we should all conscript him into our service as the new face of geekdom.
Inspired by all those ludicrous Ron Paul threads.
(Either that or hold a Constitutional Convention and let foreigners in so we can vote Linus in as chief executive. "VOTE LINUS: He doesn't have military experience, but he wrote a kernel!")
Tron was not a good movie. Not even close. But man was it groundbreaking. It's up there on my list of favorites with "Dark Star," John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon's collaboration that is a clear precursor to O'Bannon's "Alien."
I heartily recommend that all Slashdot nerds get copies of *both* (VCI released Dark Star on DVD, both original and theatrical versions). They're both like watching a long, slow inside shaggy dog joke.
What memories. "Computers are for USERS." Was that concept prophetic or what?
"A major demographic shift took place on Wednesday, May 23, 2007: For the first time in human history, the earth's population is more urban than rural.
That "major" shift: One guy left his house in the country to move to a house in the city! Perhaps five. It's a landmark occasion.
Being a word of no more than four letters, not one, two, nor three either. Five is right out.
e.g.: "TOFU" is an ISO L145 compliant word.
"Clippy" is Microsoft's version of the four letter word, which is an extension and improvement of the standard. It is categorized as an MS-L145.40 "four" letter word.
Turn your pocket calculators upside down to better understand the standards designations.
But if you're a DVD exec, I want the buttons on my DVD player ('fast forward,' 'top menu') to work as they *should* without playing "Mother-may-I?" with the embedded OS. The menu should NEVER be restricted. That doesn't even make sense! What harm could my having instant access to your product's menu do to your bottom line?
Also, on my DVD player I can't even turn the darned thing off reliably. Is it too much to ask that a power switch be an actual -power switch- and not a "send power down signal to the OS" switch? It's not like there's a hard drive in these things. There's no need for the absurd length of time it takes for most DVD players to go from a power off *command* to a power off *state*.
Same goes for the tray eject button. Kill the motor and eject the disc already! I don't need "pretty" or "graceful," I need my disc back in less than five seconds.
I love the comments here about how "awful" the GameCube's controller was, and how the Xbox360's is the "best ever."
Have you looked at the two of them and done a comparison?
Excepting for the layout of the four front panel buttons, they're identical. In that difference, I'd say the Gamecube's front panel layout is SUPERIOR because it allows you to perform button combos (hold more than one button easily, while tapping the other) and can arrange three button fighter games in a linear fashion (B-A-X), and is thus more flexible to a greater variety of games.
The four corner layout of the 360 is, after all, just a throwback to the SNES controller layout.:^P
I've had the pleasure of using both controllers, and they're *both* great controllers, but give credit where credit is due.
The only problem the standard GC controller was that it was designed for Japanese hands, and that's more a problem with my hands, not the controller. There are oversized controllers available with the same layout that work great for me. The WaveBird also fixed that problem quite handily, and if you went wireless on your GameCube, you'll understand why that controller is my recommendation for the "best controller ever."
OTOH, XBox360's controller is typical Microsoft. They're co-opting someone *else*'s innovation from the last generation (Vista Widgets anyone?), and claiming the "best in show" for it. Look instead to the leader that *invented* that controller, the one whose present innovation was unfairly cut from this review as "too new for greatness," and not the copycat company that play tested and perfected an *old* design, tuned for a hardcore North American audience, before you claim it's the "best ever."
They had to have the "best ever" to base it on in the first place. When you play with the 360, you're playing with a hybrid GC/SNES controller fine-tuned to larger hands, nothing more, nothing less. You're playing with Nintendo's brilliance.
Giving MS the award for what amounts to a "first post" is hardly equitable and, knowing C-Net, it's probably just sycophantic.;^)
Right, which is exactly why proprietary "trade secrets" should not outweigh basic data access. Microsoft should be forced to open up NTFS and Document file formats to the public, by the government, along with everyone else. Hard drive partition formats should be public ISO standards.
They can find other "secrets" to sell their operating system, like the UI, but access to our data should never be trumped by a *trade incentive*. Intellectual property law should not extend to the paper on which we write.
Who in God's name connects a plant's coolant regulation systems to the Internet? How could it be an outside agent when the "data storm" happened on the plant's INTERNAL network.
The article says that explicitly. "Internal network." The DHD is worried about outside agents penetrating the plant personnel, not someone with a laptop uploading a virus like Jeff Goldblum in "Independence Day."
If there *was* such a "data storm" attack, it would _have_ to be caused by an inside saboteur. The plant needs to focus on HUMAN security, not computer security. Either that or they need to reconsider a faulty design.
But can we try, just try, not to write completely hysterical baloney? Hysterical baloney is a tradmark of "Homeland Security," and they might see fit to sue.
Sounds like this is a novel way to combine the crime of identity theft with the crime of robbery and make it portable and convenient too.
And thank God we've solved that problem with counterfeiting. God knows, making money and identification a single uniform item across the entire country will help with that.
...the world is warming, this warming is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and if emissions continue unabated the warming will too, with increasingly serious consequences.
The reason it is irresponsible is because it implies that the sole reason for global warming is greenhouse gases, and implies that it is the greatest contributing factor, without actually stating to what degree greenhouse gases truly contribute.
What if global warming is being caused by a variety of things, and we stop looking because we are so assured that it is our combustion? There is a good deal of disagreement as to how much those emissions affect climate, and the way the article states this "fact" sidesteps that entirely.
That said, the world is warming, and we had better try to do something about emissions to at least test if it is the primary cause. The sooner we do this the better because if it isn't the primary cause, we may have to scramble to find out what is.
Second thought is that if the computer models are so accurate, could they please share them with my local meteorologists? The three day forecast is still a total fairy tale, they can barely predict what the weather will be tomorrow, in fact, and I would like to see those models applied at the local level so I can wash my car and not have it rain the next day.
After watching a colony of ants outwit myself, my wife, and the poisoned baits we placed to annihilate them, I find it quite possible that the collective intelligence of meek creatures possessed of a little free will could rival the intelligence of a human being.;^)
Ants can work together as well as we can, why not drosophila too? Remember those stories about the bees dying? Maybe they just decided not to come back to their cage, and are in hiding. Worse yet, maybe they've joined the killer bees!
I heartily agree with the spirit and content of your reply. Browsers are safe if configured properly. PEBKAC is the primary vector for most of this stuff, not a software company. ActiveX was an insecure design, as is.NET because of backwards compatibility, but if you whitelist in IE according to this document
and browse the "Internet Zone," not at "High" as suggested, but with a "Custom" setting where every feature but the HTML interpreter is shut down, you're pretty darned safe. Run Spybot S&D's Teatimer, with the HOSTS modifications and read-only enabled, and you're close to immaculate.
I couldn't be arsed. I run Firefox because it's, to my belief, as secure as the circus I described above with far less trouble. "It's the lack of glaring design flaws." should be its slogan.;^)
But you can secure IE just as well. It just takes some work and a bit of intelligence.
It is possible that some folks were testing their antivirus/patch status when they clicked? How many of them were loading the web page for forensic analysis?
Security "white hats" do things like that you know. All those hits could be FBI agents for all we know.;^)
Pretty much reflects total market share almost 1:1. When 90% of the consumer market uses MS as their OS, is it terribly surprising that 85% of consumer *morons* use it?
I once explained that browser security is almost entirely determined by the user. This proves it. I wouldn't trust that 0.16% with a pocket calculator, let alone a computer!
You can't write code or design software that will secure "stupid." Firefox and Linux are certainly easier to secure, and they have a better security model, but they aren't idiot proof.
If those folks were using an abacus, they'd probably get their head stuck in it! <G>
An A.C. said:
At any rate, I don't think I agree with your conclusions about what the study indicates, but I do agree that it was flawed and seems to have an anti-male bias.
Without the data to prove my hunch, there isn't a "conclusion" to be made. I asked that someone investigate my theory, not accept it as fact.
I don't agree with anything in science that isn't directly supported by data. Lots of it, in fact, from multiple experiments with multiple methodologies (if possible).
I'd like to see what the heart rates and pupil dilations were during the test administration. Too bad they didn't think of using cameras and pulseoximeters. Probably too expensive.;^)
Slashdot Mirror
Great rant, but a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of DRM, probably deliberately I might add, in order to highlight the fundamental misunderstandings of industry senior mgmt.
;^)
DRM is not implemented to end piracy, or prevent it. There is precious little that can stop that.
It is implemented to keep Joe Blow from handing out freebies to his Toms, Dicks and Harrys.
And that's all.
It keeps copying from being a *trivial* operation, and forces him to associate with absolute criminals if he wishes to get something for free. Most folks don't want to do that. Many don't make it past all the porn popups, in fact.
So DRM works, but should always be simple enough and unobtrusive. Anything more is a liability.
Trying to design a "watertight and unbreakable" DRM, of the kind discussed in this article, is the perfect way to end that balance and hoist content providers by their own petard. (c.f.: Starforce, Sony rootkit)
So that's the kind of thing engineers should be saying "no" to, for the sake of their own company's continued profitability.
--
Toro
Maybe the NoA black ops in Redmond have finished their job and they're bugging out to a more sensible location before the "Earth shattering KABOOM?"
Or perhaps it was the other way around? Did anyone else think it odd that Nintendo had named their box the "Revolution" and MS named theirs the "360?"
Think about it.
--
Toro
If they're going to try to use this for prosecution of copyright infringement, they're in for a rude awakening: It's called "reasonable doubt."
"Someone visited my home with a thumbnail drive."
"My box got r00ted."
"I don't know how they got that song with my name on it, but I didn't send it to them. You'd better investigate."
The name and email address does nothing to PROVE a physical violation of copyright, only the identity of the purchaser, and so, if they try to take this kind of thing to a court of law, they're going to find themselves in the losing corner.
This is nothing more than FUD, and nothing less than insulting. I won't be joining iTunes any time soon.
--
Toro
"No smoking allowed. O_2 in use."
Well, certainly "no smoldering" at least! I love it.
--
Toro
With or without lighter fluid?
--
Toro
I would assume the patent application is for the way they *generate* the heat, not for the process of "using heat to cook." I'm pretty sure there's prior art on that one. ;^)
(and why anyone would want to cook meat at TWICE the normal temperature of a common grill is beyond me. It sounds like a "Home Improvement" MORE POWER moment. 6 hours at 350F is not the same as 3 hours at 700F. Just ask Alton Brown.)
--
Toro
Ron Popeil is the marketing man every geek yearns in their heart to be, and we should all conscript him into our service as the new face of geekdom.
Inspired by all those ludicrous Ron Paul threads.
(Either that or hold a Constitutional Convention and let foreigners in so we can vote Linus in as chief executive. "VOTE LINUS: He doesn't have military experience, but he wrote a kernel!")
-- ToroTron was not a good movie. Not even close. But man was it groundbreaking. It's up there on my list of favorites with "Dark Star," John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon's collaboration that is a clear precursor to O'Bannon's "Alien."
I heartily recommend that all Slashdot nerds get copies of *both* (VCI released Dark Star on DVD, both original and theatrical versions). They're both like watching a long, slow inside shaggy dog joke.
What memories. "Computers are for USERS." Was that concept prophetic or what?
--
Toro
That "major" shift: One guy left his house in the country to move to a house in the city! Perhaps five. It's a landmark occasion.
-- ToroAs in the "late" Dent Arthur Dent. It's a threat.
-- ToroISO L145 - Four letter word
Being a word of no more than four letters, not one, two, nor three either. Five is right out.
e.g.: "TOFU" is an ISO L145 compliant word.
"Clippy" is Microsoft's version of the four letter word, which is an extension and improvement of the standard. It is categorized as an MS-L145.40 "four" letter word.
Turn your pocket calculators upside down to better understand the standards designations.
--
Toro
"Clippy" is not a technical feature.
"Clippy" is a four letter word. Microsoft couldn't even get that open standard right!
--
Toro
Says it all.
But if you're a DVD exec, I want the buttons on my DVD player ('fast forward,' 'top menu') to work as they *should* without playing "Mother-may-I?" with the embedded OS. The menu should NEVER be restricted. That doesn't even make sense! What harm could my having instant access to your product's menu do to your bottom line?
Also, on my DVD player I can't even turn the darned thing off reliably. Is it too much to ask that a power switch be an actual -power switch- and not a "send power down signal to the OS" switch? It's not like there's a hard drive in these things. There's no need for the absurd length of time it takes for most DVD players to go from a power off *command* to a power off *state*.
Same goes for the tray eject button. Kill the motor and eject the disc already! I don't need "pretty" or "graceful," I need my disc back in less than five seconds.
Worst "feature"... Ever.
--
Toro
I love the comments here about how "awful" the GameCube's controller was, and how the Xbox360's is the "best ever."
:^P
;^)
Have you looked at the two of them and done a comparison?
Excepting for the layout of the four front panel buttons, they're identical. In that difference, I'd say the Gamecube's front panel layout is SUPERIOR because it allows you to perform button combos (hold more than one button easily, while tapping the other) and can arrange three button fighter games in a linear fashion (B-A-X), and is thus more flexible to a greater variety of games.
The four corner layout of the 360 is, after all, just a throwback to the SNES controller layout.
I've had the pleasure of using both controllers, and they're *both* great controllers, but give credit where credit is due.
The only problem the standard GC controller was that it was designed for Japanese hands, and that's more a problem with my hands, not the controller. There are oversized controllers available with the same layout that work great for me. The WaveBird also fixed that problem quite handily, and if you went wireless on your GameCube, you'll understand why that controller is my recommendation for the "best controller ever."
OTOH, XBox360's controller is typical Microsoft. They're co-opting someone *else*'s innovation from the last generation (Vista Widgets anyone?), and claiming the "best in show" for it. Look instead to the leader that *invented* that controller, the one whose present innovation was unfairly cut from this review as "too new for greatness," and not the copycat company that play tested and perfected an *old* design, tuned for a hardcore North American audience, before you claim it's the "best ever."
They had to have the "best ever" to base it on in the first place. When you play with the 360, you're playing with a hybrid GC/SNES controller fine-tuned to larger hands, nothing more, nothing less. You're playing with Nintendo's brilliance.
Giving MS the award for what amounts to a "first post" is hardly equitable and, knowing C-Net, it's probably just sycophantic.
--
Toro
Right, which is exactly why proprietary "trade secrets" should not outweigh basic data access. Microsoft should be forced to open up NTFS and Document file formats to the public, by the government, along with everyone else. Hard drive partition formats should be public ISO standards.
They can find other "secrets" to sell their operating system, like the UI, but access to our data should never be trumped by a *trade incentive*. Intellectual property law should not extend to the paper on which we write.
--
Toro
Who in God's name connects a plant's coolant regulation systems to the Internet? How could it be an outside agent when the "data storm" happened on the plant's INTERNAL network.
The article says that explicitly. "Internal network." The DHD is worried about outside agents penetrating the plant personnel, not someone with a laptop uploading a virus like Jeff Goldblum in "Independence Day."
If there *was* such a "data storm" attack, it would _have_ to be caused by an inside saboteur. The plant needs to focus on HUMAN security, not computer security. Either that or they need to reconsider a faulty design.
But can we try, just try, not to write completely hysterical baloney? Hysterical baloney is a tradmark of "Homeland Security," and they might see fit to sue.
--
Toro
Sounds like this is a novel way to combine the crime of identity theft with the crime of robbery and make it portable and convenient too.
And thank God we've solved that problem with counterfeiting. God knows, making money and identification a single uniform item across the entire country will help with that.
Yikes. All your eggs are belong to us.
--
Toro
First, statements like this are irresponsible:
...the world is warming, this warming is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and if emissions continue unabated the warming will too, with increasingly serious consequences.The reason it is irresponsible is because it implies that the sole reason for global warming is greenhouse gases, and implies that it is the greatest contributing factor, without actually stating to what degree greenhouse gases truly contribute.
What if global warming is being caused by a variety of things, and we stop looking because we are so assured that it is our combustion? There is a good deal of disagreement as to how much those emissions affect climate, and the way the article states this "fact" sidesteps that entirely.
That said, the world is warming, and we had better try to do something about emissions to at least test if it is the primary cause. The sooner we do this the better because if it isn't the primary cause, we may have to scramble to find out what is.
Second thought is that if the computer models are so accurate, could they please share them with my local meteorologists? The three day forecast is still a total fairy tale, they can barely predict what the weather will be tomorrow, in fact, and I would like to see those models applied at the local level so I can wash my car and not have it rain the next day.
-- ToroAfter watching a colony of ants outwit myself, my wife, and the poisoned baits we placed to annihilate them, I find it quite possible that the collective intelligence of meek creatures possessed of a little free will could rival the intelligence of a human being. ;^)
Ants can work together as well as we can, why not drosophila too? Remember those stories about the bees dying? Maybe they just decided not to come back to their cage, and are in hiding. Worse yet, maybe they've joined the killer bees!
The bee revolution will not be televised.
--
Toro
Three words: "Initial Public Offering"
--
Toro
Even less dangerous if you're using Lynx! ;^)
.NET because of backwards compatibility, but if you whitelist in IE according to this document
r owsing_safety.mspx
;^)
I heartily agree with the spirit and content of your reply. Browsers are safe if configured properly. PEBKAC is the primary vector for most of this stuff, not a software company. ActiveX was an insecure design, as is
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/online/b
and browse the "Internet Zone," not at "High" as suggested, but with a "Custom" setting where every feature but the HTML interpreter is shut down, you're pretty darned safe. Run Spybot S&D's Teatimer, with the HOSTS modifications and read-only enabled, and you're close to immaculate.
I couldn't be arsed. I run Firefox because it's, to my belief, as secure as the circus I described above with far less trouble. "It's the lack of glaring design flaws." should be its slogan.
But you can secure IE just as well. It just takes some work and a bit of intelligence.
--
Toro
It is possible that some folks were testing their antivirus/patch status when they clicked? How many of them were loading the web page for forensic analysis?
;^)
Security "white hats" do things like that you know. All those hits could be FBI agents for all we know.
--
Toro
Pretty much reflects total market share almost 1:1. When 90% of the consumer market uses MS as their OS, is it terribly surprising that 85% of consumer *morons* use it?
--
Toro
I once explained that browser security is almost entirely determined by the user. This proves it. I wouldn't trust that 0.16% with a pocket calculator, let alone a computer!
You can't write code or design software that will secure "stupid." Firefox and Linux are certainly easier to secure, and they have a better security model, but they aren't idiot proof.
If those folks were using an abacus, they'd probably get their head stuck in it! <G>
--
Toro
Without the data to prove my hunch, there isn't a "conclusion" to be made. I asked that someone investigate my theory, not accept it as fact.
I don't agree with anything in science that isn't directly supported by data. Lots of it, in fact, from multiple experiments with multiple methodologies (if possible).
I'd like to see what the heart rates and pupil dilations were during the test administration. Too bad they didn't think of using cameras and pulseoximeters. Probably too expensive. ;^)
-- Toro