Its been out for over a week in quite a few places in London AFAIK, how come they've only just reviewed it? Fans of the book are going to watch it even if it gets 1 star, simply because of the novelty aspect - that's how most mainstream films work these days, converting cartoons to film to satisfy curiosity, remaking films that didn't have the latest special effects etc. its pretty sad really. I was hoping that while this had a novelty aspect it would also be a well made film that could stand up on its own, but i haven't gotten around to seeing it yet so i'll shut up..
I swipe/insert some sort of card probably about 10 times on an average day out. There are these stupid wireless cards on the train (optional) but that requires getting your wallet out and wiping it over a pad which lets face it is hardly a great difference to opening your wallet and taking something out.
magstripes yes, but smart-cards (i chips with metal contacts) no. RFID is basically taking a smart-card and getting rid of the contacts for no reason. I can stick a card in a reader in a second, and by what they're saying here, you'll need to scan your passport to read the code on the page and then it will talk wirelessly, we all know how reliable image scanning is, this is just over the top.
no matter what sort of encryption or pass-key system you use or how 'short range' it is: RFID is inherently less secure than contact-chips just like guns are inherently less safe than night-sticks. (thats not bait for a gun flame)
I think they need to just issue a second type of passport with a thick wad of pages for frequent travellers, but for most people its just a few times a year.
Exactly, but when its a question of a phone being computerised, having encryption will add almost nothing to the cost - it might as well be default - Skype is for example, you never have to deal with it.
Sounds like an improvement but its simply shocking that they screwed this up so bad the first time. Although i disagree with biometrics - a photo is acceptable but iris and finger prints don't have me convinced. There are only two ways to steal a finger-print: lift it off a table/cup, or cut someones finger off, i guarantee both of those will become more common in the near future, same with eyes, and when high enough resolution imaging becomes a reality you'll be able to steal that with ease too (not to mention the minority report method..) The other issue is the opposite of stealing: destroying someones ability to identify themselves (maybe to stop them leaving the country?) i'll leave out the grisly scenarios. In short i just don't think we have such a problem that we need to replace current passports - 'terrorists' are generally not stupid enough to enter illegally or be on wanted lists, these passports WILL be faked its just a matter of time and when it happens there will be a delay before people accept that the system is broken. Current anti-forgery techniques in passports seem to work - faking a real object is often much harder than computer data. And lastly, passports already have computer-readable data at the bottom!
if its done end to end by the phone, then theres not much they can do - people will be able to download software/firmware to get rid of any 'back doors' that might be introduced, the only thing left is to trick the users phone into negotiating a key with a 'man in the middle' instead of the other users phone, this can be stopped by simply comfirming the key with the other caller during the call, or just arrange a key in real life. While this worries me for real situations (terrorism etc) where the police probably should be able to tap, its the natural course of the technology and they will just have to find another way to do things.
'1 inch' wireless technology is never 1 inch, thats akin to assuming the titanic is unsinkable, hell even contact-based chips could theoretically be accessed by some complex induction in the future but thats pretty much the best we can do. Even if it was 1 inch thats still enough to brush past someone with a reader.
This proposed system of 'scanning' the passport to get the key and then wirelessly linking is just insane, they're just using this technology because contractors told them it was 'hot' and showed them a powerpoint slide - we all know how these things work.
Or how about just NOT using RFID in passports and instead using tried and tested chips or strips? And no, not having to replace worn out passports is does not take priority over privacy and security, most people don't use their passports more than a dozen times a year anyway, I use my debit card every day and the chip is fine, theres no excuse to use RFID.
As soon as even low grade encryption becomes common the police are going to be screwed. The only reason normal phone lines arn't encrypted phone-to-phone is because it would be a hassle and would lower the quality (some sort of 56k modem in your phone, unless you can do some other trickery modulating with noise). As soon as you get to the realm of VoIP and phones have some processing power encryption starts to become something a system just 'might as well do'. Obviously man-in-the-middle would be a possibility but its trivial to just make a call and at the start read out a portion of your key and let the other person confirm it.
Seriously this has to stop, trade marks are not shares in the English language. 'Tiger' the software company is not the same as 'Apple OSX Tiger' the software PRODUCT and certainly not the same as a series of products all named after cats. Although im certain Apple would be on the other end of the lawsuit if TigerDirect released a product called "Tiger Apple"
Skype can connect to POTS for both incoming and outgoing calls at very decent prices (long distance etc). You can get your own real number and probably get a forward too, and also do conferencing (with other skype users and real phone numbers). Many people leave their PCs on all day and can hear the ring just like a normal phone, it also supports USB handsets and comes for Mac, Linux and Pocket PC - i've conferenced with someone on a Mac and another on wireless Pocket PC at the same time its great. If you have a reasonable connection and a decent microphone the quality is far better than POTS and doesn't even hog the bandwidth (running at the same time as VNC or P2P apps is possible on my 512Kb). Obviously the number-one advantage of Skype coupled with the average flat-fee always on broadband connection: Its free and has saved me countless hours of phone costs.
These scare tactics seem to be working on some level, but its pretty clear that (copyright) file-sharing will evolve back (de-evolve?) to close-nit networks on IM/IRC but with lesions learnt from P2P - the next generation of file sharing apps will be orientated so that you share with friends and friends of friends, kinda like basic file-transfers on say AIM but more sophisticated, and kinda like Kazaa but less random these networks will be far harder for the RIAA etc to infiltrate but will probably result in less traffic overall.
How do they actually measure how many films someone has 'uploaded' with bittorrent? since you usually upload only small chunks to many people you might have helped 1000 people get a file but in fact only uploaded a few MB, you may have uploaded 100% of the file to 100 people or 1% of the file to 100 people. Obviously the MPIA want to use the higher statistic to get more money, but how do they do it?
How about just dropping the idea of civil and criminal courts all together? Hell fuck it, while were at it, 'rule of law' is an out-dated idea and not allowing people to pay money to get bills passed is practically to communism!
Engines are not part of a plane so its not too hard to convert them. Also we have oil for around 40 years by which time these planes will be just about at the end of their lives.
I think quite a few students might think twice about a university if they read a story about it turning people in to the RIAA. Unfortunately the RIAA have no need to worry about publicity because they don't deal with consumers.
Firefox: Because it is the _only_ cross platform browser and one of the most standards compliant browsers. If 99% of people used IE I would be happy but since people are intent on using exotic browsers such as Safari and Mac IE web developing (in a realistic commercial context) is a nightmare. I don't have a problem with text-based browsers because they render fine if your styling with css, its just stupid bugs and differences between browsers that can make positioning a div like trying to push a drunk man onto the carefully chalk-marked spot you set under a 3 ton stack of building supplies.
OpenOffice: Because your school/uni etc shouldn't waste all that money (money which affects you) on Microsoft Office.
There's no excuse even to shorten to 'ctr' with search and replace you can write and test a function with bad variable names and as soon as you've finished or the day is over search and replace some better names... Although a good code editor should auto-complete things and tell you what your variable is a member of and its type.
I didnt say free, most people accept that everything has a price above 0, but most people also don't accept a price above x, the record industry just needs to put their price > 0 & x. Online distribution will see record companies getting less and less and artists getting a higher percentage of the revenue. When anyone is able to afford to start a band on their own and sell online there will be more competition.
Whatever as long as this means stupid parent groups will get off the backs of the game developers. Personally i think digital TV standards should come with a more accurate censorship system, since most countries are about to switch over to digital now is the perfect time to get this into the set top boxes people are about to buy - basically the system should be similar to the v-chip except its user-configurable to censor anything from an entire channel to just a program to just a scene or second or two of video or even black out a portion of the screen and the same with audio. Not only that it should be configurable to be either 'censor all except material flagged ok' or 'only censor material flagged adult' this way its totally optional whether tv networks actually encode their programs but they have the incentive to do so because they know there will be lots of people setting it to censor all by default. This would totally solve all censorship and free-speech issues on both sides of the political spectrum forever.
I think file sharing would die down on its own if the industry stopped pissing about. Give people what they want at the price they want - thats how a market works. I'd say the most likely people to download music of kazaa etc are school kids and university students - neither group has any money and whatever new 'laws' or solutions the industry comes up with people of these ages are going to share music even if they have to go back to swapping and burning CD's with their friends. After a while people grow up and get jobs and disposable money, the music industry has to realise that theres a price range people want to pay and they can either take internet distribution or leave it. The only 'format' thats going to last out is un-DRM'd or a long-time cracked format (DVD for example) lets be honest with ourselves, the format of choice is mp3 and sooner or later mp3s will be sold cheaply online by all labels and they will still rake in the cash.
"I say old chap, shall we play a magnificent joke on the American public?"
"What did you have in mind?"
"Well we'll forgo the usual routine and have the president do an 4 year long impression of a Baboon! It will drive everyone crazy"
"I dare say that's the most ingenious April fools idea I have ever heard"
"Oh that's not the end of it dear fellow: after 4 years we give them the chance to vote him out, but we'll choose an opponent who resembles a science fiction monster! They'll have to vote for one or the other!"
Someone better tell those people that make big LED colour jumbo-trons and dot-matrix scroll displays. Well as long as no-one has tried to stick theirs down a toilet they should be ok. BountyQuest should really have given a courtesy flush and checked the records first.
They voted for socialism its their call. Personally I like it, the masses are generally too stupid to do things the way I want them to, they don't know what's good for them. Left to their own devices people would quite happily buy this crap - the market wouldn't have decided the 'right' way. The government (of the people) steps in and makes everyone do the right thing without actually forcing them to do anything - its pretty much like a union - they vote to strike, everyone has to strike, except in fact no-one is striking, the government aren't stopping people from _buying_ DRM DVD's they are just stopping people from _selling_ them.
Since the government is elected by the 'majority' they decide that everyone must play by the same rules even if the majority in fact don't agree - Its first-round the post, winner-takes-all, im sure America is familiar with those terms. In a way its just like narcotics - although I disagree with banning _some_ drugs because it doesn't actually personally affect me if people buy drugs (crime is a result of banning drugs not the other way around), however it does affect me if people buy into DRM bullshit because then I have no choice but to buy it too (if I want to buy that particular title). At the end of the day I accept both political systems and it wouldn't bother me too much either way, but America certainly isn't perfect in regards to not being a nanny state.
Adobe should just put a little message in so when you try to access a Nikon camera in Photoshop it starts bitching about the DMCA and how Nikon doesn't love their customers as much as other manufacturers.
Slashdot Mirror
Its been out for over a week in quite a few places in London AFAIK, how come they've only just reviewed it? Fans of the book are going to watch it even if it gets 1 star, simply because of the novelty aspect - that's how most mainstream films work these days, converting cartoons to film to satisfy curiosity, remaking films that didn't have the latest special effects etc. its pretty sad really. I was hoping that while this had a novelty aspect it would also be a well made film that could stand up on its own, but i haven't gotten around to seeing it yet so i'll shut up..
I swipe/insert some sort of card probably about 10 times on an average day out. There are these stupid wireless cards on the train (optional) but that requires getting your wallet out and wiping it over a pad which lets face it is hardly a great difference to opening your wallet and taking something out.
magstripes yes, but smart-cards (i chips with metal contacts) no. RFID is basically taking a smart-card and getting rid of the contacts for no reason. I can stick a card in a reader in a second, and by what they're saying here, you'll need to scan your passport to read the code on the page and then it will talk wirelessly, we all know how reliable image scanning is, this is just over the top.
no matter what sort of encryption or pass-key system you use or how 'short range' it is: RFID is inherently less secure than contact-chips just like guns are inherently less safe than night-sticks. (thats not bait for a gun flame)
I think they need to just issue a second type of passport with a thick wad of pages for frequent travellers, but for most people its just a few times a year.
Exactly, but when its a question of a phone being computerised, having encryption will add almost nothing to the cost - it might as well be default - Skype is for example, you never have to deal with it.
Sounds like an improvement but its simply shocking that they screwed this up so bad the first time. Although i disagree with biometrics - a photo is acceptable but iris and finger prints don't have me convinced. There are only two ways to steal a finger-print: lift it off a table/cup, or cut someones finger off, i guarantee both of those will become more common in the near future, same with eyes, and when high enough resolution imaging becomes a reality you'll be able to steal that with ease too (not to mention the minority report method..) The other issue is the opposite of stealing: destroying someones ability to identify themselves (maybe to stop them leaving the country?) i'll leave out the grisly scenarios. In short i just don't think we have such a problem that we need to replace current passports - 'terrorists' are generally not stupid enough to enter illegally or be on wanted lists, these passports WILL be faked its just a matter of time and when it happens there will be a delay before people accept that the system is broken. Current anti-forgery techniques in passports seem to work - faking a real object is often much harder than computer data. And lastly, passports already have computer-readable data at the bottom!
if its done end to end by the phone, then theres not much they can do - people will be able to download software/firmware to get rid of any 'back doors' that might be introduced, the only thing left is to trick the users phone into negotiating a key with a 'man in the middle' instead of the other users phone, this can be stopped by simply comfirming the key with the other caller during the call, or just arrange a key in real life. While this worries me for real situations (terrorism etc) where the police probably should be able to tap, its the natural course of the technology and they will just have to find another way to do things.
'1 inch' wireless technology is never 1 inch, thats akin to assuming the titanic is unsinkable, hell even contact-based chips could theoretically be accessed by some complex induction in the future but thats pretty much the best we can do. Even if it was 1 inch thats still enough to brush past someone with a reader.
This proposed system of 'scanning' the passport to get the key and then wirelessly linking is just insane, they're just using this technology because contractors told them it was 'hot' and showed them a powerpoint slide - we all know how these things work.
Or how about just NOT using RFID in passports and instead using tried and tested chips or strips? And no, not having to replace worn out passports is does not take priority over privacy and security, most people don't use their passports more than a dozen times a year anyway, I use my debit card every day and the chip is fine, theres no excuse to use RFID.
As soon as even low grade encryption becomes common the police are going to be screwed. The only reason normal phone lines arn't encrypted phone-to-phone is because it would be a hassle and would lower the quality (some sort of 56k modem in your phone, unless you can do some other trickery modulating with noise). As soon as you get to the realm of VoIP and phones have some processing power encryption starts to become something a system just 'might as well do'. Obviously man-in-the-middle would be a possibility but its trivial to just make a call and at the start read out a portion of your key and let the other person confirm it.
Seriously this has to stop, trade marks are not shares in the English language. 'Tiger' the software company is not the same as 'Apple OSX Tiger' the software PRODUCT and certainly not the same as a series of products all named after cats. Although im certain Apple would be on the other end of the lawsuit if TigerDirect released a product called "Tiger Apple"
Skype can connect to POTS for both incoming and outgoing calls at very decent prices (long distance etc). You can get your own real number and probably get a forward too, and also do conferencing (with other skype users and real phone numbers). Many people leave their PCs on all day and can hear the ring just like a normal phone, it also supports USB handsets and comes for Mac, Linux and Pocket PC - i've conferenced with someone on a Mac and another on wireless Pocket PC at the same time its great. If you have a reasonable connection and a decent microphone the quality is far better than POTS and doesn't even hog the bandwidth (running at the same time as VNC or P2P apps is possible on my 512Kb). Obviously the number-one advantage of Skype coupled with the average flat-fee always on broadband connection: Its free and has saved me countless hours of phone costs.
These scare tactics seem to be working on some level, but its pretty clear that (copyright) file-sharing will evolve back (de-evolve?) to close-nit networks on IM/IRC but with lesions learnt from P2P - the next generation of file sharing apps will be orientated so that you share with friends and friends of friends, kinda like basic file-transfers on say AIM but more sophisticated, and kinda like Kazaa but less random these networks will be far harder for the RIAA etc to infiltrate but will probably result in less traffic overall.
How do they actually measure how many films someone has 'uploaded' with bittorrent? since you usually upload only small chunks to many people you might have helped 1000 people get a file but in fact only uploaded a few MB, you may have uploaded 100% of the file to 100 people or 1% of the file to 100 people. Obviously the MPIA want to use the higher statistic to get more money, but how do they do it?
we're still all going to shop there for low low prices tho right?
How about just dropping the idea of civil and criminal courts all together? Hell fuck it, while were at it, 'rule of law' is an out-dated idea and not allowing people to pay money to get bills passed is practically to communism!
Engines are not part of a plane so its not too hard to convert them. Also we have oil for around 40 years by which time these planes will be just about at the end of their lives.
I think quite a few students might think twice about a university if they read a story about it turning people in to the RIAA. Unfortunately the RIAA have no need to worry about publicity because they don't deal with consumers.
Firefox: Because it is the _only_ cross platform browser and one of the most standards compliant browsers. If 99% of people used IE I would be happy but since people are intent on using exotic browsers such as Safari and Mac IE web developing (in a realistic commercial context) is a nightmare. I don't have a problem with text-based browsers because they render fine if your styling with css, its just stupid bugs and differences between browsers that can make positioning a div like trying to push a drunk man onto the carefully chalk-marked spot you set under a 3 ton stack of building supplies.
OpenOffice: Because your school/uni etc shouldn't waste all that money (money which affects you) on Microsoft Office.
There's no excuse even to shorten to 'ctr' with search and replace you can write and test a function with bad variable names and as soon as you've finished or the day is over search and replace some better names... Although a good code editor should auto-complete things and tell you what your variable is a member of and its type.
I didnt say free, most people accept that everything has a price above 0, but most people also don't accept a price above x, the record industry just needs to put their price > 0 & x. Online distribution will see record companies getting less and less and artists getting a higher percentage of the revenue. When anyone is able to afford to start a band on their own and sell online there will be more competition.
Whatever as long as this means stupid parent groups will get off the backs of the game developers. Personally i think digital TV standards should come with a more accurate censorship system, since most countries are about to switch over to digital now is the perfect time to get this into the set top boxes people are about to buy - basically the system should be similar to the v-chip except its user-configurable to censor anything from an entire channel to just a program to just a scene or second or two of video or even black out a portion of the screen and the same with audio. Not only that it should be configurable to be either 'censor all except material flagged ok' or 'only censor material flagged adult' this way its totally optional whether tv networks actually encode their programs but they have the incentive to do so because they know there will be lots of people setting it to censor all by default. This would totally solve all censorship and free-speech issues on both sides of the political spectrum forever.
I think file sharing would die down on its own if the industry stopped pissing about. Give people what they want at the price they want - thats how a market works. I'd say the most likely people to download music of kazaa etc are school kids and university students - neither group has any money and whatever new 'laws' or solutions the industry comes up with people of these ages are going to share music even if they have to go back to swapping and burning CD's with their friends. After a while people grow up and get jobs and disposable money, the music industry has to realise that theres a price range people want to pay and they can either take internet distribution or leave it. The only 'format' thats going to last out is un-DRM'd or a long-time cracked format (DVD for example) lets be honest with ourselves, the format of choice is mp3 and sooner or later mp3s will be sold cheaply online by all labels and they will still rake in the cash.
April 1st 2001, The White House:
"I say old chap, shall we play a magnificent joke on the American public?"
"What did you have in mind?"
"Well we'll forgo the usual routine and have the president do an 4 year long impression of a Baboon! It will drive everyone crazy"
"I dare say that's the most ingenious April fools idea I have ever heard"
"Oh that's not the end of it dear fellow: after 4 years we give them the chance to vote him out, but we'll choose an opponent who resembles a science fiction monster! They'll have to vote for one or the other!"
"Oh hilarity! do take me, right here and now!"
Someone better tell those people that make big LED colour jumbo-trons and dot-matrix scroll displays. Well as long as no-one has tried to stick theirs down a toilet they should be ok. BountyQuest should really have given a courtesy flush and checked the records first.
They voted for socialism its their call. Personally I like it, the masses are generally too stupid to do things the way I want them to, they don't know what's good for them. Left to their own devices people would quite happily buy this crap - the market wouldn't have decided the 'right' way. The government (of the people) steps in and makes everyone do the right thing without actually forcing them to do anything - its pretty much like a union - they vote to strike, everyone has to strike, except in fact no-one is striking, the government aren't stopping people from _buying_ DRM DVD's they are just stopping people from _selling_ them.
Since the government is elected by the 'majority' they decide that everyone must play by the same rules even if the majority in fact don't agree - Its first-round the post, winner-takes-all, im sure America is familiar with those terms. In a way its just like narcotics - although I disagree with banning _some_ drugs because it doesn't actually personally affect me if people buy drugs (crime is a result of banning drugs not the other way around), however it does affect me if people buy into DRM bullshit because then I have no choice but to buy it too (if I want to buy that particular title). At the end of the day I accept both political systems and it wouldn't bother me too much either way, but America certainly isn't perfect in regards to not being a nanny state.
Adobe should just put a little message in so when you try to access a Nikon camera in Photoshop it starts bitching about the DMCA and how Nikon doesn't love their customers as much as other manufacturers.