Puretracks is crap... if you want more info, check out my posts about it from my profile... no need to rehash it yet again... DRM is crap if you can't reinstall a machine and get the music you paid for to play.
What the hell is to stop this from becoming as useless as the current emergancy vehicle light switching system (ala traffic lights), that used infrared frequencies? Some schmoe is going to make a device that makes your car think you're going to rear-end someone at his whim... Until finally the whole system will have to be thrown out, due to abuse.
This thing will be abused before it's even anywhere near fully deployed... what a waste... and as per the article, how about getting people to focus on driving... as in paying attention to thing around you... how the hell is making sure you don't rear-end the guy infront of you not a normal driving task? WTF?
regulatory hassles? If those regulations weren't there, everyone and their dog would be building inter-continental ballistic missiles, and claiming to be contending for the 'X-Prize'...
The government damn well better keep those regulations in place... otherwise WWIII here we come!
Damn it... I want to BUY music from iTMS in Canada... but oh no... can't do that... gotta go through the Canadian ripoffs of it... like PureTracks... They have next to no selection, only available in DRM'd WMA format, that cannot be played on MP3 players... and the kicker... I upgraded my motherboard, re-installed Windows (a requirement when upgrading motherboards), and lost all the songs I downloaded and payed for... their response... It's your responsiblity to make backups of your files and Digital certificates... WTF???
iTunes does not have any of these problems... yet I can't use it in Canada... I can buy an iPod, but can't buy music for it. I have no choice but to download music without paying for it... and I've gone through all the damn hoops trying to legally purchase music... The government and the Canadian version of the RIAA (whatever the hell they're called) has successfully made it so difficult for me (and all Canadians with tastes for music other than the crap on the radio) to buy music that I have no reasonable alternative but to continue to get my music from the underground...
Napster may have proven that there is a demand, but I'm sure I'm not the only Canadian that has proven we are willing to jump through a crap load of hoops to try and buy music instead of just downloading it for free.
So who's at fault here? Apple for not selling music outside the states? The RIAA for being anal? The Canadian government and their damned heritage law (forcing everyone to download at least 50% canadian content)? Or is it me (and people like me), that put up with all this crap, trying to go legit, and hitting a brick wall?
What about rural areas, you ask? Well, that's easy... let them pay for whatever service they want... I'm sick and tired of paying through the nose for 'rural' access. I live in Canada, and Bell (the monopolistic telco) decides to make me pay $5.95 a month to offset rural costs. I live in a city. WTF? That not withstanding, I was under the impression that all phone rates are then fixed no matter where you are... umm... Halifax residents pay $10 less for the exact same service I get in Southern Ontario. WTF?
Reliability? Yeah, 911 calls are important... but I've been in a situation where my damned cell phone couldn't make the call (I was way up north), and I pay a damned fee for 911 access on my cellphone by government mandate... and I don't get the damned service guaranteed. So if there is an alternative that is cheaper and about as reliable, I'll take it, and be damned if I let the government put a tax on it, just cuz it's an essential service in their eyes', but then end up doing nothing to actually guarantee it.
Yeah, I'm bitching, and bitter... and I'm not rooting for the underdog (soon to be the bug guys, as you put it)... I just want alternatives that aren't taxed to shits by people who don't even understand what it does.
Is it just me, or is the American business model to stick with a rigid plan, and when that plan becomes obsolete, whine, bitch and complain until the politicians you bought last election will come up with laws that protect your horribly backwards business model and crush any and all innovation in the country.
The interesting thing is that it's not that it was crap, but rather that it was done in India. Had they had some firm in the US do it, it wouldn't make the headlines...
There are equally good and equally bad firms all over the word that do development... India is no exception.
This is horrible... First the machine comes with a pre-configured backdoor/exploit, and they want to leave it like this? Second, if you can just plug in the machine in a network, and have it totally configure itself, you've just killed a job for an IT guy... and we need all the jobs we can get...
Oh, wait... once the new machine gets owned by some script kiddies, then the IT guy gets called... okay... phew... nearly thought that a job was eliminated... nevermind... as you were...;)
I'm not saying that everyone should buy an HDTV set... I'm simply saying... wait, I had the quote in my original post...
... they are just smartasses because they feel they can't afford them, and thus bad mouth the technology...
People will say that HDTV is just another attempt to make us convert formats, spend money, etc. Well so is the PC industry, new versions of processors, software, etc. I haven't heard too many people bad mouth the latest processor (I'm talking overall), just because they can't afford it. People are blindly badmouthing HDTV because they feel that if they embrace it, or even just do anything short of dig their heals in and scream "hell no!" to the FCC, they will be forced to throw out all their current TV's VCR's, etc... and they can't afford it.
But when someone makes a sweeping statement like NTSC is good enough, that's the equivalent of saying a 486 is good enough. Sure, but why is a Pentium 4 not a good upgrade from a technical point of view, not a purchasing point of view?? They both work, but one is better than the other while still supporting the older one 100%... What am I missing?
You my friend are the reason that HDTV hasn't caught on... Well, okay, I'm exagerating, and generalising, but still, people that say they don't care about image quality deserve to get a free eye exam, and possibly a head exam.
I have a 100" projector, on which, a DVD is enjoyable, but an HDTV broadcast is simply amazing, and damned enjoyable. Arguing the costs for the system is a whole other issue, but I have not had anyone who has seen my system complain about pixels sizes. My parents have a 32" HD-LCD TV, and the same applies to them, no one complains about pixels, or the picture being too good. As a matter of fact most people prefer to watch movies on my setup than at a cinema, simply because of the better picture quality (screen size not withstanding, anyone with an LCD or DLP system can back me up on this).
People who claim that NTSC is fine either have not actually seen a properly setup HDTV system, big or small,(and most stores don't have them setup properly by a long shot), or they are just smartasses because they feel they can't afford them, and thus bad mouth the technology...
BTW, no personal disrespect intended, but you just fit the stereotype too damned well for me to pass up... Cheers!:)
So now I finally know why the internet is so damned slow... people are purposely wasting bandwidth trying to 'map out' the internet, and all this time I thought it was a DDOS attack... or at the very least some new worm...silly me.
I wonder if there are people driving around during rush hour trying to 'map out' the city...
I'm a canadian, so I may be way off base here, but doesn't everyone sue everyone else in the US? Really, how is this any different? Even if this ends up being true and SCO sues Google, who really cares, it's a pointless lawsuit, just like the other 10 million filed everyday by the average American... Isn't it? It'll get thrown out just like every other lawsuit, the lawyers will become richer and the American dream will continue to flurish (which if I'm not mistaken is to sue someone and get rich...)
Obviously there is no point to what I said if you take current technology and say, "But DRM doesn't affect it."... You are right, it doesn't... Audio's weak point is the analog part. But what about game consoles? I have to hack an XBOX physically to play a copied game... There's something that I can't get around. I don't have an alternative to getting at the content I want (Halo was Xbox exclusive for over a year, so I couldn't just hack the PC version to play it, and a lot of people did want it...)
And lets say just for the sake of argument that a new handheld mpeg-4 video player came to market, and it ends up being as big as portable MP3 players are today. But the only way to play video on the handheld is if it's properly signed/DRM'd. Here's a scenario where you will buy modded versions, or get Mod-chip kits, etc. to be able to use the devices great features/abilities, but still be able to use it the way you want. If a new technology is introduced with DRM, and there are no alternatives, people will buy it, and some will want it hacked. Just look at gaming consoles as proof. No one is boycotting the 3 main consoles because they can't backup their games...
The lure of getting something for free is just too good. Think about how many people pay hundreds of dollars to get 'free' satellite TV... Sometimes it actually ends up costing them more than if they actually subscribed to the service, but they keep doing it.
DRM is going to create the exact same market. Right now, anyone can pirate music/software pretty cheap (bandwidth being the big cost), if DRM continues to be pushed on everything, fewer and fewer average Joe's can circumvent it by themselves, and will start buying equipment and software to do it ([sarcasm] which will no doubt be provided at a reasonable charge from the black market [/sarcasm]). End result will be people paying an arm and a leg to get at DRM circumvention technology, in order to think they've made a deal by getting 'free' stuff (ala pirated software/music/movies...)
Now if I could somehow just wedge myself into that nice lucrative DRM circumvention technology provider/distributor position, I'd be rich!:)
If this is going to make the US more like Hong Kong, then God help us all! I don't want to be in a restroom stall listening to 20 other guys talking on the phone... That was ackward to say the least...
That's neat... really, I would love an alternative to buying the LCD picture frames on sale at Thinkgeek.com for more than the cost of a brand new LCD monitor of equal or larger size...
(Door bell rings) random girl:Hello? Quagmire:how old are you? random girl:16 Quagmire:What 18? ok your first. random girl:MOM! Quagmire:your mom too? GIGIDY GIGIDY GI GI DY!
You can also go out the SPDIF or Optical Out port, then come back in the other SPDIF/Optical In port. I think this trick gets rid of any "broadcast flags" or similar protection in the computer.
Would someone please verify this little trick, if I have my facts straight?
Not necessarily... the flags can still be present... the key to making that work is the fact that the filters (I'm assuming a Windows system running directshow) don't process/recognize the flags when taking data coming in... A simple fix of the filter would get around that loophole... However, with the same logic, if you're a knowledgable device driver writer, you can really easily change the filter, or better yet, write a filter driver to sit on top of the existing DRM'd drivers, and hijack the signal. In the case of just a new filter, you could create a new output pin without restrictions, strip the flags, etc, and pipe it directly to the file-capture filter, and presto, you can make a perfect digital copy, without any hardware modifications or wiring trickery (although I like your original logic... Funny how Microsoft didn't plug that hole...)
Or if the driver itself handles DRM, get a little lower in the stack and write a filter driver to sit underneath the hardware driver, and filter the signals there... or replace the driver for the device all together (there are enough of us driver developers out there that it can and will be done when the time comes...;) )
Are we going to start posting stories about everyone that looks at a protocol and creates a client or server based on it? Sheesh...
There are tons of Bit Torrent clients out there... why not post a headline about Shadow's bit torrent client, that allows you to share files between PC's... No really... why the hell not?
Oh, that's right.. cuz there is no way to make it sound like some DRM based service was hacked... With some fancy headline manipulation no less.... Read the article, then read the headline... Seriously... WTF???
All this guy did was use (not exploit, that's key...) the existing protocol to share MP3's between ITunes clients... You can do this anyway... he made a pretty interface... But the headline makes it sound like he hacked the DRM and created the next napster or some shit...
It was a big conspiracy when CD's hit the market, now it's a big consipiracy that something else will replace them... Yes, if you want to, you can replace all your existing music with whatever this new medium ends up being... but you don't have to. CD's are digital, and unlike the Tapes they replaced will last in the same quality as they day you purchased them... no need to replace your entire music collection... that's just FUD...
You may have more ways to backup linux, but that's because in linux you're expected to do it yourself, Microsoft on the otherhand has decided to implement some sort of driver rollback, system protection thingy...
At the end of the day, because linux's backup is more user controlled, you can do what you want with it, while on MS's version, it happens magically... and never backs up what you need.
Slashdot Mirror
Puretracks is crap... if you want more info, check out my posts about it from my profile... no need to rehash it yet again... DRM is crap if you can't reinstall a machine and get the music you paid for to play.
What the hell is to stop this from becoming as useless as the current emergancy vehicle light switching system (ala traffic lights), that used infrared frequencies? Some schmoe is going to make a device that makes your car think you're going to rear-end someone at his whim... Until finally the whole system will have to be thrown out, due to abuse.
This thing will be abused before it's even anywhere near fully deployed... what a waste... and as per the article, how about getting people to focus on driving... as in paying attention to thing around you... how the hell is making sure you don't rear-end the guy infront of you not a normal driving task? WTF?
Now for the love of god, someone buy an iTunes Music store and start selling me the music in Canada!
regulatory hassles? If those regulations weren't there, everyone and their dog would be building inter-continental ballistic missiles, and claiming to be contending for the 'X-Prize'...
The government damn well better keep those regulations in place... otherwise WWIII here we come!
Maybe off topic, but if the star wars kid doesn't get a cameo... it ain't worth watching!
Yes, I know Star Wars, Star Trek... still...
Damn it... I want to BUY music from iTMS in Canada... but oh no... can't do that... gotta go through the Canadian ripoffs of it... like PureTracks... They have next to no selection, only available in DRM'd WMA format, that cannot be played on MP3 players... and the kicker... I upgraded my motherboard, re-installed Windows (a requirement when upgrading motherboards), and lost all the songs I downloaded and payed for... their response... It's your responsiblity to make backups of your files and Digital certificates... WTF???
iTunes does not have any of these problems... yet I can't use it in Canada... I can buy an iPod, but can't buy music for it. I have no choice but to download music without paying for it... and I've gone through all the damn hoops trying to legally purchase music... The government and the Canadian version of the RIAA (whatever the hell they're called) has successfully made it so difficult for me (and all Canadians with tastes for music other than the crap on the radio) to buy music that I have no reasonable alternative but to continue to get my music from the underground...
Napster may have proven that there is a demand, but I'm sure I'm not the only Canadian that has proven we are willing to jump through a crap load of hoops to try and buy music instead of just downloading it for free.
So who's at fault here? Apple for not selling music outside the states? The RIAA for being anal? The Canadian government and their damned heritage law (forcing everyone to download at least 50% canadian content)? Or is it me (and people like me), that put up with all this crap, trying to go legit, and hitting a brick wall?
What about rural areas, you ask? Well, that's easy... let them pay for whatever service they want... I'm sick and tired of paying through the nose for 'rural' access. I live in Canada, and Bell (the monopolistic telco) decides to make me pay $5.95 a month to offset rural costs. I live in a city. WTF? That not withstanding, I was under the impression that all phone rates are then fixed no matter where you are... umm... Halifax residents pay $10 less for the exact same service I get in Southern Ontario. WTF?
Reliability? Yeah, 911 calls are important... but I've been in a situation where my damned cell phone couldn't make the call (I was way up north), and I pay a damned fee for 911 access on my cellphone by government mandate... and I don't get the damned service guaranteed. So if there is an alternative that is cheaper and about as reliable, I'll take it, and be damned if I let the government put a tax on it, just cuz it's an essential service in their eyes', but then end up doing nothing to actually guarantee it.
Yeah, I'm bitching, and bitter... and I'm not rooting for the underdog (soon to be the bug guys, as you put it)... I just want alternatives that aren't taxed to shits by people who don't even understand what it does.
Is it just me, or is the American business model to stick with a rigid plan, and when that plan becomes obsolete, whine, bitch and complain until the politicians you bought last election will come up with laws that protect your horribly backwards business model and crush any and all innovation in the country.
The interesting thing is that it's not that it was crap, but rather that it was done in India. Had they had some firm in the US do it, it wouldn't make the headlines...
There are equally good and equally bad firms all over the word that do development... India is no exception.
This is horrible... First the machine comes with a pre-configured backdoor/exploit, and they want to leave it like this? Second, if you can just plug in the machine in a network, and have it totally configure itself, you've just killed a job for an IT guy... and we need all the jobs we can get...
;)
Oh, wait... once the new machine gets owned by some script kiddies, then the IT guy gets called... okay... phew... nearly thought that a job was eliminated... nevermind... as you were...
I'm not saying that everyone should buy an HDTV set... I'm simply saying... wait, I had the quote in my original post...
... they are just smartasses because they feel they can't afford them, and thus bad mouth the technology...
People will say that HDTV is just another attempt to make us convert formats, spend money, etc. Well so is the PC industry, new versions of processors, software, etc. I haven't heard too many people bad mouth the latest processor (I'm talking overall), just because they can't afford it. People are blindly badmouthing HDTV because they feel that if they embrace it, or even just do anything short of dig their heals in and scream "hell no!" to the FCC, they will be forced to throw out all their current TV's VCR's, etc... and they can't afford it.
But when someone makes a sweeping statement like NTSC is good enough, that's the equivalent of saying a 486 is good enough. Sure, but why is a Pentium 4 not a good upgrade from a technical point of view, not a purchasing point of view?? They both work, but one is better than the other while still supporting the older one 100%... What am I missing?
You my friend are the reason that HDTV hasn't caught on... Well, okay, I'm exagerating, and generalising, but still, people that say they don't care about image quality deserve to get a free eye exam, and possibly a head exam.
:)
I have a 100" projector, on which, a DVD is enjoyable, but an HDTV broadcast is simply amazing, and damned enjoyable. Arguing the costs for the system is a whole other issue, but I have not had anyone who has seen my system complain about pixels sizes. My parents have a 32" HD-LCD TV, and the same applies to them, no one complains about pixels, or the picture being too good. As a matter of fact most people prefer to watch movies on my setup than at a cinema, simply because of the better picture quality (screen size not withstanding, anyone with an LCD or DLP system can back me up on this).
People who claim that NTSC is fine either have not actually seen a properly setup HDTV system, big or small,(and most stores don't have them setup properly by a long shot), or they are just smartasses because they feel they can't afford them, and thus bad mouth the technology...
BTW, no personal disrespect intended, but you just fit the stereotype too damned well for me to pass up... Cheers!
So now I finally know why the internet is so damned slow... people are purposely wasting bandwidth trying to 'map out' the internet, and all this time I thought it was a DDOS attack... or at the very least some new worm...silly me.
I wonder if there are people driving around during rush hour trying to 'map out' the city...
(Relax -- I'm just kidding, I love our 51st state. No, I'm still kidding, really.)
No, no, no... Quebec is the 51st state... Canada would then be just like the states, but without the minority language issues...
I'm a canadian, so I may be way off base here, but doesn't everyone sue everyone else in the US? Really, how is this any different? Even if this ends up being true and SCO sues Google, who really cares, it's a pointless lawsuit, just like the other 10 million filed everyday by the average American... Isn't it? It'll get thrown out just like every other lawsuit, the lawyers will become richer and the American dream will continue to flurish (which if I'm not mistaken is to sue someone and get rich...)
Obviously there is no point to what I said if you take current technology and say, "But DRM doesn't affect it."... You are right, it doesn't... Audio's weak point is the analog part. But what about game consoles? I have to hack an XBOX physically to play a copied game... There's something that I can't get around. I don't have an alternative to getting at the content I want (Halo was Xbox exclusive for over a year, so I couldn't just hack the PC version to play it, and a lot of people did want it...)
And lets say just for the sake of argument that a new handheld mpeg-4 video player came to market, and it ends up being as big as portable MP3 players are today. But the only way to play video on the handheld is if it's properly signed/DRM'd. Here's a scenario where you will buy modded versions, or get Mod-chip kits, etc. to be able to use the devices great features/abilities, but still be able to use it the way you want. If a new technology is introduced with DRM, and there are no alternatives, people will buy it, and some will want it hacked. Just look at gaming consoles as proof. No one is boycotting the 3 main consoles because they can't backup their games...
The lure of getting something for free is just too good. Think about how many people pay hundreds of dollars to get 'free' satellite TV... Sometimes it actually ends up costing them more than if they actually subscribed to the service, but they keep doing it.
:)
DRM is going to create the exact same market. Right now, anyone can pirate music/software pretty cheap (bandwidth being the big cost), if DRM continues to be pushed on everything, fewer and fewer average Joe's can circumvent it by themselves, and will start buying equipment and software to do it ([sarcasm] which will no doubt be provided at a reasonable charge from the black market [/sarcasm]). End result will be people paying an arm and a leg to get at DRM circumvention technology, in order to think they've made a deal by getting 'free' stuff (ala pirated software/music/movies...)
Now if I could somehow just wedge myself into that nice lucrative DRM circumvention technology provider/distributor position, I'd be rich!
If this is going to make the US more like Hong Kong, then God help us all! I don't want to be in a restroom stall listening to 20 other guys talking on the phone... That was ackward to say the least...
Yahoo ignores my preference to not get spammed by them, I ignore all software EULA's that I click through... I think it's a fair trade... :)
That's neat... really, I would love an alternative to buying the LCD picture frames on sale at Thinkgeek.com for more than the cost of a brand new LCD monitor of equal or larger size...
No, no, no...
The best Quagmire quote has got to be:
(Door bell rings)
random girl:Hello?
Quagmire:how old are you?
random girl:16
Quagmire:What 18? ok your first.
random girl:MOM!
Quagmire:your mom too? GIGIDY GIGIDY GI GI DY!
You can also go out the SPDIF or Optical Out port, then come back in the other SPDIF/Optical In port. I think this trick gets rid of any "broadcast flags" or similar protection in the computer.
;) )
Would someone please verify this little trick, if I have my facts straight?
Not necessarily... the flags can still be present... the key to making that work is the fact that the filters (I'm assuming a Windows system running directshow) don't process/recognize the flags when taking data coming in... A simple fix of the filter would get around that loophole... However, with the same logic, if you're a knowledgable device driver writer, you can really easily change the filter, or better yet, write a filter driver to sit on top of the existing DRM'd drivers, and hijack the signal. In the case of just a new filter, you could create a new output pin without restrictions, strip the flags, etc, and pipe it directly to the file-capture filter, and presto, you can make a perfect digital copy, without any hardware modifications or wiring trickery (although I like your original logic... Funny how Microsoft didn't plug that hole...)
Or if the driver itself handles DRM, get a little lower in the stack and write a filter driver to sit underneath the hardware driver, and filter the signals there... or replace the driver for the device all together (there are enough of us driver developers out there that it can and will be done when the time comes...
Are we going to start posting stories about everyone that looks at a protocol and creates a client or server based on it? Sheesh...
There are tons of Bit Torrent clients out there... why not post a headline about Shadow's bit torrent client, that allows you to share files between PC's... No really... why the hell not?
Oh, that's right.. cuz there is no way to make it sound like some DRM based service was hacked... With some fancy headline manipulation no less.... Read the article, then read the headline... Seriously... WTF???
All this guy did was use (not exploit, that's key...) the existing protocol to share MP3's between ITunes clients... You can do this anyway... he made a pretty interface... But the headline makes it sound like he hacked the DRM and created the next napster or some shit...
It was a big conspiracy when CD's hit the market, now it's a big consipiracy that something else will replace them... Yes, if you want to, you can replace all your existing music with whatever this new medium ends up being... but you don't have to. CD's are digital, and unlike the Tapes they replaced will last in the same quality as they day you purchased them... no need to replace your entire music collection... that's just FUD...
You may have more ways to backup linux, but that's because in linux you're expected to do it yourself, Microsoft on the otherhand has decided to implement some sort of driver rollback, system protection thingy...
At the end of the day, because linux's backup is more user controlled, you can do what you want with it, while on MS's version, it happens magically... and never backs up what you need.