What I get for not previewing - link works but looks like ass unless you remove that last trailing slash. Sorry about that! Looks like they support the Wii and PS3 too....
I haven't tried streaming with my 360 nor have UI got the latest firmware - I'm hoping to hack it. However a friend who is up to date claims that this makes his 360 a damned good computer for a home theater. I personally want unsigned code and XBMC on the 360 but that looks to be awful far away right now....
No the parent poster was right - scratch them off the list. I could care less what they might be willing to give me in the way of say cellualr service - it's a poison pill that will bite back first chance it gets. Vonage, of which I'm a customer, competed and is being destroyed by what appears to be an overly broad patent and a judge out of control. If the folks who have started this think they will ever regain my business they can think again about it - won't happen no matter what's offered.
Be careful what you wish for....
on
The End for Vonage?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
So, let's play this game - we'll even name it something like China. You the player spend oh 5 years researching and creatnig some neato' keen scientificly designed product but you don't Patent it because well you just don't roll that way. So you bring this thing to market and it's really kewl but it's kind of expensive because afterall you have all those years of R&D to pay for and a family to feed. 2 months after having released your neato' keen device to market sales sharply drop. Gee, why is that? Oh wait, someone else is playing the game too. Only they are playing it a little different. Seems they were one of your very first customers only instead of using your product they took it apart, duplicated the pieces, and are now making them too - for 1/4 your asking price. They paid nothing for R&D other than the time spent reversing your product and because they have no R&D tail to pay for they aren't deep in the red like you were when you started. No patent so you have no way to fight them - now what? Two months is actually not a crazy estimate either BTW, hell these days you're likely to hand them the plans to manufacture your precious widget anyway. 5mins after the plans hit their desk they are being duped. Worse they might even run the production line double time - you get the products built during the day, they sell the products they built at night. Whoops, how do you fix that exactly? Think this through....
The patent system right now SUX, I'll grant that. However it doesn't suck because the idea is completely bad it sucks because the patent office grants overly broad patents and because we have a judicial branch running amuck making decisions on technology they barely understand. Dumping the patent system while nice in fantasy land isn't going to necessarily mean that it will make things better. China, and other countries, are copying products with little to no R&D like mad and undercutting the real companies making these products. The result is that some of the companies are losing their ass due to R&D costs - what you propose, nuking the patent system, would allow this with no penalty. You sure that's what you want?
Oh and yes people invented things before patents. Then they VERY closely held onto that information for fear that others would benefit from it if it was shared with anyone other than maybe an apprentice. They didn't simply tell every Tom, Dick, and Harry, who wandered by how to do the thing that allowed them to make a living I promise you. There also wasn't this huge global information system that would allow the information to spread like wildfire.
Already broken. Yes I know about the code shuffling in memory and while that helps against remote attacks a local attack is able to get around the shuffling. Neeext!
You hit the nail on the head! This is the PERFECT Myth front-end and with a USB tuner maybe even a full on box. the problem I see with Myth right now is getting the damned thing configured for whatever silly hardware you dug out of your closet or buying all new hardware to match some recipe and then still finding out you have to swing a dead cat to get it running! XBMC on the old XBOX works great for a reason and that reaosn is that the damned platform is dead nutz STANDARD. Now per haps MythTV would work better on a Mini snice it's a good bit more powerful but this box is TINY, made to hook right to a TV, comes with a remote, and is low power. What's not to like?
To be honest running the aTV Os on a Mini has actually been more interesting to me than OSX on the aTV because what I want is a capable HTPC type thing that can play MY content just like XBMC has been doing for me forever. Where XBMC falls down is the old 733mhz Celeron and 256meg of RAM in the old XBOX. 1080HD content need not apply, especially since the video drivers aren't accelerated on that box:-( sadly the aTV doesn't look like it's going to be quite capable of 1080 either, if I'm proven wrong I'll buy one. For now though I've just bought an XBOX 360 that has turned out to have ancient firmware on it and am going to be priming it to boot Linux here soon. That platform looks even better for Myth but I think it's a far longer road before anyone gets there - right now it's not even sound capable:-( Whichever gets done I'm there, neither box exactly breaks the bank here...
God you are thick aren't you? Let me put it to you clearly - TIVO wished to release a product and not be sued into the ground ala ReplayTV. You're anger towards TIVO is completely misplaced - want to be pissed try being pissed at the guys who would SUE them if they released an HD TIVO that allowed for multi-room viewing and extraction. TIVo would sell more boxes if they could put those features in and ARGUED to get those features approved - nope not happening uis what CableLabs said. So in order to umm actually produce a product they dropped the features to get the approval. How hard, exactly, is that to understand? Are you 12?
In your sunny world they would have sold the box anyway, certification be damned. Then the cable guy would show up with his cablecard, look at the device, declare in unapproved, and taken his shiney cablecard home. Gee, that really worked didn't it? Or wait not sold the box at all and then you'd be whining because they didn't support HD or weren't "innovating". You just like to whine right?
Oh and TIVO has never taken away the 30second skip, it exists in ALL of the TIVO products including the S3. It was never something that could be turned on via a GUI setting, it was always this silly goofy key sequence. You've not ever owned a TIVO have you? It shows....
And yet you do not name this Mythical DVR - odd that. TIVO has to license the Macrovision software in order to allow playback. When Macrovision revises it's license terms and renwal is needed TIVO has no choice but to bend over and do as they say or be sued for using unlicensed technology. Sorry, but TIVO is painted into a corner here as are all of the consumer devices that want to playback Macrovision protected content. Maybe TIVO should shift their production to China and just violate all the various licenses?
BTW other than suing them what is TIVO's "direct relationship" with the cable industry? If you'd been paying attention you'd realize that TIVO is attempting to compete with the cable industry not get into bed with them - ask Comcast about that as they are the ones that LOST to TIVO. The 30second skip is still in the software after HOW many revisions? Yeah, in bed with the providers...
This stuff isn't hard to find out if you'd bothered to keep up but instead you spew FUD....
Nice to see such an informative HONEST posting. I'm stuck in pretty much the same boat as many - I want the flexability that my current hacked DTIVO offers me but for HD. Myth would be a godsend if it weren't for Cablecard and the monster PITA that Myth maintenance would be. If I use a cable DVR and it misses a show the woman is pissed at the cable company - if I built an awesome Myth box and it misses a show she screams at ME. I want an appliance for this not yet another machine to maintain. Apple's iTV was something I'd hoped would do this but nope, it's not better than my hacked XBOX. You want a good front end for downloaded torrents? Hack an XBOX and use XBMC - just don't try for full on 1080 HD.
Anyway, you've pretty much confirmed what I feared about Myth. If goto it I'm going to be dealnig with all sorts of goofy little problems here and there that will add up to a screaming match with the woman. If someone simply BUILT a Myth box that did what I wanted and could handle the encrypted content I'm willing to pay my provider to send me I'd be all over it. Unfortunatly the greedy content providers would sue the pants off anyone who managed to build such a thing and so I'm stuck.... I wonder if the content providers understand just how much loathing and frustration they are developing among their customer base. I don't even think twice about using Torrent to get any show my current DTIVO is unable to record due to conflicts or forgetfulness. A shame I am going to have top dump it when I go HD.:-(
Actually this makes sense with ANY HD capable tuner. HD is digital and encoded already, just dump it to disk. USB tuners are good for this - they have hardware onboard to gather the data and send it right to the computer. Certainly to save space you might transcode but so far as I know S3 TIV do *not* compress the data which is why they have fairly low hour ratings for HD content.
BTW - some progress has been made to crack them for hacking. Socketed EPROMs and whatnot are havnig to be installed but it is being done. Sadly it seems this will remain underground a good bit since if the CableCard guys find out they will pull TIVO's CableCard cert. Saddest of all is that CableCard was a sort of thing mandated to get rid of STBs and was SUPPOSED to be a boon to the consumer - instead it allowed the media companies to screw us - hard. I like the idea of Myth, i'd LOVE to have a Myth box, but the encrypted channels and CableCard screwing mean it will likely never happen. When all STB are replaced by Cablecard it's going to be pretty ugly I'm afraid....
I'll be buying an S3 it looks like and continuing to use my hacked XBOC with XBMC to enjoy emulators and such. Wish the 360 would get cracked to run unsigned code:-(
TIVO is in bed with the cable industry? Wow, that's news to me! I thought they just finished suing ComCast and winning.... oh yeah they did - is that how you get in bed with an industry, sue them?
TIVO had a heck of a time getting their CableCard approval and had to DROP features in order to get it. They have also sued at least one cable provider over their use of TIVO patented features - and won. Just because TIVO can work well with cable companies does *not* mean they are in bed with them somehow. They are not friends...
You might want to spedn a little more time learning about TPM, it's most certanily not going to be placed in many of the devices you named . It's secure storage for KEYS, use them as you will. It's also methods to ensure that the hardware hasn't been tampered with - no way would anyone want that huh? That the DRM guys have seized upon this is no surprise but it's hardly only useful to just their industry.
Okay, here's what you do if you use the Cell as your primary number - Cell Socket or a Dock-n-Talk. These are both devices that interface cell phones with the normal phones in your house. I use a Dock-n-Talk with a BT module on the waomn's phone. Vonage is my primary line but when her phone rings and she is in the house it rings on line #2. she does a great deal of business over the cell phone with employees often needing to reach her and since they never know where she is they call that number - this works great when she happens to be at home! Since you'd have only the one phone it would simply be your single line. Yeah, it was a little bit of a PITA to decide which number to use on that but since her's ring's most that's what we did. I suppose I could get two of them and have both opf them able to ring on that single line but that would get pricey. It would be nice if ASTERISK could do this with a cheap BT adapter but I don't think it can - at least not yet:-) ASTERISK is really where I want to go, I've just not had time yet to set it up and the Vonage adapter is working well for me right now.
Hope that helps, it sure solves the running downstairs problem we had with her phone!
I watched a briefing on Vista wireless and compared to XP it's WAY different. The MSFT guy on the stage actually said the words monitor mode and mangle packets! Apparently the XP driver setup for wireless kludged wireless to look like a regular wired NIC. For Vista that's not the case - you can have filter drivers and all sorts of stuff going on with wireless. The SDK for drivers even supposedly comes with SOURCE for a wireless driver supporting Realtek wireless cards. The presenter also showed the results of a one minute sniff of the conference network doen on his laptop - APs, clients, encryption supported, speeds supported, blah lah - all done in Vista using off the shelf drivers. Tehre are supposed to be something like 150 hooks in all of the Vista wireless drivers to allow for this sort of thing in order for the driver to be certified plus you can apparently roll your own. There's still some abstraction from the hardware of course so there could still be limitations but the alternative is a hell like there is with Linux right now. I'm fortunate to have like 5 cards that work under Linux but NONE of them are what I'd call "new". If Vista is really doing what this rep claimed then Vista is going to be MUCH better for capturing wireless than XP was. Products like AirPCAP and goofy expensive custom widgets to get monitor mode on XP can take a flying leap - maybe.
Anyway, this was a BlackHat presentation done in Vegas this past year - they had a whole series on Vista. The video might be up on the BlackHat site, if it is take a look. Vista is still new enough that much of this probably hasn't been explored yet btu stay tuned - this looks like ONE benefit to Vista....
There are occasionally battles in High sec too. A corp mate came across the remnents of one just the other night and had quite the merry time scooping up drones and looting what was left before reinforcements began arriving. He was just passing through and got to watch these folks blasting each other - pretty cool:-)
Give it up, you're trying to talk traffic and speed limits with someone who has no clue what teh 85th percentile rule is. He clearly has no clue what he's arguuing about and has spent no time researching the subject. You might as well beat your head against a pole for all the progress you're going to make. Chances are good it's a child and not a driver you're arguing with or he'd have some clearer understanding of what it's like to actually drive somewhere on something that doesn't require pedals.
Ah and yeah I'm familier with D.C. traffic. The sad thing is it gets no better and the cell phone soccer Mom's keep trading up for ever larger vehicles to toddle down the road in. I feel your pain....
Speeding consistantly leads to death? You're joking right? Out of control foot to the floor forget the brakes speeding perhaps but 65 in a 55 or even 75 in a 55 does not consistantly lead to anything approaching death. To say so is a joke as anyone who's spent time on a freeway ought to know. Or was that you in the left lane sticking to the limit with folks being forced to veer around to keep from killing the road clot? The funny thing I've noticed is that contrary to many claims when speed limits are raised to more normal speeds people do not continue going 10+ over but rather drive a comfortable speed which is what most "speeders" do today anyway.
I also find it real odd that the police in my area are forced to label speed cameras with terms like "Aggressive Driver Imaging" in order to pretty up what they are really doing. I read that and it sounds like they are going after the folks who bob and weave through the lanes like an Indy driver when instead all they're doing is setting up speed cams. This is as disingenous as Doing it for the Children......
Yes, that's why they shorten yellow lights when they add these cameras and ignore studies by road engineers that indicate simply lengthening yellows by a second or two would lower red light running. That's why they don't bother to use law enforcement to hand out these tickets but instead LEASE the equipment (and evaluation services) from companies that receive a *percentage* of the revenue generated by the devices. I know someone who received one of these tickets and the picture clearly showed the other car that had just REAR-ENDED him shoving him through the intersection! He had to goto court to get that stupidity thrown out, but hey revenue isn't the goal right? Never mind studies that show incidences of rear end collisions going up when these cameras are deployed either huh?
I have one of these cameras not far from my home and have watched the antics surrounding it with interest. I've never been given one of these tickets and after seeing some of the red light running have pondered whether these might be worthwhile but I think I'd really rather have the idiots setting the lights be more sensible first. Getting creamed trying not to get a ticket or worse having smoeone lockup their brakes at the first sign of yellow is stupidity. I've spoken to folks on county boards charged with things like setting speed limits and surprise, it's NOT the safety of the road design that's the first consideration so it's no surprise that red light cameras aren't for safety either. Ask some of the residents of D.C. how the cameras are being used down there. Hint: the D.C. Govt. needed *money*, increased use of cameras was one of their "innovative" solutions. "Safety" has zip to do with it....
So far the AV companies have been successful in defeating the ones released and getting the key but the attackers are getting better with their crypto and it's just a matter of time before somethnig REALLY nasty comes out that cannot be so easily defeated. For "ransome" they have been insisting on using Egold accounts apparently but these accounts get shutdown pretty quickly.
Surprised no one else rememebred this and pointed it out. Here's the top hit from Google that even has the password for one of them from an AV company... http://www.scambusters.org/ransomware.html/
That analogy might hold if the buildings each had to be cleaned up by hand - they weren't. I'm no saying I agree or disagree with his sentence just pointing out that the damage in this case was cleaned up programmatically (sp?) rather than by hand. 3 years probation doesn't souond too bad nor the community service, he'll certainly think twice before doing it again. However banning him from the 'net is pretty stupid. Here's a guy who is obviously quite bright, knows a great deal about browsers and coding, and has the potential to earn a decent living at it I'd imagine. Now they have just told him he cannot do so - how exactly does that help society? I can see the job interviews now.... so Samy we'd like to hire you but this notation in your resume that says you cannot access the 'net - that's a joke right? Oh, you're serious? Well, I'm sorry but our position requires XYZ to be done and I'm afraid that's 'net only - sorry. Hell, I don't even get a payslip or visit a bank anymore - all done over the 'net including W2. Guess he'll be stuck working at 7-11 or violating his parole...
Sony's damage, well that one was likely much worse to clean up and I'd bet that it's not even fully cleaned up as of now and that those CDs continue to infect. If they paid $175 per instance I sure never got my money nor did anyone else I know...
*First*? you've got to be kidding right? You need to check around the WEB a bit and I think you'll find that quite a few people live happily off-grid. Home power magazine highlights many of these kinds of projects and Otherpower.com has a discussion board with a great deal of good information from folks all over the world. Some of th ewindmills being built on that site are also damned impressive IMO...
A little story... I went down to Circuit City to buy one of those but they were out of stock. I paid for it anyway and used my credit card. Weeks went by and I got a letter in the mail from IOpener that stated that they had AMENEDED their licensing. I could "still purchase" their device but that if I did so and didn't sign up for their service in X days my CREDIT CARD would be billed something like $350!
Now, HOW did they get my ADDRESS? HOW did they get my CREDIT CARD number? Why it seems that Circuit City was only more than willing to provide them with my address at least and apparently my CREDIT CARD information. I called and wrote Circuit City about this and never received any sort of satisfactory answer - only form letters.
Guess which consumer electronics store I have not spent a dime in in something like 10 years? Yup, Circuit City and all because those pricks handed over information to the IOpener people. I wish like hell I had paid cash that day but the new had just broken and i was damned excited to run out and get one - grr!
P.S. An even odder footnote. When I went to that CC store it was one I hadn't been tobefore but somehow whenI gave them my phone number they had my address. Turns out that YEARS before a family member who no longer lived in my home had bought something there and they had retained that information in their computers all that time. THAT sent a chill down my spine too.....
The WRT54G and GS were NOT "hacker friendly". Do a little reading - when those boxes came out Linksys didn't say Boo about themrunning Linux. It wasn't until someone downloaded one of their firmware "updates" that they figured out it was a compressed Linux Distro! Afterwards all hell broke loose as Linksys tried to NOT honor the GPL. In the end they were not only forced to honor the GPL for the WRT54 but for several other devices too once folks started looking HARD at their firmware.
The new WRT54 boxes run another OS entirely and have less powerful hardware and less memory. Nevertheless the folks at DD-WRT have figured out how to load up Linux and get greater functionality from it - tip them please! While you're at it smack Sveasoft for dodging the GPL - grr!
Anyway, Linksys did NOT embrace the hackling community at all. They do now offer a Linux friendly WRT54 but only because people bitched when they switched to the new hardware and different OS. Try finding one of those at the local BestBuy..... The source mods are only up for their firmware becasue they were forced to do so. They did go a bit further than required and also provide a toolchain as I recall but not without arm twisting. TIVO is just as bad....
They make it sound like TIVO offers some huge help for hackers. In the beginning I'm pretty sure some arm twisting had to be done to even get them to post the changes they made to source per the GPL requirement. Even if that's not true look at what we have today - S2.5 boxes and S3 boxes. The S2.5 requires a hardware mod to the SMT PROM in order to modify the software signatures so modified kernels can be run. The S3, last I checked Dealdatabase, has yet to be hacked! Why? Because they have seriously locked it down having learned from previous attempts and IMO that sux. I have a DTIVO, which was originally crippled, but is losing favor with my provider. I'd REALLY like an S3 - cost be damned - but it cannot be hacked or at least hasn't yet. The only reason source was ever provided was because they were REQUIRED by the GPL to do so.
I understand that TIVO is being required by the media producers to lobotomize some of the features out of their box. However making it nearly impossible for folks to get in there and put them back is crap. That this article portrays them in any other light is bullshit, TIVO is *not* friendly.
I'd really not ever thought too much about GPL3 until I learned about it's provisions to prevent "TIVOization" of hardware. Now that I understand what it is they're trying to stop I'm all for it. Let the TIVO people of the world burn. If they want to piggyback on other's work then they should not only have to share their mods as source but not be allowed to lock the hardware from other's mods. Don't like it? Then write or buy your own OS and absorb the development costs...
Slashdot Mirror
What I get for not previewing - link works but looks like ass unless you remove that last trailing slash. Sorry about that! Looks like they support the Wii and PS3 too....
Check out this software -> http://www.orb.com/gamers/xbox.htm/
I haven't tried streaming with my 360 nor have UI got the latest firmware - I'm hoping to hack it. However a friend who is up to date claims that this makes his 360 a damned good computer for a home theater. I personally want unsigned code and XBMC on the 360 but that looks to be awful far away right now....
No the parent poster was right - scratch them off the list. I could care less what they might be willing to give me in the way of say cellualr service - it's a poison pill that will bite back first chance it gets. Vonage, of which I'm a customer, competed and is being destroyed by what appears to be an overly broad patent and a judge out of control. If the folks who have started this think they will ever regain my business they can think again about it - won't happen no matter what's offered.
So, let's play this game - we'll even name it something like China. You the player spend oh 5 years researching and creatnig some neato' keen scientificly designed product but you don't Patent it because well you just don't roll that way. So you bring this thing to market and it's really kewl but it's kind of expensive because afterall you have all those years of R&D to pay for and a family to feed. 2 months after having released your neato' keen device to market sales sharply drop. Gee, why is that? Oh wait, someone else is playing the game too. Only they are playing it a little different. Seems they were one of your very first customers only instead of using your product they took it apart, duplicated the pieces, and are now making them too - for 1/4 your asking price. They paid nothing for R&D other than the time spent reversing your product and because they have no R&D tail to pay for they aren't deep in the red like you were when you started. No patent so you have no way to fight them - now what? Two months is actually not a crazy estimate either BTW, hell these days you're likely to hand them the plans to manufacture your precious widget anyway. 5mins after the plans hit their desk they are being duped. Worse they might even run the production line double time - you get the products built during the day, they sell the products they built at night. Whoops, how do you fix that exactly? Think this through....
The patent system right now SUX, I'll grant that. However it doesn't suck because the idea is completely bad it sucks because the patent office grants overly broad patents and because we have a judicial branch running amuck making decisions on technology they barely understand. Dumping the patent system while nice in fantasy land isn't going to necessarily mean that it will make things better. China, and other countries, are copying products with little to no R&D like mad and undercutting the real companies making these products. The result is that some of the companies are losing their ass due to R&D costs - what you propose, nuking the patent system, would allow this with no penalty. You sure that's what you want?
Oh and yes people invented things before patents. Then they VERY closely held onto that information for fear that others would benefit from it if it was shared with anyone other than maybe an apprentice. They didn't simply tell every Tom, Dick, and Harry, who wandered by how to do the thing that allowed them to make a living I promise you. There also wasn't this huge global information system that would allow the information to spread like wildfire.
Already broken. Yes I know about the code shuffling in memory and while that helps against remote attacks a local attack is able to get around the shuffling. Neeext!
You hit the nail on the head! This is the PERFECT Myth front-end and with a USB tuner maybe even a full on box. the problem I see with Myth right now is getting the damned thing configured for whatever silly hardware you dug out of your closet or buying all new hardware to match some recipe and then still finding out you have to swing a dead cat to get it running! XBMC on the old XBOX works great for a reason and that reaosn is that the damned platform is dead nutz STANDARD. Now per haps MythTV would work better on a Mini snice it's a good bit more powerful but this box is TINY, made to hook right to a TV, comes with a remote, and is low power. What's not to like?
:-( sadly the aTV doesn't look like it's going to be quite capable of 1080 either, if I'm proven wrong I'll buy one. For now though I've just bought an XBOX 360 that has turned out to have ancient firmware on it and am going to be priming it to boot Linux here soon. That platform looks even better for Myth but I think it's a far longer road before anyone gets there - right now it's not even sound capable :-( Whichever gets done I'm there, neither box exactly breaks the bank here...
To be honest running the aTV Os on a Mini has actually been more interesting to me than OSX on the aTV because what I want is a capable HTPC type thing that can play MY content just like XBMC has been doing for me forever. Where XBMC falls down is the old 733mhz Celeron and 256meg of RAM in the old XBOX. 1080HD content need not apply, especially since the video drivers aren't accelerated on that box
God you are thick aren't you? Let me put it to you clearly - TIVO wished to release a product and not be sued into the ground ala ReplayTV. You're anger towards TIVO is completely misplaced - want to be pissed try being pissed at the guys who would SUE them if they released an HD TIVO that allowed for multi-room viewing and extraction. TIVo would sell more boxes if they could put those features in and ARGUED to get those features approved - nope not happening uis what CableLabs said. So in order to umm actually produce a product they dropped the features to get the approval. How hard, exactly, is that to understand? Are you 12?
In your sunny world they would have sold the box anyway, certification be damned. Then the cable guy would show up with his cablecard, look at the device, declare in unapproved, and taken his shiney cablecard home. Gee, that really worked didn't it? Or wait not sold the box at all and then you'd be whining because they didn't support HD or weren't "innovating". You just like to whine right?
Oh and TIVO has never taken away the 30second skip, it exists in ALL of the TIVO products including the S3. It was never something that could be turned on via a GUI setting, it was always this silly goofy key sequence. You've not ever owned a TIVO have you? It shows....
And yet you do not name this Mythical DVR - odd that. TIVO has to license the Macrovision software in order to allow playback. When Macrovision revises it's license terms and renwal is needed TIVO has no choice but to bend over and do as they say or be sued for using unlicensed technology. Sorry, but TIVO is painted into a corner here as are all of the consumer devices that want to playback Macrovision protected content. Maybe TIVO should shift their production to China and just violate all the various licenses?
BTW other than suing them what is TIVO's "direct relationship" with the cable industry? If you'd been paying attention you'd realize that TIVO is attempting to compete with the cable industry not get into bed with them - ask Comcast about that as they are the ones that LOST to TIVO. The 30second skip is still in the software after HOW many revisions? Yeah, in bed with the providers...
This stuff isn't hard to find out if you'd bothered to keep up but instead you spew FUD....
Nice to see such an informative HONEST posting. I'm stuck in pretty much the same boat as many - I want the flexability that my current hacked DTIVO offers me but for HD. Myth would be a godsend if it weren't for Cablecard and the monster PITA that Myth maintenance would be. If I use a cable DVR and it misses a show the woman is pissed at the cable company - if I built an awesome Myth box and it misses a show she screams at ME. I want an appliance for this not yet another machine to maintain. Apple's iTV was something I'd hoped would do this but nope, it's not better than my hacked XBOX. You want a good front end for downloaded torrents? Hack an XBOX and use XBMC - just don't try for full on 1080 HD.
:-(
Anyway, you've pretty much confirmed what I feared about Myth. If goto it I'm going to be dealnig with all sorts of goofy little problems here and there that will add up to a screaming match with the woman. If someone simply BUILT a Myth box that did what I wanted and could handle the encrypted content I'm willing to pay my provider to send me I'd be all over it. Unfortunatly the greedy content providers would sue the pants off anyone who managed to build such a thing and so I'm stuck.... I wonder if the content providers understand just how much loathing and frustration they are developing among their customer base. I don't even think twice about using Torrent to get any show my current DTIVO is unable to record due to conflicts or forgetfulness. A shame I am going to have top dump it when I go HD.
Actually this makes sense with ANY HD capable tuner. HD is digital and encoded already, just dump it to disk. USB tuners are good for this - they have hardware onboard to gather the data and send it right to the computer. Certainly to save space you might transcode but so far as I know S3 TIV do *not* compress the data which is why they have fairly low hour ratings for HD content.
:-(
BTW - some progress has been made to crack them for hacking. Socketed EPROMs and whatnot are havnig to be installed but it is being done. Sadly it seems this will remain underground a good bit since if the CableCard guys find out they will pull TIVO's CableCard cert. Saddest of all is that CableCard was a sort of thing mandated to get rid of STBs and was SUPPOSED to be a boon to the consumer - instead it allowed the media companies to screw us - hard. I like the idea of Myth, i'd LOVE to have a Myth box, but the encrypted channels and CableCard screwing mean it will likely never happen. When all STB are replaced by Cablecard it's going to be pretty ugly I'm afraid....
I'll be buying an S3 it looks like and continuing to use my hacked XBOC with XBMC to enjoy emulators and such. Wish the 360 would get cracked to run unsigned code
TIVO is in bed with the cable industry? Wow, that's news to me! I thought they just finished suing ComCast and winning.... oh yeah they did - is that how you get in bed with an industry, sue them?
TIVO had a heck of a time getting their CableCard approval and had to DROP features in order to get it. They have also sued at least one cable provider over their use of TIVO patented features - and won. Just because TIVO can work well with cable companies does *not* mean they are in bed with them somehow. They are not friends...
You might want to spedn a little more time learning about TPM, it's most certanily not going to be placed in many of the devices you named . It's secure storage for KEYS, use them as you will. It's also methods to ensure that the hardware hasn't been tampered with - no way would anyone want that huh? That the DRM guys have seized upon this is no surprise but it's hardly only useful to just their industry.
Okay, here's what you do if you use the Cell as your primary number - Cell Socket or a Dock-n-Talk. These are both devices that interface cell phones with the normal phones in your house. I use a Dock-n-Talk with a BT module on the waomn's phone. Vonage is my primary line but when her phone rings and she is in the house it rings on line #2. she does a great deal of business over the cell phone with employees often needing to reach her and since they never know where she is they call that number - this works great when she happens to be at home! Since you'd have only the one phone it would simply be your single line. Yeah, it was a little bit of a PITA to decide which number to use on that but since her's ring's most that's what we did. I suppose I could get two of them and have both opf them able to ring on that single line but that would get pricey. It would be nice if ASTERISK could do this with a cheap BT adapter but I don't think it can - at least not yet :-) ASTERISK is really where I want to go, I've just not had time yet to set it up and the Vonage adapter is working well for me right now.
Hope that helps, it sure solves the running downstairs problem we had with her phone!
No seriously, I said that with a straight face!
I watched a briefing on Vista wireless and compared to XP it's WAY different. The MSFT guy on the stage actually said the words monitor mode and mangle packets! Apparently the XP driver setup for wireless kludged wireless to look like a regular wired NIC. For Vista that's not the case - you can have filter drivers and all sorts of stuff going on with wireless. The SDK for drivers even supposedly comes with SOURCE for a wireless driver supporting Realtek wireless cards. The presenter also showed the results of a one minute sniff of the conference network doen on his laptop - APs, clients, encryption supported, speeds supported, blah lah - all done in Vista using off the shelf drivers. Tehre are supposed to be something like 150 hooks in all of the Vista wireless drivers to allow for this sort of thing in order for the driver to be certified plus you can apparently roll your own. There's still some abstraction from the hardware of course so there could still be limitations but the alternative is a hell like there is with Linux right now. I'm fortunate to have like 5 cards that work under Linux but NONE of them are what I'd call "new". If Vista is really doing what this rep claimed then Vista is going to be MUCH better for capturing wireless than XP was. Products like AirPCAP and goofy expensive custom widgets to get monitor mode on XP can take a flying leap - maybe.
Anyway, this was a BlackHat presentation done in Vegas this past year - they had a whole series on Vista. The video might be up on the BlackHat site, if it is take a look. Vista is still new enough that much of this probably hasn't been explored yet btu stay tuned - this looks like ONE benefit to Vista....
There are occasionally battles in High sec too. A corp mate came across the remnents of one just the other night and had quite the merry time scooping up drones and looting what was left before reinforcements began arriving. He was just passing through and got to watch these folks blasting each other - pretty cool :-)
Give it up, you're trying to talk traffic and speed limits with someone who has no clue what teh 85th percentile rule is. He clearly has no clue what he's arguuing about and has spent no time researching the subject. You might as well beat your head against a pole for all the progress you're going to make. Chances are good it's a child and not a driver you're arguing with or he'd have some clearer understanding of what it's like to actually drive somewhere on something that doesn't require pedals.
Ah and yeah I'm familier with D.C. traffic. The sad thing is it gets no better and the cell phone soccer Mom's keep trading up for ever larger vehicles to toddle down the road in. I feel your pain....
Speeding consistantly leads to death? You're joking right? Out of control foot to the floor forget the brakes speeding perhaps but 65 in a 55 or even 75 in a 55 does not consistantly lead to anything approaching death. To say so is a joke as anyone who's spent time on a freeway ought to know. Or was that you in the left lane sticking to the limit with folks being forced to veer around to keep from killing the road clot? The funny thing I've noticed is that contrary to many claims when speed limits are raised to more normal speeds people do not continue going 10+ over but rather drive a comfortable speed which is what most "speeders" do today anyway.
I also find it real odd that the police in my area are forced to label speed cameras with terms like "Aggressive Driver Imaging" in order to pretty up what they are really doing. I read that and it sounds like they are going after the folks who bob and weave through the lanes like an Indy driver when instead all they're doing is setting up speed cams. This is as disingenous as Doing it for the Children......
Yes, that's why they shorten yellow lights when they add these cameras and ignore studies by road engineers that indicate simply lengthening yellows by a second or two would lower red light running. That's why they don't bother to use law enforcement to hand out these tickets but instead LEASE the equipment (and evaluation services) from companies that receive a *percentage* of the revenue generated by the devices. I know someone who received one of these tickets and the picture clearly showed the other car that had just REAR-ENDED him shoving him through the intersection! He had to goto court to get that stupidity thrown out, but hey revenue isn't the goal right? Never mind studies that show incidences of rear end collisions going up when these cameras are deployed either huh?
I have one of these cameras not far from my home and have watched the antics surrounding it with interest. I've never been given one of these tickets and after seeing some of the red light running have pondered whether these might be worthwhile but I think I'd really rather have the idiots setting the lights be more sensible first. Getting creamed trying not to get a ticket or worse having smoeone lockup their brakes at the first sign of yellow is stupidity. I've spoken to folks on county boards charged with things like setting speed limits and surprise, it's NOT the safety of the road design that's the first consideration so it's no surprise that red light cameras aren't for safety either. Ask some of the residents of D.C. how the cameras are being used down there. Hint: the D.C. Govt. needed *money*, increased use of cameras was one of their "innovative" solutions. "Safety" has zip to do with it....
Here's mine :-)
O DQ4NjE2/
http://ineve.net/skills/character.php?charID=NDA1
Note that I can check anyone in my Corp who also updates and that this is auto updated from EVEMon...
So far the AV companies have been successful in defeating the ones released and getting the key but the attackers are getting better with their crypto and it's just a matter of time before somethnig REALLY nasty comes out that cannot be so easily defeated. For "ransome" they have been insisting on using Egold accounts apparently but these accounts get shutdown pretty quickly.
Surprised no one else rememebred this and pointed it out. Here's the top hit from Google that even has the password for one of them from an AV company... http://www.scambusters.org/ransomware.html/
That analogy might hold if the buildings each had to be cleaned up by hand - they weren't. I'm no saying I agree or disagree with his sentence just pointing out that the damage in this case was cleaned up programmatically (sp?) rather than by hand. 3 years probation doesn't souond too bad nor the community service, he'll certainly think twice before doing it again. However banning him from the 'net is pretty stupid. Here's a guy who is obviously quite bright, knows a great deal about browsers and coding, and has the potential to earn a decent living at it I'd imagine. Now they have just told him he cannot do so - how exactly does that help society? I can see the job interviews now.... so Samy we'd like to hire you but this notation in your resume that says you cannot access the 'net - that's a joke right? Oh, you're serious? Well, I'm sorry but our position requires XYZ to be done and I'm afraid that's 'net only - sorry. Hell, I don't even get a payslip or visit a bank anymore - all done over the 'net including W2. Guess he'll be stuck working at 7-11 or violating his parole...
Sony's damage, well that one was likely much worse to clean up and I'd bet that it's not even fully cleaned up as of now and that those CDs continue to infect. If they paid $175 per instance I sure never got my money nor did anyone else I know...
*First*? you've got to be kidding right? You need to check around the WEB a bit and I think you'll find that quite a few people live happily off-grid. Home power magazine highlights many of these kinds of projects and Otherpower.com has a discussion board with a great deal of good information from folks all over the world. Some of th ewindmills being built on that site are also damned impressive IMO...
A little story... I went down to Circuit City to buy one of those but they were out of stock. I paid for it anyway and used my credit card. Weeks went by and I got a letter in the mail from IOpener that stated that they had AMENEDED their licensing. I could "still purchase" their device but that if I did so and didn't sign up for their service in X days my CREDIT CARD would be billed something like $350!
Now, HOW did they get my ADDRESS? HOW did they get my CREDIT CARD number? Why it seems that Circuit City was only more than willing to provide them with my address at least and apparently my CREDIT CARD information. I called and wrote Circuit City about this and never received any sort of satisfactory answer - only form letters.
Guess which consumer electronics store I have not spent a dime in in something like 10 years? Yup, Circuit City and all because those pricks handed over information to the IOpener people. I wish like hell I had paid cash that day but the new had just broken and i was damned excited to run out and get one - grr!
P.S. An even odder footnote. When I went to that CC store it was one I hadn't been tobefore but somehow whenI gave them my phone number they had my address. Turns out that YEARS before a family member who no longer lived in my home had bought something there and they had retained that information in their computers all that time. THAT sent a chill down my spine too.....
The WRT54G and GS were NOT "hacker friendly". Do a little reading - when those boxes came out Linksys didn't say Boo about themrunning Linux. It wasn't until someone downloaded one of their firmware "updates" that they figured out it was a compressed Linux Distro! Afterwards all hell broke loose as Linksys tried to NOT honor the GPL. In the end they were not only forced to honor the GPL for the WRT54 but for several other devices too once folks started looking HARD at their firmware.
The new WRT54 boxes run another OS entirely and have less powerful hardware and less memory. Nevertheless the folks at DD-WRT have figured out how to load up Linux and get greater functionality from it - tip them please! While you're at it smack Sveasoft for dodging the GPL - grr!
Anyway, Linksys did NOT embrace the hackling community at all. They do now offer a Linux friendly WRT54 but only because people bitched when they switched to the new hardware and different OS. Try finding one of those at the local BestBuy..... The source mods are only up for their firmware becasue they were forced to do so. They did go a bit further than required and also provide a toolchain as I recall but not without arm twisting. TIVO is just as bad....
They make it sound like TIVO offers some huge help for hackers. In the beginning I'm pretty sure some arm twisting had to be done to even get them to post the changes they made to source per the GPL requirement. Even if that's not true look at what we have today - S2.5 boxes and S3 boxes. The S2.5 requires a hardware mod to the SMT PROM in order to modify the software signatures so modified kernels can be run. The S3, last I checked Dealdatabase, has yet to be hacked! Why? Because they have seriously locked it down having learned from previous attempts and IMO that sux. I have a DTIVO, which was originally crippled, but is losing favor with my provider. I'd REALLY like an S3 - cost be damned - but it cannot be hacked or at least hasn't yet. The only reason source was ever provided was because they were REQUIRED by the GPL to do so.
I understand that TIVO is being required by the media producers to lobotomize some of the features out of their box. However making it nearly impossible for folks to get in there and put them back is crap. That this article portrays them in any other light is bullshit, TIVO is *not* friendly.
I'd really not ever thought too much about GPL3 until I learned about it's provisions to prevent "TIVOization" of hardware. Now that I understand what it is they're trying to stop I'm all for it. Let the TIVO people of the world burn. If they want to piggyback on other's work then they should not only have to share their mods as source but not be allowed to lock the hardware from other's mods. Don't like it? Then write or buy your own OS and absorb the development costs...