I believe the GSM standards actually mandate encryption. However, such encryption isn't going to do very much to protect you from wiretaps if the wiretapper has the permission from the carrier.
OpenMoko (or other communications platform with open software) + VoIP + AES encryption + Diffie-Hellman (or use RSA and public key cryptography) is the solution if you REALLY need to keep your stuff secret. Even the NSA doesn't have enough computing power to decrypt THAT. And, the same solution could run on a PC or anything else with enough CPU power.
Just as an example of some items I am unable to buy on DVD here in australia but would like to own: Snow White (the pre-WW2 Disney classic) The Real Ghostbusters (the 80s cartoon) Tales Of The Gun (History Channel documentary series) Other History Channel documentaries Space Above And Beyond Hey Dad (classic Aussie sitcom)
Even if you account for the fact that some of them (like some of the History Channel stuff) may in fact be available if you are willing to import from America, there are still plenty of movies and TV episodes that you just plain can't get legally on DVD or from ANY download service anywhere in the world.
I cant find a reference but I remember reading something somewhere about how someone (Panasonic? Canon?) holds a US patent connected with CD/DVD printing or something and that someone posted a "hack" to get a certain US model from a company who wasnt willing to license the patent to print CDs/DVDs (the overseas version of the same printer aparently printed CDs/DVDs because it was sold in countries where there was no patent)
The reason why they would be very reluctant to release a PS3GL module for PS3 linux is because of the things it would open up. For example, with PS3GL, it becomes possible to make a downloadble ISO that (once you have the otheros installer in place) installs on the PS3 and gives you a fully functional Second Life client. Which then competes directly with Sony's new Second Life clone for PS3 Online. No doubt with PS3GL people would make other things that compete with stuff you have to pay for. (Quake 3 on linux anyone?)
Sony wants PS3 linux so people can write things that take advantage of the powerful CELL CPU, not the RSX GPU.
1.Most people don't care about IT security (or where they do care, its way down the list). People don't believe their data is not important enough to bother with keeping it secure. And more to the point, they just don't even KNOW their data is not secure. What I would like to see is for some group or experts or something to do a simulated break-in or hack attack or something and publish all the "stolen" data (i.e. basically something that shows just how insecure peoples data really is and why they need to care about making it secure only with fake systems and data). Show people what could happen to their data if they don't take care of security. Show a fake "clueless user" accessing a fake "phishing email" and giving their fake bank details to a fake "Russian hacker" who then proceeds to clean all the money out of the fake account. And then show that this is NOT fake, its real and is happening every day.
2.No-one has invested any money in making security easier to use. And it IS possible to make security easier to use. For example, why hasn't someone made an email encryption program where you press "encrypt" and it automatically checks public key databases, locates public keys for the recipient and automatically encrypts the email? And I mean a solution that does NOT require purchasing any kind of certificate in order for it to work. (something that uses PGP/GPG as the underlying encryption would be good)
3.Governments and government agencies (especially agencies like the FBI, CIA, NSA and their equivalents all over the world) have a vested interest in NOT seeing IT security get better (at least for normal people) because that makes it harder to find drug barons, child pornographers, music/movie/software pirates, terrorists etc. Also, for many governments that are not democracies (China, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc) encryption makes it harder to engage in state censorship to make sure that the population only sees what the government wants them to see.
4.The laws are too heavily biased in favor of large corporations. Right now, its easier to claim that your product is secure without making it secure than it is to actually make it secure. Laws are needed that introduce stiffer penalties for companies that claim their product does xyz (e.g. "encrypts your files so you can't get at them without a password" "completely trashes all the data if the wrong password has been entered multiple times") when it does not in fact do xyz. If companies couldn't make those claims, either the companies would stop pretending insecure products were actually secure or they would make their products secure. Either way, products that are actually secure become easier to find.
There are already ways to make a flash file and flash content such that you are forced to watch ads before you can see the content. If the viewer decides they don't want to watch the ad, they don't get the content. (in theory you could hack the flash file to skip the ad and display the content but 99.999% of people wont bother doing that).
Plus, again, it comes back to the "flash is installed on a LOT more computers than this new Microsoft thing"
Those who want to offer streaming media have always followed the installed base. It started out with RealPlayer (because they were the first and because they got bundle deals with various internet software). Then a lot of people switched over to Windows Media because it allowed for DRM in ways that Real didn't and because it was being bundled with more and more new PCs and new OS installs (plus Real was becoming crappier). Nowadays, most of the streaming I see is Windows Media (generally for those places where they want DRM) or Flash (because of the large installed base and the ease of which it lets you create totally custom widgets and such to go with and around your media). Some sites are using MPEG audio and video (generally sites where the people running the sites don't care so much if the content is easy to copy, a lot of streaming audio sites and such use MP3 audio because its well supported everywhere). A few rare sites run by mac zealots use Quicktime (although these days Quicktime is on the way out and even Apple is pushing MPEG4 IIRC). Some sites still use RealPlayer (because thats what they have always used). And a few rare sites run by open source pundits use OGG and other estoric formats.
But generally (from what I see online), most people these days are using Windows Media and Flash for streaming media and online content distribution and with the large installed base of both products, I see no reason for anyone to change:)
My current financial institution (Police And Nurses Credit Society, i.e. NOT a bank) actually mentions linux by name (in addition to Windows and OSX) in their "what browsers you can use" list. And they mention Firefox, Mozilla and (on OSX) Camino by name (along with Opera, Safari and various flavors of Netscape and IE) Works just fine in SeaMonkey too (hardly surprising given that its pretty much identical to Firefox when it comes to rendering web pages and such). Wouldn't surprise me if it worked in any browser with enough JavaScript support to handle their on-screen keyboard thing for password entry.
Plus they have nice accounts and don't rape you on fees (except for "using another banks ATM" but everyone charges big fees for that:( )
But yes, there ARE financial institutions with websites that don't suck. (whether there is a BANK with a website that doesn't suck is another question altogether)
Flash has wider support (I think some phone makers even put Flash or a cut-down "Mobile Flash" on their phones) and its installed on many computers already. And, as we have seen with YouTube and other sites, Flash is already in wide use for streaming video and for so-called "interactive applications" (think of all the Flash games and such you see out there)
What makes this Microsoft thing (which has NO installed base at all) good enough that websites other than those who are joined at the hip to MS will switch and start using it in favor of Flash? If anything, the right replacement for Flash is SVG (now if we could convince more browsers to support SVG out of the box and if someone could write a nice auto-download-and-install SVG plugin for all those IE users out there:)
I think even if you are playing 100% non RIAA music and have separate licenses with every single copyright holder you still have to fill in all sorts of paperwork (and probably pay fees to various groups anyway) just to prove to the RIAA that you have never played any RIAA owned songs ever.
3 things: 1.There is this belief among the RIAA that internet radio is a vehicle for piracy (i.e. people saving the songs and getting free copies) 2.Internet radio often plays non RIAA music too and 3.The music that people listen to on internet radio and go and buy (even when its RIAA owned music) is not the music the RIAA wants you to buy.
What I want to know is, given the wide use of USB flash drives and CDs/DVDs (all of which can be booted off), why motherboard manufacturers even bother with supporting ONE floppy drive. I haven't had a floppy drive in my machine for years now. Is the market for "people who want both the latest and greatest motherboard AND a floppy drive" that great? Are there operating systems in current use that will refuse to function without a floppy disk controller?
The big chip centers in the region Taiwan & South Korea are friends with the US. I think that we have more to fear from the chinese blowing Taiwan off the map than we do of any kind of Taiwanese embargo.
How far does it go? Would something like Verizon IPTV count? (because it uses TCP/IP and travels over "the internet" from Verizon's servers to your set top box)
Basically, any time real world money is exchanged for a virtual good (be that an axe in WoW, a ship upgrade in or some L$ in Second Life, it should be taxed just like any physical good or service.
Although games like Second Life where there is a clear currency and a clear officially supported way to convert real world money into L$ and back again muddy the waters (the question then becomes is L$ any different from £, , ¥ or other currencies...)
Better yet, implement micro cells on aircraft with links back to the ground somehow. The phone would talk to the micro cell and not the cells on the ground.
Oh and as for the problems of people saturating the link with BitTorrent traffic, use proper QoS. Basicly, any VoIP or other "latency sensitive" type traffic gets "first go" at the available bandwidth followed by normal use followed by BitTorrent and such. But if I have a 1.5Mbps downstream link and I haven't exceeded the monthly limit yet and no-one else is using the link for anything, I should be able to saturate that link with BitTorrent traffic. If a higher priority request (VoIP, HTTP or whatever else) comes in, it would be given priority and the speed at which my BitTorrent download is going would fall.
What about fixed usage limits (e.g. "20GB per month"). But make those limits the same for everyone on a given plan (none of this "we may or may not cut you off if you are the top bandwidth user in any one month" crap). And clearly specify the bandwidth limits right there in the ads/plan details page/whatever. And when the limit is exceeded, cut the customer off (or better yet, throttle them back to slow speeds for the rest of the billing cycle). Speeds of course would be suitably limited so that no one person can suck down too much at once and hurt everyone else's speed.
With that system, it wouldn't make a difference if someone uses their 20GB (or whatever it is) downloading Linux ISOs over HTTP or FTP, corporate data over a VPN, Videos from YouTube, Star Trek episodes over BitTorrent or voice data through a VoIP link. Thats the point I am trying to make. Data is data and 5GB of Linux ISOs costs the ISP just as much as 5GB of Hollywood blockbusters.
And if the ISP discovers that having their customers actually USE their 20GB per month is costing them too much, they can raise prices or cut usage limits.
If everyone stopped advertising "unlimited" and started making people actually PAY for what they use, this would be a moot point. If someone wants to be on 24/7 downloading from BitTorrent at $5/GB after they exceed the 10GB of included transfer for that month, thats perfectly fine (if they don't pay the huge bill at the end of the month, they will get a black mark on their credit rating or whatever). Here in australia, that is how broadband service is sold (that or "after you use your monthly amount, you get throttled back to 64kbps until the next billing cycle)
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I believe the GSM standards actually mandate encryption. However, such encryption isn't going to do very much to protect you from wiretaps if the wiretapper has the permission from the carrier.
OpenMoko (or other communications platform with open software) + VoIP + AES encryption + Diffie-Hellman (or use RSA and public key cryptography) is the solution if you REALLY need to keep your stuff secret.
Even the NSA doesn't have enough computing power to decrypt THAT. And, the same solution could run on a PC or anything else with enough CPU power.
I am sure that if Disney said that that Apple could distribute its content without DRM, apple would do it.
Just as an example of some items I am unable to buy on DVD here in australia but would like to own:
Snow White (the pre-WW2 Disney classic)
The Real Ghostbusters (the 80s cartoon)
Tales Of The Gun (History Channel documentary series)
Other History Channel documentaries
Space Above And Beyond
Hey Dad (classic Aussie sitcom)
Even if you account for the fact that some of them (like some of the History Channel stuff) may in fact be available if you are willing to import from America, there are still plenty of movies and TV episodes that you just plain can't get legally on DVD or from ANY download service anywhere in the world.
I cant find a reference but I remember reading something somewhere about how someone (Panasonic? Canon?) holds a US patent connected with CD/DVD printing or something and that someone posted a "hack" to get a certain US model from a company who wasnt willing to license the patent to print CDs/DVDs (the overseas version of the same printer aparently printed CDs/DVDs because it was sold in countries where there was no patent)
I think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia's_Naughties t_Home_Videos qualifies as the lowest of the low.
Or does Mono not implement the relavent bit of .NET?
The reason why they would be very reluctant to release a PS3GL module for PS3 linux is because of the things it would open up. For example, with PS3GL, it becomes possible to make a downloadble ISO that (once you have the otheros installer in place) installs on the PS3 and gives you a fully functional Second Life client. Which then competes directly with Sony's new Second Life clone for PS3 Online.
No doubt with PS3GL people would make other things that compete with stuff you have to pay for. (Quake 3 on linux anyone?)
Sony wants PS3 linux so people can write things that take advantage of the powerful CELL CPU, not the RSX GPU.
1.Most people don't care about IT security (or where they do care, its way down the list). People don't believe their data is not important enough to bother with keeping it secure. And more to the point, they just don't even KNOW their data is not secure. What I would like to see is for some group or experts or something to do a simulated break-in or hack attack or something and publish all the "stolen" data (i.e. basically something that shows just how insecure peoples data really is and why they need to care about making it secure only with fake systems and data). Show people what could happen to their data if they don't take care of security. Show a fake "clueless user" accessing a fake "phishing email" and giving their fake bank details to a fake "Russian hacker" who then proceeds to clean all the money out of the fake account. And then show that this is NOT fake, its real and is happening every day.
2.No-one has invested any money in making security easier to use. And it IS possible to make security easier to use. For example, why hasn't someone made an email encryption program where you press "encrypt" and it automatically checks public key databases, locates public keys for the recipient and automatically encrypts the email? And I mean a solution that does NOT require purchasing any kind of certificate in order for it to work. (something that uses PGP/GPG as the underlying encryption would be good)
3.Governments and government agencies (especially agencies like the FBI, CIA, NSA and their equivalents all over the world) have a vested interest in NOT seeing IT security get better (at least for normal people) because that makes it harder to find drug barons, child pornographers, music/movie/software pirates, terrorists etc. Also, for many governments that are not democracies (China, Saudi Arabia, Iran etc) encryption makes it harder to engage in state censorship to make sure that the population only sees what the government wants them to see.
4.The laws are too heavily biased in favor of large corporations. Right now, its easier to claim that your product is secure without making it secure than it is to actually make it secure. Laws are needed that introduce stiffer penalties for companies that claim their product does xyz (e.g. "encrypts your files so you can't get at them without a password" "completely trashes all the data if the wrong password has been entered multiple times") when it does not in fact do xyz. If companies couldn't make those claims, either the companies would stop pretending insecure products were actually secure or they would make their products secure. Either way, products that are actually secure become easier to find.
There are already ways to make a flash file and flash content such that you are forced to watch ads before you can see the content. If the viewer decides they don't want to watch the ad, they don't get the content. (in theory you could hack the flash file to skip the ad and display the content but 99.999% of people wont bother doing that).
:)
Plus, again, it comes back to the "flash is installed on a LOT more computers than this new Microsoft thing"
Those who want to offer streaming media have always followed the installed base. It started out with RealPlayer (because they were the first and because they got bundle deals with various internet software). Then a lot of people switched over to Windows Media because it allowed for DRM in ways that Real didn't and because it was being bundled with more and more new PCs and new OS installs (plus Real was becoming crappier). Nowadays, most of the streaming I see is Windows Media (generally for those places where they want DRM) or Flash (because of the large installed base and the ease of which it lets you create totally custom widgets and such to go with and around your media). Some sites are using MPEG audio and video (generally sites where the people running the sites don't care so much if the content is easy to copy, a lot of streaming audio sites and such use MP3 audio because its well supported everywhere). A few rare sites run by mac zealots use Quicktime (although these days Quicktime is on the way out and even Apple is pushing MPEG4 IIRC). Some sites still use RealPlayer (because thats what they have always used). And a few rare sites run by open source pundits use OGG and other estoric formats.
But generally (from what I see online), most people these days are using Windows Media and Flash for streaming media and online content distribution and with the large installed base of both products, I see no reason for anyone to change
My current financial institution (Police And Nurses Credit Society, i.e. NOT a bank) actually mentions linux by name (in addition to Windows and OSX) in their "what browsers you can use" list. And they mention Firefox, Mozilla and (on OSX) Camino by name (along with Opera, Safari and various flavors of Netscape and IE)
:( )
Works just fine in SeaMonkey too (hardly surprising given that its pretty much identical to Firefox when it comes to rendering web pages and such). Wouldn't surprise me if it worked in any browser with enough JavaScript support to handle their on-screen keyboard thing for password entry.
Plus they have nice accounts and don't rape you on fees (except for "using another banks ATM" but everyone charges big fees for that
But yes, there ARE financial institutions with websites that don't suck. (whether there is a BANK with a website that doesn't suck is another question altogether)
Flash has wider support (I think some phone makers even put Flash or a cut-down "Mobile Flash" on their phones) and its installed on many computers already. And, as we have seen with YouTube and other sites, Flash is already in wide use for streaming video and for so-called "interactive applications" (think of all the Flash games and such you see out there)
:)
What makes this Microsoft thing (which has NO installed base at all) good enough that websites other than those who are joined at the hip to MS will switch and start using it in favor of Flash? If anything, the right replacement for Flash is SVG (now if we could convince more browsers to support SVG out of the box and if someone could write a nice auto-download-and-install SVG plugin for all those IE users out there
I think even if you are playing 100% non RIAA music and have separate licenses with every single copyright holder you still have to fill in all sorts of paperwork (and probably pay fees to various groups anyway) just to prove to the RIAA that you have never played any RIAA owned songs ever.
3 things:
1.There is this belief among the RIAA that internet radio is a vehicle for piracy (i.e. people saving the songs and getting free copies)
2.Internet radio often plays non RIAA music too
and 3.The music that people listen to on internet radio and go and buy (even when its RIAA owned music) is not the music the RIAA wants you to buy.
What I want to know is, given the wide use of USB flash drives and CDs/DVDs (all of which can be booted off), why motherboard manufacturers even bother with supporting ONE floppy drive. I haven't had a floppy drive in my machine for years now. Is the market for "people who want both the latest and greatest motherboard AND a floppy drive" that great? Are there operating systems in current use that will refuse to function without a floppy disk controller?
The big chip centers in the region Taiwan & South Korea are friends with the US.
I think that we have more to fear from the chinese blowing Taiwan off the map than we do of any kind of Taiwanese embargo.
Screw Zeppelin, I want some AC/DC.
How far does it go?
Would something like Verizon IPTV count? (because it uses TCP/IP and travels over "the internet" from Verizon's servers to your set top box)
Basically, any time real world money is exchanged for a virtual good (be that an axe in WoW, a ship upgrade in or some L$ in Second Life, it should be taxed just like any physical good or service.
Although games like Second Life where there is a clear currency and a clear officially supported way to convert real world money into L$ and back again muddy the waters (the question then becomes is L$ any different from £, , ¥ or other currencies...)
Better yet, implement micro cells on aircraft with links back to the ground somehow. The phone would talk to the micro cell and not the cells on the ground.
Oh and as for the problems of people saturating the link with BitTorrent traffic, use proper QoS. Basicly, any VoIP or other "latency sensitive" type traffic gets "first go" at the available bandwidth followed by normal use followed by BitTorrent and such. But if I have a 1.5Mbps downstream link and I haven't exceeded the monthly limit yet and no-one else is using the link for anything, I should be able to saturate that link with BitTorrent traffic. If a higher priority request (VoIP, HTTP or whatever else) comes in, it would be given priority and the speed at which my BitTorrent download is going would fall.
What about fixed usage limits (e.g. "20GB per month"). But make those limits the same for everyone on a given plan (none of this "we may or may not cut you off if you are the top bandwidth user in any one month" crap). And clearly specify the bandwidth limits right there in the ads/plan details page/whatever. And when the limit is exceeded, cut the customer off (or better yet, throttle them back to slow speeds for the rest of the billing cycle). Speeds of course would be suitably limited so that no one person can suck down too much at once and hurt everyone else's speed.
With that system, it wouldn't make a difference if someone uses their 20GB (or whatever it is) downloading Linux ISOs over HTTP or FTP, corporate data over a VPN, Videos from YouTube, Star Trek episodes over BitTorrent or voice data through a VoIP link. Thats the point I am trying to make. Data is data and 5GB of Linux ISOs costs the ISP just as much as 5GB of Hollywood blockbusters.
And if the ISP discovers that having their customers actually USE their 20GB per month is costing them too much, they can raise prices or cut usage limits.
Or have there been other changes (either forced by AOL or done for other reasons)?
If everyone stopped advertising "unlimited" and started making people actually PAY for what they use, this would be a moot point. If someone wants to be on 24/7 downloading from BitTorrent at $5/GB after they exceed the 10GB of included transfer for that month, thats perfectly fine (if they don't pay the huge bill at the end of the month, they will get a black mark on their credit rating or whatever). Here in australia, that is how broadband service is sold (that or "after you use your monthly amount, you get throttled back to 64kbps until the next billing cycle)
Here in australia, we still pay the ADSL "Line Rental", its just that its paid to the ISP who then pays it to Telstra.
The real reason why TiVo does what they do is to prevent people from being able to copy the recorded video off their TiVo.