My father in law complained about his PC being slow, so I agreed to take a look at it, suspecting it was infested with spyware and such. I was right, and I wiped the machine clean as best as I could. I also installed a personal firewall, so spyware/adware should not be able to dial up to the internet at their own descretion.
What happened next is that when somebody wanted to visit an Internet page, or collect or send some email, that firewall would first ask permission for the app to contact the Internet. The first question was whether the app was allowed to contact host X.X.X.X at UDP/53. This off course, means bollocks to the average user.
The moral of this story is that you need in depth knowledge of computers, software and (TCP/IP)networks in order to tell your computer if an action can be conisidered save.
You could pose that a text-editor does not need Internet connectivity. How many of you guys use freeware/shareware that is ad-supported? How many (even payware) apps 'phone home' nowadays before even displaying anything like a splash screen?
Security of software and operating systems is primarily the responsibility of the writer thereof. You can NOT trust your average user to know what's safe and what's dangerous. You simple can't.
Viewed in that light, locking down a users rights, even on his/her own box, seems like a decent idea. It would save a lot of spam and virus trouble, and spyware firms would be out of business before the week is over.
I however think that I know what I'm doing, and I demand my rights. I'm willing to take a test of competence if needs be, but I will under no conditions give up the control of my system to anybody, especially to companies or governments.
Even if there were beings doing just that, they would be hundreds if not thousands if not millions or billions of light years away from us making any sort of coherent response to a signal meaningless.
The S in SETI stands for search, not for Speak. The finding of a signal with non-natural origins, such as broadcasts would be on of the major scientific breakthroughs of the century. Communicating with any -if existant- "aliens" is an other story altogether.
Besides that - How many people play along in lotteries even their chances of winning are slim to none? People have a tendency to romatisize things, give 'em a break...
Lindows has got a lot of publicity because of its name. And in this case, the saying is totally valid: Any publicity is good publicity. Lindows has been given a lot of free media coverage, not because it's a good product (It might be, I haven't used it, but that's not the issue here), but because MS was not amused by its choice of name, and fought against it. (And anybody who gets any heat from MS runs to/. to get attention and support from the open source / Anti-MS community.)
In the past I've seen some pretty neat things that could be done within winamp(2) visualisation. Somebody even managed to program a 3d-rendered asteroids game in it. It's not really usefull, but it warms my geek-heart to see a product with such versatility.
However: the bottom line is: I've always regarded winamp as a software mp3-player. And when I double-click an mp3, I want to hear it instantly, and not wait around for something like 10 seconds on a PC with recent hard and software for the music to start.
It's cool if it's got lot's of features, but it should at least do that for which it was designed/intended. Winamp3 failed it, so I switched to an alternative, and many more with me for as far as I know. Complies with the qoute above it seems... Too bad for winamp. Really liked it so far...
Uh, not quite. Software piracy may be a crime, but writing a P2P application, which has practical purposes for sharing files legally, isn't (as far as I know).
If the government feels it should prosecute writers of p2p applications because copyright infringment can take place with these, why not also go after the firearms industry, because people get shot by guns?
I own a few CD's with protection mechanisms, and they are labelled as such. If I encounter a logo like that on a CD in a store, I won't buy it. If I buy a CD that is not labelled but won't play properly, I'll take it back because it's a DOA, and demand a refund.
If you look at it from this angle, it would look like the industry finally has been struck with a cluebat. It may not be the final solution in this situation, but acknowledgement of the fact that people want to play music from computers and mp3 players is a step in the right direction IMHO.
I still believe however, that copying will continue (as long as I can hear it, I can record it...), and that the record companies will have to change their business model. They are not selling physical products (CDs LPs) anymore, despite the arguments that people want a product like a CD with booklets and all. Music is basically nothing more than information, and stands firmly in the digital age, and I think the Internet is the medium of distribution for the future.
I've stopped buying copy-protected CD's since none of them plays properly on my discman. As soon as they manage to come up with a form of protection that won't keep me from actually playing my legally bought CD, I might reconsider my boycott...
Yeah, that would be like copying programs and let a bunch of amateurs run an OS.
Maybe my point didn't get through, or maybe I'me just feeding the troll. Hell, it's friday afternoon where I live, one hour more, and I'm off to the pub, so what the hell, here goes...
Music and software can not be compared in the case of free downloading. Sure, as well as I can create a song at home, I can write a piece of software. Both can be copied indefenitely at almost no cost, and distributed across the internet.
I recently saw the Rolling Stones live. They played in a soccer stadium. The brought an immense projection screen, a lot of fireworks and an awesome backup-band. 50.000 people witnessed the stadium. This was not just about these 4 guys playing a bunch of songs, it was as much about the atmosphere and the presentation. That's what I meant with professionalism.
Music is surrounded by a fan-culture. Fans want t-shirts, autographs and photographs, awesome concerts, videoclips, posters, you name it. It's part of the whole experience, and 'though it may be good for a lot of revenue, it requires a huge invesment, and that's not something I'm able to pull off when I create songs behind my PC, and get nothing in return for it. Thank you for your attention.
Making your music available on P2P will not give you any coverage at all. In order for people to start listening to your music, you must first confront them with it.
You could do that by sending demos to local or independent radiostations, by advertising yourself in musical magazines or by performing live.
However, if you want something in return for the hours and hours you spent at your computer or mixing console, and for the money you've invested in equipment, you could be happy if anyone buys your CD at a live gig for a crappy cheap amount, cause if it's out in the open on P2P, you can kiss any profit from 'sales of music' goodbye.
As a musician, I don't need to make a profit, because I allready have a job. If I would have to live off it however, it'd be a different story. P2P could be well used to spread (low quality) demo-tracks, bootlegged live recordings and such, but unlimited freeloading will defenitely kill any kind of professionalism in music, and since there's a small market for amateur music...
The RIAA and MPAA's knee-jerk reactions to technological innovations will do more harm than good. They need to start looking to the future, and not the past. The same goes for the Internet P2P crowd however.
Civil Disobedience is a great example of how democracy should work.
A law made by "the people" is made to represent the best interest of "the people" in general. It should be fair and in proportion, and that should be the basis for obedience to that law. Making theft illegal is in everone's best interests, because it should protect your posessions.
When a law is out of proportion, unjust, or in any other case plain wrong, it is no longer in the best interest of the people in general, and thus should be void. "The people" ignore (break) the law, because they in general do not agree with it.
The ability for the public to act this way should prevent government agents from making laws for their own benefit (corruption). The public has a means of protecting their public interest.
If the voting system is corrupted, it's in the publics best interest to expose this. I'm not aware of who leaked the memos in the first place, but linking to material available on the web should not be punished IMHO.
I think it's utterly wrong to place responsibility of the counting of votes in the hands of a commercial enterprise, not if they don't give full and in-depth insight in the process, and allow auditing at every level at any time. Not because I'm an open source zealot or "liberal", but because I trust a commercial enterprise as far as I can throw them, and that's not very far...
Since the outcome of the last presidential elections in the states was kind of irrelevant, why should anyone bother with wether these machines are any good, wether the company that makes them is run by men, machines or marketing-droids? If you don't need to score the most votes to become the president, why count them at all?
The fact that 'your standard economy car' is able to generate 100 - 150 Horsepower does not mean it actually/does/. The french Citroen 2CV is/was a lightweight car that could get you from a to b with a 2 Horsepower engine. No, it didn't have SIPS, rollbars and heavy steel plating like todays cars, but it makes you wonder if you actually/need/ all that power to get where you need to be...
Nowadays TV shows are still full of commercials, although not as obvious as actually turning to the camera and saying something like "Golly, Crest toothpaste is great!". You will now see an actor brush his/her teeth with Crest toothpaste, with the tube clearly visible in sight. If you see somebody working on a computer on a TV-show (excluding documentaries) it's a Mac 90% of the time. Apple has managed to sneak itself into every soap opera of movie I accidentally zapped by. M&M's are also often present on the screen...
Do you still have any doubts about that question? It may differ from country to country, but I'm sure in the US it's largely the industry telling their representatives (not yours in any case...) how they would like things to be run. Which civillian is getting any benefit from, for instance, the DMCA and the strict IP regulations that are in place? A company like SCO however is now trying to make a big load of dollars out of something they didn't do any intellectual work for, because the legal system allows them to do so...
in.nl, we have 3 'public' channels. They are government-funded, and are obliged to show a minimum amount of certain types of content, like cultural reports, documentaries, so it's not only soap-opera's, sports and the worst excesses of 'reality television'. These channels have a relatively low amount of commercials, will show an entire movie uninterrupted, and do occaisionally even show something worth watching.
The maximum amount of television I've seen uninterrupted at a commercial station is 45 minutes, the length of 1 half of a soccer game. They haven't had the guts to interrupt that yet...
HDTV is hardly 'real' nowadays, it's still a long way from being adopted by the public. Especially with a medium as widely spread as television, it's going to take years of broadcasting 'old' television signals to provide backwards compatability, so your mother and your grandma can still watch television the way they're used to do. I think it's a reasonable guess to say that plain old television will stick around for another 10 to 15 years. (Or, as long as modern televisions continue to live...)
In about 10 year, the use of really broadband (I think in the order of a 10 Mbit symmetrical connection) Internet will have become a lot more widespread. Broadcasters will in that timespan have adopted the Internet as a broadcast medium. I will probably classify as an 'early adopter', but the moment I can watch television over the Internet, I will cancel my cableTV subscription...
What are the chances of HDTV beating Internet based TV-broadcasts to the proverbial cookie-jar?
If a movie is shown on a television station, it is interupted every 30 minutes (in Europe, maybe the US is even worse?) for a shitload of commercials. If I really want to enjoy a movie, I wouldn't record it from tv, but I would rent a DVD, for which I pay about the same price as I would for a DVD-R in the near future.
Same goes for most shows that could be of any interest to me (although I can't rent those on DVD).
That may be so, but since there is no law prohibiting any company from pulling this kind of stunts, it will probably happen again.
Verisign is a commercial enterprise, and only one thing counts: $$$$$MONEY$$$$$ If they can make extra money by exploiting the fact that they control the root servers for the.com and.net TLD, they will do that, even if it breaks the Internet. If ICANN were to transfer control of the root servers to another commercial enterprise, (which will probably be the case, 'cause I don't think any non-profit organisation will be able to maintain the necessary infrastructure), they will probably do something like this, just so they can make an extra few bucks at our discomfort.
The great strength of the Internet is that it is not owned by anybody. The great weakness of the Internet is that it is not owned by anybody. Since there are no actual, government imposed laws on what you can or can't do to the Internets infrastructure, it's a free-for-all, and everybody who has a clever idea on how to squeeze some money out of it is free to do so. It made the Internet what it is today, and it may be it's undoing...
A lot of anti-spam software uses domain lookups to see if an email originates from a valid domain. Since every domain is now valid, this can no longer be used to filter out the good from the bad...
Since ICANN doesn't own the Internet, it can't tell domain registrars what they can or can't do. IMHO the only option is to sue them for using their monopoly-like power to their own advantage. If they want to do that, they should hook up with every search-engine, and search-related sites on the net, and argue that Verizon is driving them out of business. A case like this would not actually represent the spirit of the problem, but hey, the American legal system has seen things that are way more weird than this...
The DMCA has nothing to do with this.
on
Cracking GSM
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· Score: 1
DMCA stands for Digital Milennium Copyright Act, and prevents the circumvention or cracking of copyright prevention, not of just any form of encryption. Sure, some lawyer will be able to construct a lawsuit out of this using the DMCA as a leverage, especially since this news will allow people to spread massive amounts of FUD in order to make a quick buck from the techno-illiterate masses, but I don't think the DMCA is violated here.
I don't think it will affect US/Israel relations. The relation the US has with Israel is mostly born out of the massive jewish lobby in the US, who indirectly determine the course of the nation, just like for instance the NRA or the entertainment industry is doing. In order to alter the relation between the US and Israel, you must alter the realtion between the jewish lobby in the US and Israel, and I don't think that's something we'll see soon...
Slashdot Mirror
Not only do they get less pay, they also have to work the longest hours (especially teachers), or the most inconvenient (nurses/medical).
I don't think anybody who works in IT has much to complain about if you compare your situation with any of theirs...
My father in law complained about his PC being slow, so I agreed to take a look at it, suspecting it was infested with spyware and such. I was right, and I wiped the machine clean as best as I could. I also installed a personal firewall, so spyware/adware should not be able to dial up to the internet at their own descretion.
What happened next is that when somebody wanted to visit an Internet page, or collect or send some email, that firewall would first ask permission for the app to contact the Internet. The first question was whether the app was allowed to contact host X.X.X.X at UDP/53. This off course, means bollocks to the average user.
The moral of this story is that you need in depth knowledge of computers, software and (TCP/IP)networks in order to tell your computer if an action can be conisidered save.
You could pose that a text-editor does not need Internet connectivity. How many of you guys use freeware/shareware that is ad-supported? How many (even payware) apps 'phone home' nowadays before even displaying anything like a splash screen?
Security of software and operating systems is primarily the responsibility of the writer thereof. You can NOT trust your average user to know what's safe and what's dangerous. You simple can't.
Viewed in that light, locking down a users rights, even on his/her own box, seems like a decent idea. It would save a lot of spam and virus trouble, and spyware firms would be out of business before the week is over.
I however think that I know what I'm doing, and I demand my rights. I'm willing to take a test of competence if needs be, but I will under no conditions give up the control of my system to anybody, especially to companies or governments.
Even if there were beings doing just that, they would be hundreds if not thousands if not millions or billions of light years away from us making any sort of coherent response to a signal meaningless.
The S in SETI stands for search, not for Speak.
The finding of a signal with non-natural origins, such as broadcasts would be on of the major scientific breakthroughs of the century. Communicating with any -if existant- "aliens" is an other story altogether.
Besides that - How many people play along in lotteries even their chances of winning are slim to none? People have a tendency to romatisize things, give 'em a break...
Lindows has got a lot of publicity because of its name. And in this case, the saying is totally valid: Any publicity is good publicity. /. to get attention and support from the open source / Anti-MS community.)
Lindows has been given a lot of free media coverage, not because it's a good product (It might be, I haven't used it, but that's not the issue here), but because MS was not amused by its choice of name, and fought against it. (And anybody who gets any heat from MS runs to
In the past I've seen some pretty neat things that could be done within winamp(2) visualisation. Somebody even managed to program a 3d-rendered asteroids game in it. It's not really usefull, but it warms my geek-heart to see a product with such versatility.
However: the bottom line is: I've always regarded winamp as a software mp3-player. And when I double-click an mp3, I want to hear it instantly, and not wait around for something like 10 seconds on a PC with recent hard and software for the music to start.
It's cool if it's got lot's of features, but it should at least do that for which it was designed/intended. Winamp3 failed it, so I switched to an alternative, and many more with me for as far as I know. Complies with the qoute above it seems...
Too bad for winamp. Really liked it so far...
If the government feels it should prosecute writers of p2p applications because copyright infringment can take place with these, why not also go after the firearms industry, because people get shot by guns?
I own a few CD's with protection mechanisms, and they are labelled as such. If I encounter a logo like that on a CD in a store, I won't buy it.
If I buy a CD that is not labelled but won't play properly, I'll take it back because it's a DOA, and demand a refund.
mod parent up
If you look at it from this angle, it would look like the industry finally has been struck with a cluebat. It may not be the final solution in this situation, but acknowledgement of the fact that people want to play music from computers and mp3 players is a step in the right direction IMHO.
I still believe however, that copying will continue (as long as I can hear it, I can record it...), and that the record companies will have to change their business model. They are not selling physical products (CDs LPs) anymore, despite the arguments that people want a product like a CD with booklets and all. Music is basically nothing more than information, and stands firmly in the digital age, and I think the Internet is the medium of distribution for the future.
I've stopped buying copy-protected CD's since none of them plays properly on my discman. As soon as they manage to come up with a form of protection that won't keep me from actually playing my legally bought CD, I might reconsider my boycott...
There is slight difference between cars and guns in this perspective. Cars are designed to move people around. Guns are designed to kill people.
Maybe my point didn't get through, or maybe I'me just feeding the troll. Hell, it's friday afternoon where I live, one hour more, and I'm off to the pub, so what the hell, here goes...
Music and software can not be compared in the case of free downloading. Sure, as well as I can create a song at home, I can write a piece of software. Both can be copied indefenitely at almost no cost, and distributed across the internet.
I recently saw the Rolling Stones live. They played in a soccer stadium. The brought an immense projection screen, a lot of fireworks and an awesome backup-band. 50.000 people witnessed the stadium. This was not just about these 4 guys playing a bunch of songs, it was as much about the atmosphere and the presentation. That's what I meant with professionalism.
Music is surrounded by a fan-culture. Fans want t-shirts, autographs and photographs, awesome concerts, videoclips, posters, you name it. It's part of the whole experience, and 'though it may be good for a lot of revenue, it requires a huge invesment, and that's not something I'm able to pull off when I create songs behind my PC, and get nothing in return for it. Thank you for your attention.
Making your music available on P2P will not give you any coverage at all. In order for people to start listening to your music, you must first confront them with it.
You could do that by sending demos to local or independent radiostations, by advertising yourself in musical magazines or by performing live.
However, if you want something in return for the hours and hours you spent at your computer or mixing console, and for the money you've invested in equipment, you could be happy if anyone buys your CD at a live gig for a crappy cheap amount, cause if it's out in the open on P2P, you can kiss any profit from 'sales of music' goodbye.
As a musician, I don't need to make a profit, because I allready have a job. If I would have to live off it however, it'd be a different story.
P2P could be well used to spread (low quality) demo-tracks, bootlegged live recordings and such, but unlimited freeloading will defenitely kill any kind of professionalism in music, and since there's a small market for amateur music...
The RIAA and MPAA's knee-jerk reactions to technological innovations will do more harm than good. They need to start looking to the future, and not the past. The same goes for the Internet P2P crowd however.
There's a proverb in .nl, which translated into English comes down to:
"Trust comes on foot and leaves on horseback"
Since Diebold will rely heavily on image and trust to sell products, this might set them back a few dollars...
Civil Disobedience is a great example of how democracy should work.
A law made by "the people" is made to represent the best interest of "the people" in general. It should be fair and in proportion, and that should be the basis for obedience to that law. Making theft illegal is in everone's best interests, because it should protect your posessions.
When a law is out of proportion, unjust, or in any other case plain wrong, it is no longer in the best interest of the people in general, and thus should be void. "The people" ignore (break) the law, because they in general do not agree with it.
The ability for the public to act this way should prevent government agents from making laws for their own benefit (corruption). The public has a means of protecting their public interest.
If the voting system is corrupted, it's in the publics best interest to expose this. I'm not aware of who leaked the memos in the first place, but linking to material available on the web should not be punished IMHO.
I think it's utterly wrong to place responsibility of the counting of votes in the hands of a commercial enterprise, not if they don't give full and in-depth insight in the process, and allow auditing at every level at any time. Not because I'm an open source zealot or "liberal", but because I trust a commercial enterprise as far as I can throw them, and that's not very far...
Since the outcome of the last presidential elections in the states was kind of irrelevant, why should anyone bother with wether these machines are any good, wether the company that makes them is run by men, machines or marketing-droids?
If you don't need to score the most votes to become the president, why count them at all?
The fact that 'your standard economy car' is able to generate 100 - 150 Horsepower does not mean it actually /does/. /need/ all that power to get where you need to be...
The french Citroen 2CV is/was a lightweight car that could get you from a to b with a 2 Horsepower engine. No, it didn't have SIPS, rollbars and heavy steel plating like todays cars, but it makes you wonder if you actually
Nowadays TV shows are still full of commercials, although not as obvious as actually turning to the camera and saying something like "Golly, Crest toothpaste is great!". You will now see an actor brush his/her teeth with Crest toothpaste, with the tube clearly visible in sight.
If you see somebody working on a computer on a TV-show (excluding documentaries) it's a Mac 90% of the time. Apple has managed to sneak itself into every soap opera of movie I accidentally zapped by.
M&M's are also often present on the screen...
Do you still have any doubts about that question? It may differ from country to country, but I'm sure in the US it's largely the industry telling their representatives (not yours in any case...) how they would like things to be run.
Which civillian is getting any benefit from, for instance, the DMCA and the strict IP regulations that are in place?
A company like SCO however is now trying to make a big load of dollars out of something they didn't do any intellectual work for, because the legal system allows them to do so...
in .nl, we have 3 'public' channels. They are government-funded, and are obliged to show a minimum amount of certain types of content, like cultural reports, documentaries, so it's not only soap-opera's, sports and the worst excesses of 'reality television'.
These channels have a relatively low amount of commercials, will show an entire movie uninterrupted, and do occaisionally even show something worth watching.
The maximum amount of television I've seen uninterrupted at a commercial station is 45 minutes, the length of 1 half of a soccer game. They haven't had the guts to interrupt that yet...
HDTV is hardly 'real' nowadays, it's still a long way from being adopted by the public. Especially with a medium as widely spread as television, it's going to take years of broadcasting 'old' television signals to provide backwards compatability, so your mother and your grandma can still watch television the way they're used to do.
I think it's a reasonable guess to say that plain old television will stick around for another 10 to 15 years. (Or, as long as modern televisions continue to live...)
In about 10 year, the use of really broadband (I think in the order of a 10 Mbit symmetrical connection) Internet will have become a lot more widespread. Broadcasters will in that timespan have adopted the Internet as a broadcast medium. I will probably classify as an 'early adopter', but the moment I can watch television over the Internet, I will cancel my cableTV subscription...
What are the chances of HDTV beating Internet based TV-broadcasts to the proverbial cookie-jar?
If a movie is shown on a television station, it is interupted every 30 minutes (in Europe, maybe the US is even worse?) for a shitload of commercials. If I really want to enjoy a movie, I wouldn't record it from tv, but I would rent a DVD, for which I pay about the same price as I would for a DVD-R in the near future.
Same goes for most shows that could be of any interest to me (although I can't rent those on DVD).
That may be so, but since there is no law prohibiting any company from pulling this kind of stunts, it will probably happen again.
.com and .net TLD, they will do that, even if it breaks the Internet.
Verisign is a commercial enterprise, and only one thing counts: $$$$$MONEY$$$$$
If they can make extra money by exploiting the fact that they control the root servers for the
If ICANN were to transfer control of the root servers to another commercial enterprise, (which will probably be the case, 'cause I don't think any non-profit organisation will be able to maintain the necessary infrastructure), they will probably do something like this, just so they can make an extra few bucks at our discomfort.
The great strength of the Internet is that it is not owned by anybody. The great weakness of the Internet is that it is not owned by anybody. Since there are no actual, government imposed laws on what you can or can't do to the Internets infrastructure, it's a free-for-all, and everybody who has a clever idea on how to squeeze some money out of it is free to do so. It made the Internet what it is today, and it may be it's undoing...
And third:
A lot of anti-spam software uses domain lookups to see if an email originates from a valid domain. Since every domain is now valid, this can no longer be used to filter out the good from the bad...
Since ICANN doesn't own the Internet, it can't tell domain registrars what they can or can't do. IMHO the only option is to sue them for using their monopoly-like power to their own advantage. If they want to do that, they should hook up with every search-engine, and search-related sites on the net, and argue that Verizon is driving them out of business.
A case like this would not actually represent the spirit of the problem, but hey, the American legal system has seen things that are way more weird than this...
DMCA stands for Digital Milennium Copyright Act, and prevents the circumvention or cracking of copyright prevention, not of just any form of encryption.
Sure, some lawyer will be able to construct a lawsuit out of this using the DMCA as a leverage, especially since this news will allow people to spread massive amounts of FUD in order to make a quick buck from the techno-illiterate masses, but I don't think the DMCA is violated here.
I don't think it will affect US/Israel relations. The relation the US has with Israel is mostly born out of the massive jewish lobby in the US, who indirectly determine the course of the nation, just like for instance the NRA or the entertainment industry is doing. In order to alter the relation between the US and Israel, you must alter the realtion between the jewish lobby in the US and Israel, and I don't think that's something we'll see soon...