I think you're missing the scope of this legislation. The studios already use encryption on individual devices, e.g., CSS on DVDs. What this bill does is require an unbroken chain of encryption all the way from the source material up to and including the end user interface (the monitor or TV, the analog audio amplifier, etc.)
Before each device in the chain can pass along the digital data, it must check the next link for compliance. It's like a secret handshake. Before you can begin to download video, for example, the remote server will check your media player with the secret handshake. If your media player isn't SSSCA certified, the remote server won't send the data.
Your media player will, in turn, send the secret handshake to your OS. The OS will check your PC hardware (perhaps the BIOS). The PC will check your Plextor. Even if all of the other links know the secret handshake, when it gets to your old, non-SSSCA Plextor, the chain breaks. You don't get the video.
The studios don't have to maintain backwards compatibility with old hardware. They don't want compatibility. This bill gives them the tool they need to prohibit it. If you want to access SSSCA-protected material, you will have no choice but to buy a brand new, SSSCA-compliant system. You can see why the PC industry isn't too bent about this bill - it means sales for them.
There is a similar furor right now in the HDTV market. There is already a similar standard proposed for digitial HDTV material. It requires everyone from the cable/satellite distributor up through the set manufacturer to include encryption. Once again, no link in the chain is allowed to offer the digital material in unencrypted form. HDTV early adopters are angry because they will have to replace their tuners, and may even have to replace their monitors if this takes effect.
Stocking up on old equipment is a great idea... as long as you also stock up on old source material.
The terrorists are attacking our values and our way of life. Our government officials (U.S.) have a history of manipulating the uninformed and jumping on any opportunity to push their agendas. If our officials cannot rise above this legacy, the terrorists will win.
Please write your congress critters. Let them know that some of us still value our freedoms and our rights.
My company had World Trade Center offices; our parent company was headquartered there and had a data center there. We also have offices all over the U.S. and a fair international presence. Our company has a fairly conservative approach to technology, viewing the revenue-producing, line-of-business applications as critical. Support applications such as office automation were considered nice-to-haves.
Consequently, in our Business Continuity Plan, e-mail was designated a "Tier 2" application. This means that it was slated for recovery only after the critical business applications were restored. It was felt that e-mail was a nice-to-have that could easily be replaced with the telephone and fax in a crisis.
This perception changed dramatically on September 11. We quickly learned how e-mail had become integral to the business. It was the communications mechanism that facilitated most of our internal information exchange. Restoring e-mail moved from second-tier to our highest priority because it was critical to recovery and to communicating with our scattered employees. With hundreds of dislocated people, it was the most reliable way for our clients and our employees to reach specific individuals.
When future historians talk about the way technology revolutionized business, e-mail will be on the list. My company realized we can't do business without it.
In other words the evidence alone would hang him...,
I'm sorry, but I still think people here are making the same mistake they made with the first article - they are assuming that today's story is complete and truthful. I don't make that assumption.
Yes, if the prosecution's version of the story is accurate, West deserves prosecution. He may well be an arrogant jerk who's trying to hide behind a white hat defense. I just can't reach that conclusion based on a press release from the prosecution.
We haven't seen the facts. We are only seeing the prosecution's representation of the facts. We are seeing their version of the story, their spin on what West did, the "facts" as they intended to present them in order to win the case. Even the guilty plea sounds as it if were written by the prosecution: "defendant agree[d] to the following statement of facts." If this had gone to trial, I'll bet the defense would have presented a much different set of "facts".
Our legal system is good, but it is staffed with fallible human beings who make mistakes, have agendas, and sometimes see what they want to see. People are sometimes wrongly prosecuted. I can't imagine a prosecutor in any case saying, "He didn't do anything wrong, but we're going after him anyway."
A press release is a sales tool, crafted to convince us to "buy" the seller's product. It isn't necessarily the truth.
Only one side of the story
on
Brian West Update
·
· Score: 1, Informative
Remember that this was a press release by the prosecutors. It tells the story they want us to hear, just as Brian West told the story he wanted heard. I wouldn't take either at face value.
Brian did something. He may have done something wrong. He faces a "hacking" trial just as there's a national furor about the evils of the Internet. His guilty plea may be a pragmatic decision - accept a slap on the wrist instead of taking a chance with a judge or jury. Certainly we've seen plenty of examples of clueless judges reaching bad decisions because they don't understand technical issues.
(Or because they're owned by the entertainment industry.)
We have opted out of the OS upgrade merry-go-round. We decided to buy whatever OS is current as we buy hardware, letting each old OS variant fade away as we retire PCs. If we can, we may "downgrade" the OS as we receive equipment, e.g., replace XP with Win2K. We are not upgrading existing desktops.
As you point out, there are no compelling feature advantages for business for upgrading to WinXP vs. Win2000 Pro. Although supporting multiple operating systems increases costs somewhat, it doesn't affect the business users. So far, at least, different desktop OS's hasn't impaired interoperability noticably.
As I mentioned elsewhere, the real issue is Office. With Office, the business can see compatibility problems. With the Office suite, we need to keep everyone on the same version or it becomes a support nightmare. Coincidentally, I'm sure, Office licensing is much more expensive than the desktop OS.
We're going through this at my company, and we are not happy. Our least expensive option for 5,000 seats is an Enterprise Agreement - $1.2M per year for three years. The "less expensive" Upgrade Advantage approach costs us more because we're still running Office 97. We have to buy upgrades to Office XP just to qualify for Upgrade Advantage.
Opting out is not a realistic option. While we could remain on Office 97 & NT4/2000 internally forever, our business (as with most businesses) constantly interacts with hundreds of other businesses: partners, clients, and vendors. Unless we can get all of them to stand still on Office, sooner or later, we're going to hit compatibility problems when exchanging documents (and viruses, but that's a different feature). It's a hassle for the business, and it makes us look bad to partners and clients.
Yes, I know that Office XP and Excel XP use file formats that are compatible with Office 97. I don't know that Office 2003 (or whatever it will be called) maintains this compatibility. The way the new MS pricing works, unless you can postpone upgrades for at least four years, it's cheaper to pay up today.
For the same reason, Linux desktops and open source office software are not a realistic option. The business can't afford compatibility problems with third parties. It just isn't worth the risk.
I wonder how expensive MS software has to be, and how onerous their terms have to become, before the MS apologists will acknowledge that MS is, in fact, a monopoly.
Re:Hate to say, sounds like a dot-bomb strategy...
on
HP Buys Compaq
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Anyhow, it seems like HP is picking up a LOT of baggage that they're going to end up throwing away. Sounds like an awfully risky business venture.
I suspect the baggage they'll throw away is HP's. Compaq is strongest where HP is weakest.
HP's greatest strength in computer technology is its printers. It's OK in midrange systems, but Sun and IBM are both stronger. HP's midrange systems are all proprietary today; this means their long-term viability is a crapshoot. Maybe they'll endure, maybe not, time will tell. HP's Intel servers are decent, but their strongest market is with companies that have HP midrange systems. Does HP even do desktops any more (and if so, why)?
Compaq, on the other hand, doesn't do printers. Their "midrange" platform is dead - Alpha fans don't want to accept it, but Compaq has no long-term plans for it. As pointed out elsewhere, both Compaq and HP are looking to Itanium for future midrange gear.
Compaq has the Intel server market nailed. Someone with market numbers chime in please, but I believe they're way ahead of everyone else. Compaq is credible on the desktop. Their major competitors are Dell and IBM. especially on business desks. Finally, Compaq has PDA offerings that HP lacks, and has a successful storage business that HP would benefit from.
All in all, this looks like a good move for HP... if they don't destroy Compaq in the process of assimilating it.
Boy, if you hate SPAM now, I can just see it: come home from work, plop down in the recliner, and fire up the ol' mega-PVR.
"You have mail! Downloading message 1 of 73..."
Two hours later (after everyone in the neighborhood complains about using all their cable bandwidth), you find that the helpful folks with the "FREE PAGERS" have sent you 12 identical infomercials, several fly-by-night lenders sent feature films showing how they can refinance your [mortgage|debt], you have 17 MLM videos that all begin with, "This is NOT an MLM", and a dozen pr0n companies have sent you samples of their latest films (OK, so it's not all bad news).
Meanwhile, Aunt Emma sent the latest home videos forwarded and re-forwarded from distant relatives you've never met ("Here's Johnny Applesmith's complete graduation ceremony. You can see him at about 2:50. Johnny is my neighbor's second cousin-in-law on his uncle's side, twice removed."), Uncle Joe sent a Norton infomercial (fowarded from a friend, etc.) that he wants you to see "RIGHT NOW" because of that "Good Times AV Virus" he heard about (acutally shreds your PVR drive into its component electrons, then melts everything in your freezer, or so he heard from his buddy Tom), and half-a-dozen old friends with way too much time on their hands forward all the latest compilations of stand-up routines snatched from Comedy Central (and each other, over and over again).
Two thoughts:
1. We're going to have to get a bigger Internet.
2. Time to dig out my library card.
(Come to think of it, the pr0n by itself would consume every Hz of available bandwidth. Death of the Intermet, film at 11!)
Technology can be a wonderful thing. Just keep it away from Marketing.
This has been mentioned on Slashdot before
on
Make Your Own DSL
·
· Score: 1
I don't have an article reference handy, but I did bookmark the site:
The SDSL Homebrew Page.
Looks like it was more than a year ago based on the dates and his comment about being Slashdotted.
You may well be right. It's the only Sarnoff patent I found that seems close, but their patents aren't written for casual readers. It may be that Sarnoff now has (or has applied for) subsequent patents that build on this one. I also don't think five years of refinement and testing is that unusual between filing a patent application and announcing commercial uses.
It seems likely, however, that this patent offers some insight into their designs for those who are interested. Here's one brief quote from the patent:
Because the vertical quadrupole coil is powered by a low amplitude signal at horizontal and vertical scan rates, it can be digitally controlled to fine-tune the image resolution. In addition, the stigmator is powered by a low power vertical scan rate signal and may be placed adjacent to metal grids within the electron gun. This reduces the overall length of the CRT and improves image resolution.
Note the references to reducing the length of the CRT and to improving image resolution. There are frequent references to improving image quality throughout the patent. This matches one of the other claims in the article.
Finally, another person speculated that this design might not be very energy-efficient. There are several references that suggest the design may use less power than conventional CRTs.
An individual song isn't a public need, but there is a presumption in our society that the Arts as a whole are vital. Arts and entertainment are a great public need. They fill a void left once man stopped spending 18 hours per day stalking its prey.
The entertainment industry recognizes this need, and crafted a powerful cartel to squeeze every possible dime out of a public hungry for entertainment. Our congress-critters wallow at their trough, and have no inclination to restore balance to the IP issue. If the industry is forced to submit to mandatory licensing, if they can no longer dictate all distribution channels, it will go a long way towards breaking this cartel.
I would also point out that there is precedent for this. Through bulk royalties paid to the RIAA, companies like radio stations are free to play any songs they want. Why couldn't a similar model be used (i.e., required) for Internet entertainment?
The problem with this buyer-beware approach is that it assumes consumers are well-informed. In reality, no person can be well-informed about every product he or she buys. There are too many products and too few hours in the day.
Suzuki undoubtedly mentioned somewhere in its 200-page Samurai manual that sudden, high-speed turns are dangerous. Does that relieve them of the responsibility for making a safe product? If the butcher has a sign in his back room, warning that his meat is contaminated, and a sign out front inviting customers to read the signs in his backroom, is it OK for ignorant consumers to eat the tainted meat?
Tivo's sins are pretty benign in comparison, but the principle still holds. In my opinion, if a product can harm the consumer, even a little, the vendor has an obligation to provide explicit and obvious notification of the possibility. We don't have informed consumers when the negative information is buried in the fine print somewhere.
See the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe for an example in the same vein.
Slashdot Mirror
Before each device in the chain can pass along the digital data, it must check the next link for compliance. It's like a secret handshake. Before you can begin to download video, for example, the remote server will check your media player with the secret handshake. If your media player isn't SSSCA certified, the remote server won't send the data.
Your media player will, in turn, send the secret handshake to your OS. The OS will check your PC hardware (perhaps the BIOS). The PC will check your Plextor. Even if all of the other links know the secret handshake, when it gets to your old, non-SSSCA Plextor, the chain breaks. You don't get the video.
The studios don't have to maintain backwards compatibility with old hardware. They don't want compatibility. This bill gives them the tool they need to prohibit it. If you want to access SSSCA-protected material, you will have no choice but to buy a brand new, SSSCA-compliant system. You can see why the PC industry isn't too bent about this bill - it means sales for them.
There is a similar furor right now in the HDTV market. There is already a similar standard proposed for digitial HDTV material. It requires everyone from the cable/satellite distributor up through the set manufacturer to include encryption. Once again, no link in the chain is allowed to offer the digital material in unencrypted form. HDTV early adopters are angry because they will have to replace their tuners, and may even have to replace their monitors if this takes effect.
Stocking up on old equipment is a great idea ... as long as you also stock up on old source material.
Please write your congress critters. Let them know that some of us still value our freedoms and our rights.
Consequently, in our Business Continuity Plan, e-mail was designated a "Tier 2" application. This means that it was slated for recovery only after the critical business applications were restored. It was felt that e-mail was a nice-to-have that could easily be replaced with the telephone and fax in a crisis.
This perception changed dramatically on September 11. We quickly learned how e-mail had become integral to the business. It was the communications mechanism that facilitated most of our internal information exchange. Restoring e-mail moved from second-tier to our highest priority because it was critical to recovery and to communicating with our scattered employees. With hundreds of dislocated people, it was the most reliable way for our clients and our employees to reach specific individuals.
When future historians talk about the way technology revolutionized business, e-mail will be on the list. My company realized we can't do business without it.
I'm sorry, but I still think people here are making the same mistake they made with the first article - they are assuming that today's story is complete and truthful. I don't make that assumption.
Yes, if the prosecution's version of the story is accurate, West deserves prosecution. He may well be an arrogant jerk who's trying to hide behind a white hat defense. I just can't reach that conclusion based on a press release from the prosecution.
We haven't seen the facts. We are only seeing the prosecution's representation of the facts. We are seeing their version of the story, their spin on what West did, the "facts" as they intended to present them in order to win the case. Even the guilty plea sounds as it if were written by the prosecution: "defendant agree[d] to the following statement of facts." If this had gone to trial, I'll bet the defense would have presented a much different set of "facts".
Our legal system is good, but it is staffed with fallible human beings who make mistakes, have agendas, and sometimes see what they want to see. People are sometimes wrongly prosecuted. I can't imagine a prosecutor in any case saying, "He didn't do anything wrong, but we're going after him anyway."
A press release is a sales tool, crafted to convince us to "buy" the seller's product. It isn't necessarily the truth.
Brian did something. He may have done something wrong. He faces a "hacking" trial just as there's a national furor about the evils of the Internet. His guilty plea may be a pragmatic decision - accept a slap on the wrist instead of taking a chance with a judge or jury. Certainly we've seen plenty of examples of clueless judges reaching bad decisions because they don't understand technical issues.
(Or because they're owned by the entertainment industry.)
As you point out, there are no compelling feature advantages for business for upgrading to WinXP vs. Win2000 Pro. Although supporting multiple operating systems increases costs somewhat, it doesn't affect the business users. So far, at least, different desktop OS's hasn't impaired interoperability noticably.
As I mentioned elsewhere, the real issue is Office. With Office, the business can see compatibility problems. With the Office suite, we need to keep everyone on the same version or it becomes a support nightmare. Coincidentally, I'm sure, Office licensing is much more expensive than the desktop OS.
Opting out is not a realistic option. While we could remain on Office 97 & NT4/2000 internally forever, our business (as with most businesses) constantly interacts with hundreds of other businesses: partners, clients, and vendors. Unless we can get all of them to stand still on Office, sooner or later, we're going to hit compatibility problems when exchanging documents (and viruses, but that's a different feature). It's a hassle for the business, and it makes us look bad to partners and clients.
Yes, I know that Office XP and Excel XP use file formats that are compatible with Office 97. I don't know that Office 2003 (or whatever it will be called) maintains this compatibility. The way the new MS pricing works, unless you can postpone upgrades for at least four years, it's cheaper to pay up today.
For the same reason, Linux desktops and open source office software are not a realistic option. The business can't afford compatibility problems with third parties. It just isn't worth the risk.
I wonder how expensive MS software has to be, and how onerous their terms have to become, before the MS apologists will acknowledge that MS is, in fact, a monopoly.
I suspect the baggage they'll throw away is HP's. Compaq is strongest where HP is weakest.
HP's greatest strength in computer technology is its printers. It's OK in midrange systems, but Sun and IBM are both stronger. HP's midrange systems are all proprietary today; this means their long-term viability is a crapshoot. Maybe they'll endure, maybe not, time will tell. HP's Intel servers are decent, but their strongest market is with companies that have HP midrange systems. Does HP even do desktops any more (and if so, why)?
Compaq, on the other hand, doesn't do printers. Their "midrange" platform is dead - Alpha fans don't want to accept it, but Compaq has no long-term plans for it. As pointed out elsewhere, both Compaq and HP are looking to Itanium for future midrange gear.
Compaq has the Intel server market nailed. Someone with market numbers chime in please, but I believe they're way ahead of everyone else. Compaq is credible on the desktop. Their major competitors are Dell and IBM. especially on business desks. Finally, Compaq has PDA offerings that HP lacks, and has a successful storage business that HP would benefit from.
All in all, this looks like a good move for HP ... if they don't destroy Compaq in the process of assimilating it.
-- This space for rent.
Boy, if you hate SPAM now, I can just see it: come home from work, plop down in the recliner, and fire up the ol' mega-PVR.
"You have mail! Downloading message 1 of 73 ..."
Two hours later (after everyone in the neighborhood complains about using all their cable bandwidth), you find that the helpful folks with the "FREE PAGERS" have sent you 12 identical infomercials, several fly-by-night lenders sent feature films showing how they can refinance your [mortgage|debt], you have 17 MLM videos that all begin with, "This is NOT an MLM", and a dozen pr0n companies have sent you samples of their latest films (OK, so it's not all bad news).
Meanwhile, Aunt Emma sent the latest home videos forwarded and re-forwarded from distant relatives you've never met ("Here's Johnny Applesmith's complete graduation ceremony. You can see him at about 2:50. Johnny is my neighbor's second cousin-in-law on his uncle's side, twice removed."), Uncle Joe sent a Norton infomercial (fowarded from a friend, etc.) that he wants you to see "RIGHT NOW" because of that "Good Times AV Virus" he heard about (acutally shreds your PVR drive into its component electrons, then melts everything in your freezer, or so he heard from his buddy Tom), and half-a-dozen old friends with way too much time on their hands forward all the latest compilations of stand-up routines snatched from Comedy Central (and each other, over and over again).
Two thoughts:
1. We're going to have to get a bigger Internet.
2. Time to dig out my library card.
(Come to think of it, the pr0n by itself would consume every Hz of available bandwidth. Death of the Intermet, film at 11!)
Technology can be a wonderful thing. Just keep it away from Marketing.
Looks like it was more than a year ago based on the dates and his comment about being Slashdotted.
It seems likely, however, that this patent offers some insight into their designs for those who are interested. Here's one brief quote from the patent: Because the vertical quadrupole coil is powered by a low amplitude signal at horizontal and vertical scan rates, it can be digitally controlled to fine-tune the image resolution. In addition, the stigmator is powered by a low power vertical scan rate signal and may be placed adjacent to metal grids within the electron gun. This reduces the overall length of the CRT and improves image resolution.
Note the references to reducing the length of the CRT and to improving image resolution. There are frequent references to improving image quality throughout the patent. This matches one of the other claims in the article.
Finally, another person speculated that this design might not be very energy-efficient. There are several references that suggest the design may use less power than conventional CRTs.
For what it's worth.
Links:
IBM/Delphion
US Patent Office
The entertainment industry recognizes this need, and crafted a powerful cartel to squeeze every possible dime out of a public hungry for entertainment. Our congress-critters wallow at their trough, and have no inclination to restore balance to the IP issue. If the industry is forced to submit to mandatory licensing, if they can no longer dictate all distribution channels, it will go a long way towards breaking this cartel.
I would also point out that there is precedent for this. Through bulk royalties paid to the RIAA, companies like radio stations are free to play any songs they want. Why couldn't a similar model be used (i.e., required) for Internet entertainment?
Suzuki undoubtedly mentioned somewhere in its 200-page Samurai manual that sudden, high-speed turns are dangerous. Does that relieve them of the responsibility for making a safe product? If the butcher has a sign in his back room, warning that his meat is contaminated, and a sign out front inviting customers to read the signs in his backroom, is it OK for ignorant consumers to eat the tainted meat?
Tivo's sins are pretty benign in comparison, but the principle still holds. In my opinion, if a product can harm the consumer, even a little, the vendor has an obligation to provide explicit and obvious notification of the possibility. We don't have informed consumers when the negative information is buried in the fine print somewhere.
See the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe for an example in the same vein.