High end cameras have had this for at least a year. The autofocus is driven by "watching" the photographers eye, working out what part of the image they are looking at. In use it's uncanny - initially you've got to learn to be careful where you are looking, or the picture is ruined. Needless to say, the Canon I played with was megabucks, and I don't have one....
Good question. Anyone setting out to build custom software as part of a formal contract will have dozens of binders of functional specs, operability requirements, performance specs etc that precisely define how the system will work. The testing will be designed to demonstrate that the system hits these criteria - and only when the criteria are met, does the contractor get paid. OK - so I've described the ideal example, but you get the idea.
Transfer this to the commercial (bulk) market. What is the functional spec of Win 2k? When you buy a copy, do you review it, and make MS fix it if it doesn't meet your requirements? No - you don't, and this applies equally to Solaris, HP-UX, Oracle and all of the rest. With Linux, you can fix it - but you are still up against the problem of laying your hands on the specs. Yes, I know you can read the code.....
The next problem is the general purpose nature of the products. If I design a database to process particular transactions, I can usually state that on a given platform it will do x transations a second. If I sell a database product, then it might be used for anything - I have no control over the environment. By definition, the specs are based on examples - but they will be nothing like what I am doing. If something goes wrong - whose fault is it?
As a driver in the UK, I'm reasonably well qualified to comment....
1) The current UK tax regime punishes the ownership of cars, not their use. Once you have paid for the car (+tax), insured it (+tax), paid for the "road fund licence" (==tax), the cost of the petrol is trivial. Simple calculation: you pay £20K for a car, you will lose approx £10K in 3 years. It will cost you about £0.7K to insure - so your annual bill is about £3K. By comparison, £3K buys you a LOT of petrol, even at UK rates. The figures are much worse if you have a company car - the tax on these is getting silly.
2) Once you have decided to own the car, then the decision to use it rather than public transport is a no-brainer. I did a 260 mile return trip last weekend: cost of petrol £67 (OK, so it's a 4.2 litre engine....), cost of the rail fare for 2 of us: £120.
3) Certainly in the south east of England, there is no such thing as "peak-time". I have been stuck in jams at 2am. It's insane.
4) The people planning this need to do some maths. There are about 10m cars in the UK (guess). The control box in the car will cost at least £100. (£1000 million spent). The cost of running it will be at least £100 per annum (another £1000 million per year). Those kind of figures buy a lot of trains.
5) Just how will law enforcement work? Say I cover the beacon in tin foil. Will the black helicopters pounce on me as soon as I get the car out of the garage? The police in the UK can't deal with stolen cars, let alone "cars that don't transmit a particular frequency".
6) Public transport is a shambles. When you drive, you are at least guaranteed a seat. You may be stuck in a jam, so your journey time may be longer than expected. Taking the train, you may not get a seat, and the journey time is no less reliable.
I almost hope that something as daft as this happens - because its implementation will expose the incompetence of the politicans (of any flavour) who claim to run this country.
1) That this copy protection will be common place in 2 years time
2) I still want to listen to "new" music in 2 years time
Then I will have been forced into criminal activity. MP3 is my format of choice - it is convenient and easy. In the future, if I want to listen to music in the car, then I will have to download it illegally. I will have no choice but to do this. Eventually I will get pissed off with buying useless plastic discs to satisfy my conscience, and they will have lost another revenue stream.
Message to the industry:
1) A large proportion of your future customers use MP3. (i.e. anyone under the age of 15 today). By doing this you are forcing them to "go pirate".
2) A large proportion of your current customers use MP3. You are making enemies of them. This is bad marketing.
3) It's been said before, and I'll say it again. It takes one copy of a CD to be made digitally, and you've lost. The story showed that this is possible - although it says that the protection is effective, it isn't. They made a copy - and that's all it takes. Even if one person makes a really good analogue transfer, then you've lost.
The best move I made was to put the TV in a room that was just for watching the TV. It's at the top of the house, and I have to make a conscious decision to go and watch it. In the winter its pretty cold up there too which is another reason not to stay too long.
With a TV in your main living area, the temptation to check out what's on is overwhelming. Switch it on - and suddenly its like your brain has been sucked out...and you've been sitting there for hours. This article indicates that there is a bit of science in this process. We are conditioned to switch it on (it makes us feel good), and then we are captivated by rapid movement (because we are hardwired to associate movement to indicate "prey"...or "predator").
Another thing. Don't get satellite. It takes an hour to work out there is nothing worth watching. With 5 channels in here in the UK, I can work this out in about 20 seconds.
- Have lots of spare time
- Don't have much money
- Are subject to a LOT of peer pressure in respect of the technology/clothes/whatever they own.
MTV aim to satisfy them by:
- Stopping them from ripping their friends CDs
- Appealing to "convenience" (look, you don't have to waste time with normal PCs and that Linux stuff...)
- Guaranteeing that they will have the credibility in class of an AOLer
Am I the only person who sees something strange in this...or do you need a qualification in marketing to see how this works?
I think that you are buying the same story that the execs of large companies are buying.
Salesman "If you apply our whizzy crypto, then 95% of people won't be able to crack this"
Marketing "95% reduction in piracy? Cool, how much?"
Big mistake. Take my own example. I am not a 1337 haXor d00d. In fact I am closer to a PHB than a geek. However, I can rip CDs, de-crypt DVDs, circumvent region codes, and now de-crypt HDTV - because some clever people have put the tools in my hands.
So how many of the 95% can do this? All of them. How many will? I don't know - but when my friends see me watching a Region 1 DVD on my Region 2 laptop, I just grin and give them the tools...and suddenly the DMCA has a new enemy....
First up, this is pure hunch, so flame on if I'm wrong. There seems to be two pieces to this problem:
1) The TOC appears to be nailed so that many players looking for data can't find it. Stereo components look for the lead in track - not the TOC, so they are unaffected. PS2s and PCs look for the TOC - hence are affected.
2) If your player overcomes the TOC issue, then the data itself is full of errors that can be fixed by a domestic D-A converter, but not by blindly accepting the data (as PCs tend to do if the CRCs stack up). The algorithms in the domestic D-A converters are well known.
Neither of these problems seem impossible to resolve. I give it 3 months before all rippers have a check box labelled "rip as domestic CD player" or similar. This is not an "encryption challenge". It is a challenge of emulating a domestic CD player's D-A converter in software. This is the achilles heel: they have to maintain compatability with the huge installed base of CD players out there.
A closed device that contains its own storage is bound to be a failure in the long term:
1) 30 Gb is not enough. OK, its fine for this year - but I've got about 20 Gb of media, and that covers about 1/8 of my CD collection, let alone the DVDs
2) We all know that hard drives break. If you are doing this seriously you need RAID, or some form of backup. Am I the only person who thinks that the DAT market is about to explode as we all realise that we have 10s of Gb at risk?
So what I'd like is:
1) A dirty great PC (hidden away) that has an arbitrary quantity of disk (200 Gb RAID 5?), a tape drive and a network connection. Linux, 2K, whatever, as long as it can export a file system.
2) A nice SMALL, ELEGANT device that sits with the TV/stereo. It can play video, mp3, whatever - all accessed over the network. It only needs enough flash rom/ram to hold a simple OS and be updateable with new codecs/formats etc. Hell, I'd like several of these things all over the house, all served from the central PC. Use the TV screen to display the menu, or have a simple LCD like the current HDD based mp3 players.
I would easily pay $500 for such a gadget. I'll build the file server myself - probably using all of the noisy HDDs that are currently spinning under my desk.
You could try this. But at "fleabag.com" we use one time passwords generated by cryptocards for network access that originates outside a secure location.:-)
Where I work, we have a network segement that requires no log in. Assuming you have a laptop, you can connect and get internet access - you need no special software on your machine. You are firewalled (properly) from everything else. Activity is monitored by the IP address you are assigned: if you are doing something silly, you would be booted off. ( I think the monitoring is automatic, and based on bandwidth consumed - not sure)
The whole point of this is that when people come in to do a presentation, they can get internet access without bothering the support team. Mucking around with VPN software etc on someone elses laptop always ends in tears.
How many of these wireless networks are the same sort of thing? If people started to leech in earnest then more security would be applied.
About the only thing I haven't seen mentioned is phasing. If you have a huge problem, cut it up into pieces...
Release 1: Architecture + a tiny bit of functionality
Release 2: A load more functionality
Release 3: All of the functionality
By the time you get to later releases, great chunks of the system are robust and tested. Release 1 is the danger point - so make it as small as possible (while still being useful). When you get to Release 3, you know how long it will take to implement each function point (or however you measure it). Trying to do something complex in one go is much more likely to fail.
Add to that:
1) Robust change management. When the dude from marketing comes down, you need to be in a position to say "OK, you can have that feature, but it will take an extra month, and cost another $1m"
2) Development architecture (i.e. when the environments get hosed, you can be back up in minutes not days)
3) Metrics and reporting - so you know you are late a day after it happens
4) Decent planning - go in on 7 hour days, 5 days a week. Also highlight that you will need 2 servers etc for the performance testing, rather than getting people in at night.
....and you have a manageable project. Obviously this is for projects that are known quantities (e.g billing, mortgages). Anyone doing research or real cutting edge development has a much harder job.
Slashdot Mirror
High end cameras have had this for at least a year. The autofocus is driven by "watching" the photographers eye, working out what part of the image they are looking at. In use it's uncanny - initially you've got to learn to be careful where you are looking, or the picture is ruined. Needless to say, the Canon I played with was megabucks, and I don't have one....
Good question. Anyone setting out to build custom software as part of a formal contract will have dozens of binders of functional specs, operability requirements, performance specs etc that precisely define how the system will work. The testing will be designed to demonstrate that the system hits these criteria - and only when the criteria are met, does the contractor get paid. OK - so I've described the ideal example, but you get the idea.
Transfer this to the commercial (bulk) market. What is the functional spec of Win 2k? When you buy a copy, do you review it, and make MS fix it if it doesn't meet your requirements? No - you don't, and this applies equally to Solaris, HP-UX, Oracle and all of the rest. With Linux, you can fix it - but you are still up against the problem of laying your hands on the specs. Yes, I know you can read the code.....
The next problem is the general purpose nature of the products. If I design a database to process particular transactions, I can usually state that on a given platform it will do x transations a second. If I sell a database product, then it might be used for anything - I have no control over the environment. By definition, the specs are based on examples - but they will be nothing like what I am doing. If something goes wrong - whose fault is it?
As a driver in the UK, I'm reasonably well qualified to comment....
1) The current UK tax regime punishes the ownership of cars, not their use. Once you have paid for the car (+tax), insured it (+tax), paid for the "road fund licence" (==tax), the cost of the petrol is trivial. Simple calculation: you pay £20K for a car, you will lose approx £10K in 3 years. It will cost you about £0.7K to insure - so your annual bill is about £3K. By comparison, £3K buys you a LOT of petrol, even at UK rates. The figures are much worse if you have a company car - the tax on these is getting silly.
2) Once you have decided to own the car, then the decision to use it rather than public transport is a no-brainer. I did a 260 mile return trip last weekend: cost of petrol £67 (OK, so it's a 4.2 litre engine....), cost of the rail fare for 2 of us: £120.
3) Certainly in the south east of England, there is no such thing as "peak-time". I have been stuck in jams at 2am. It's insane.
4) The people planning this need to do some maths. There are about 10m cars in the UK (guess). The control box in the car will cost at least £100. (£1000 million spent). The cost of running it will be at least £100 per annum (another £1000 million per year). Those kind of figures buy a lot of trains.
5) Just how will law enforcement work? Say I cover the beacon in tin foil. Will the black helicopters pounce on me as soon as I get the car out of the garage? The police in the UK can't deal with stolen cars, let alone "cars that don't transmit a particular frequency".
6) Public transport is a shambles. When you drive, you are at least guaranteed a seat. You may be stuck in a jam, so your journey time may be longer than expected. Taking the train, you may not get a seat, and the journey time is no less reliable.
I almost hope that something as daft as this happens - because its implementation will expose the incompetence of the politicans (of any flavour) who claim to run this country.
If I make 2 assumptions:
1) That this copy protection will be common place in 2 years time
2) I still want to listen to "new" music in 2 years time
Then I will have been forced into criminal activity. MP3 is my format of choice - it is convenient and easy. In the future, if I want to listen to music in the car, then I will have to download it illegally. I will have no choice but to do this. Eventually I will get pissed off with buying useless plastic discs to satisfy my conscience, and they will have lost another revenue stream.
Message to the industry:
1) A large proportion of your future customers use MP3. (i.e. anyone under the age of 15 today). By doing this you are forcing them to "go pirate".
2) A large proportion of your current customers use MP3. You are making enemies of them. This is bad marketing.
3) It's been said before, and I'll say it again. It takes one copy of a CD to be made digitally, and you've lost. The story showed that this is possible - although it says that the protection is effective, it isn't. They made a copy - and that's all it takes. Even if one person makes a really good analogue transfer, then you've lost.
The best move I made was to put the TV in a room that was just for watching the TV. It's at the top of the house, and I have to make a conscious decision to go and watch it. In the winter its pretty cold up there too which is another reason not to stay too long.
With a TV in your main living area, the temptation to check out what's on is overwhelming. Switch it on - and suddenly its like your brain has been sucked out...and you've been sitting there for hours. This article indicates that there is a bit of science in this process. We are conditioned to switch it on (it makes us feel good), and then we are captivated by rapid movement (because we are hardwired to associate movement to indicate "prey"...or "predator").
Another thing. Don't get satellite. It takes an hour to work out there is nothing worth watching. With 5 channels in here in the UK, I can work this out in about 20 seconds.
People at college...
- Have lots of spare time
- Don't have much money
- Are subject to a LOT of peer pressure in respect of the technology/clothes/whatever they own.
MTV aim to satisfy them by:
- Stopping them from ripping their friends CDs
- Appealing to "convenience" (look, you don't have to waste time with normal PCs and that Linux stuff...)
- Guaranteeing that they will have the credibility in class of an AOLer
Am I the only person who sees something strange in this...or do you need a qualification in marketing to see how this works?
I think that you are buying the same story that the execs of large companies are buying.
Salesman "If you apply our whizzy crypto, then 95% of people won't be able to crack this"
Marketing "95% reduction in piracy? Cool, how much?"
Big mistake. Take my own example. I am not a 1337 haXor d00d. In fact I am closer to a PHB than a geek. However, I can rip CDs, de-crypt DVDs, circumvent region codes, and now de-crypt HDTV - because some clever people have put the tools in my hands.
So how many of the 95% can do this? All of them. How many will? I don't know - but when my friends see me watching a Region 1 DVD on my Region 2 laptop, I just grin and give them the tools...and suddenly the DMCA has a new enemy....
First up, this is pure hunch, so flame on if I'm wrong. There seems to be two pieces to this problem:
1) The TOC appears to be nailed so that many players looking for data can't find it. Stereo components look for the lead in track - not the TOC, so they are unaffected. PS2s and PCs look for the TOC - hence are affected.
2) If your player overcomes the TOC issue, then the data itself is full of errors that can be fixed by a domestic D-A converter, but not by blindly accepting the data (as PCs tend to do if the CRCs stack up). The algorithms in the domestic D-A converters are well known.
Neither of these problems seem impossible to resolve. I give it 3 months before all rippers have a check box labelled "rip as domestic CD player" or similar. This is not an "encryption challenge". It is a challenge of emulating a domestic CD player's D-A converter in software. This is the achilles heel: they have to maintain compatability with the huge installed base of CD players out there.
A closed device that contains its own storage is bound to be a failure in the long term:
1) 30 Gb is not enough. OK, its fine for this year - but I've got about 20 Gb of media, and that covers about 1/8 of my CD collection, let alone the DVDs
2) We all know that hard drives break. If you are doing this seriously you need RAID, or some form of backup. Am I the only person who thinks that the DAT market is about to explode as we all realise that we have 10s of Gb at risk?
So what I'd like is:
1) A dirty great PC (hidden away) that has an arbitrary quantity of disk (200 Gb RAID 5?), a tape drive and a network connection. Linux, 2K, whatever, as long as it can export a file system.
2) A nice SMALL, ELEGANT device that sits with the TV/stereo. It can play video, mp3, whatever - all accessed over the network. It only needs enough flash rom/ram to hold a simple OS and be updateable with new codecs/formats etc. Hell, I'd like several of these things all over the house, all served from the central PC. Use the TV screen to display the menu, or have a simple LCD like the current HDD based mp3 players.
I would easily pay $500 for such a gadget. I'll build the file server myself - probably using all of the noisy HDDs that are currently spinning under my desk.
You could try this. But at "fleabag.com" we use one time passwords generated by cryptocards for network access that originates outside a secure location. :-)
The MCSE gag was hurtful....
Where I work, we have a network segement that requires no log in. Assuming you have a laptop, you can connect and get internet access - you need no special software on your machine. You are firewalled (properly) from everything else. Activity is monitored by the IP address you are assigned: if you are doing something silly, you would be booted off. ( I think the monitoring is automatic, and based on bandwidth consumed - not sure)
The whole point of this is that when people come in to do a presentation, they can get internet access without bothering the support team. Mucking around with VPN software etc on someone elses laptop always ends in tears.
How many of these wireless networks are the same sort of thing? If people started to leech in earnest then more security would be applied.
About the only thing I haven't seen mentioned is phasing. If you have a huge problem, cut it up into pieces...
Release 1: Architecture + a tiny bit of functionality
Release 2: A load more functionality
Release 3: All of the functionality
By the time you get to later releases, great chunks of the system are robust and tested. Release 1 is the danger point - so make it as small as possible (while still being useful). When you get to Release 3, you know how long it will take to implement each function point (or however you measure it). Trying to do something complex in one go is much more likely to fail.
Add to that:
1) Robust change management. When the dude from marketing comes down, you need to be in a position to say "OK, you can have that feature, but it will take an extra month, and cost another $1m"
2) Development architecture (i.e. when the environments get hosed, you can be back up in minutes not days)
3) Metrics and reporting - so you know you are late a day after it happens
4) Decent planning - go in on 7 hour days, 5 days a week. Also highlight that you will need 2 servers etc for the performance testing, rather than getting people in at night.
....and you have a manageable project. Obviously this is for projects that are known quantities (e.g billing, mortgages). Anyone doing research or real cutting edge development has a much harder job.
"COMPUTER: format /dev/hdc -are you sure?"
"USER: duh, was that turn the key left or right?"
Even when I am as drunk as I am now, I know that the drive with all my work on it is OK, because it is unplugged and in a drawer.....