A thought off the top of my head... Can the digital lock provisions be used to protect personal communications? People are very worried about eavesdropping/profiling of their online activity-- wouldn't applying a 'digital lock' of even a trivial sort make place the eavesdroppers outside the law?
Obviously, strong encryption can protect your communications. But this is potentially something different-- you aren't guaranteeing the security of your communication, but rather, shifting the legal burden of violation onto some of the parties who sought to create the law in the first place...
For example, what if your bittorrent tracker information is protected by a digital lock?
The problem with software in academia is that it is often devoted to a sole purpose. It is not a generalized solution -- conversely -- it's often a demonstration of a solution so specific that it's never been done.
Absolutely true. And much of the software is nearly unusable by anyone else-- it was built by the researchers to validate their own work, not to be used by others. If you've ever tried to use any code generated by grad students, it is often buggy, brittle, inflexible, indecipherable, etc... (I'm a late-stage PhD student, so I've run into this MANY times...) And that's the code that the researchers saw fit to release to the public-- imagine what the stuff that wasn't released looks like.
What the hell does that mean, anyway? People throw that phrase around, and I guess you have an idea of what they are getting at, but as a claim, isn't it problematic?
Its enormously popular, and (to some) provides a lot of value... and its free. What did you THINK they were going to do with the info you have up there ? It's a massive social engineering/data mining study, and you're taking part in it.
I'm not sure that it's as well thought out as you might believe...
I agree with some of your sentiment, but I'm not sure how 'private-mode' provides any of the protection you seek... Other than removing cookies (which can be managed very easily now anyway), how does this 'disruptive technology' prevent server-side tracking of users' behaviour? Isn't the use of something like Tor more to the point?
How can such an abyssal difference be explained? I understand there are some added costs for the localized translated versions, but I also thought the Euro was supposed to be outbuying the dollar.
Because products often aren't priced based on cost, or based on a sense of fairness, but rather on what the market will bear...
I, for one, don't consider allowing your dog to shit without cleaning it up, to be a petty crime... Have you seen the size of some of those reeking piles??...
Um... Because if I'm infringing on someone's patent, I may be a little reluctant to attract the attention of their legal department with my hostile patent-challenge action?
The OPP only counts if you live in Ontario. There's a QPP for Quebec.
Um... That's about 2/3 of Canada's population...
Your point about other forces also thinking that they have 'bigger fish to fry' makes sense, to a degree. I agree with you-- it seems unlikely a force like the OPP will pursue individuals. On the other hand, political pressure (including that generated by industry lobbies) can potentially influence this, whether its getting the OPP to enforce it, or getting the RCMP/federal goverment to change their minds.
Unfortunately, there is a key difference between legislative changes that make something legal, and a simple failure to enforce. In the latter case, the agencies (including the RCMP) can simply change their minds at a later date, and enforcement can even be 'retroactive'. Legislation rarely makes something that once was legal retroactively illegal.
The RCMP don't speak for other police forces in Canada--in particular, the provincial police forces (e.g., the Ontario Provincial Police). While I suspect that they won't be aggressively pursuing individuals either, this is no guarantee. I believe the OPP has fairly extensive technology-related policing resources, but I can't substantiate that...
I think what they've shown here is that P2P sharing does not decrease CD sales.
How, exactly, have they shown this? The people who are using P2P and also buying CDs, might very well be buying more CDs in the absence of file sharing. You might not believe (or like) this possibility, but I don't see anything (in the data) to suggest that it's a less valid possibility than your conclusion.
...with all of our current problems -- homelessness and crime on the home front, war fighting and terrorism abroad...
This argument can be used to make almost any expenditure look silly. I can't believe, with all of the homelessness, that our government is [sponsoring arts programs | paying for students to take field trips | building monuments to fallen soldiers | repaving roads |...]
Just because you have certain problems, doesn't mean that you do without anything else, until those problems are solved.
Then again, I can't believe that you bought yourself a television, when you could have donated your money to fight homelessness, etc...
'Supply and demand' and 'open source community' aren't necessarily contradictory...
Not having read TFA, my gut reaction is that, while supply and demand are obviously important, you need to look carefully at the supply side. In simple microeconomic terms, 'supply' refers to the aggregate quantity that producers are willing to provide, given the prevailing 'price' in the market (i.e., the value which they will receive in return).
It is worth noting that, given the limited 'value' which (most) open source developers receive in return for their work, there are likely few producers that are willing to provide large quantities of product. The smallish set that DOES generate the BULK of that product appears to have characteristics of a community-- that 'core group of believers' are the ones who are most willing to produce for 'free'. Furthermore, since their 'return' tends to be intangible, the supply curve might shift dramatically-- if they are treated badly, their perceived 'return' may be diminished significantly, causing them to reduce output.
I recently switched to a VoIP provider. The cost is about 1/3 of what a land line would cost me for the same features. I understand that a large portion of the cost savings is realized because data passes over the public internet. I also realize that this means the service is unlikely to provide service that is equivalent (in terms of uptime quality) to a PSTN line. I'm extremely happy with the tradeoff. The service has been excellent so far.
I plan to use the savings to get a cell phone which I would not otherwise have. In addition to the added benefit of mobile communication, it will cover me during the.6% downtime that I'm likely to encounter with my VoIP service...
I recently switched to a VoIP provider. The cost is about 1/3 of what a land line would cost me for the same features. I understand that a large portion of the cost savings is realized because data passes over the public internet. I also realize that this means the service is unlikely to provide service that is equivalent (in terms of uptime quality) to a PSTN line. I'm extremely happy with the tradeoff. The service has been excellent so far.
What about using an excrypted overlay network (a la FreeNet) as a control channel? In addition to finding files over the encrypted network, requests for segments of the file could be transmitted to peers that way. However, the actual data could be transmitted fast over the regular network.
Using UDP with incorrect source addressing would ensure that a receiver would never have the sender's source address; PKI signatures could ensure the client that each packet came from the intended source.
The sender would know the receiver's IP address, but in many jurisdictions, that isn't a problem.
In my town, there's a bigger factor at work: the library has a kick-ass collection of DVD movies, including all the latest ones.
Seriously, there are hundreds of them in stock, but you never see them on the shelves, because they are ALWAYS out. You have to search the catalog just to see what's available, and place holds to get them.
A woman at the 'checkout' said that she feels like she works at Blockbuster, more than at a library...
Slashdot Mirror
A thought off the top of my head... Can the digital lock provisions be used to protect personal communications? People are very worried about eavesdropping/profiling of their online activity-- wouldn't applying a 'digital lock' of even a trivial sort make place the eavesdroppers outside the law?
Obviously, strong encryption can protect your communications. But this is potentially something different-- you aren't guaranteeing the security of your communication, but rather, shifting the legal burden of violation onto some of the parties who sought to create the law in the first place...
For example, what if your bittorrent tracker information is protected by a digital lock?
You use the full-disk encryption, so you don't have this problem.
You're serious about protecting your porn...
The problem with software in academia is that it is often devoted to a sole purpose. It is not a generalized solution -- conversely -- it's often a demonstration of a solution so specific that it's never been done.
Absolutely true. And much of the software is nearly unusable by anyone else-- it was built by the researchers to validate their own work, not to be used by others. If you've ever tried to use any code generated by grad students, it is often buggy, brittle, inflexible, indecipherable, etc... (I'm a late-stage PhD student, so I've run into this MANY times...) And that's the code that the researchers saw fit to release to the public-- imagine what the stuff that wasn't released looks like.
What the hell does that mean, anyway? People throw that phrase around, and I guess you have an idea of what they are getting at, but as a claim, isn't it problematic?
I'm not sure that it's as well thought out as you might believe...
I agree with some of your sentiment, but I'm not sure how 'private-mode' provides any of the protection you seek... Other than removing cookies (which can be managed very easily now anyway), how does this 'disruptive technology' prevent server-side tracking of users' behaviour? Isn't the use of something like Tor more to the point?
Because products often aren't priced based on cost, or based on a sense of fairness, but rather on what the market will bear...
I, for one, don't consider allowing your dog to shit without cleaning it up, to be a petty crime... Have you seen the size of some of those reeking piles??...
Parse error! Parse error!
Um... That's about 2/3 of Canada's population...
Your point about other forces also thinking that they have 'bigger fish to fry' makes sense, to a degree. I agree with you-- it seems unlikely a force like the OPP will pursue individuals. On the other hand, political pressure (including that generated by industry lobbies) can potentially influence this, whether its getting the OPP to enforce it, or getting the RCMP/federal goverment to change their minds.
Unfortunately, there is a key difference between legislative changes that make something legal, and a simple failure to enforce. In the latter case, the agencies (including the RCMP) can simply change their minds at a later date, and enforcement can even be 'retroactive'. Legislation rarely makes something that once was legal retroactively illegal.
The RCMP don't speak for other police forces in Canada--in particular, the provincial police forces (e.g., the Ontario Provincial Police). While I suspect that they won't be aggressively pursuing individuals either, this is no guarantee. I believe the OPP has fairly extensive technology-related policing resources, but I can't substantiate that...
How, exactly, have they shown this? The people who are using P2P and also buying CDs, might very well be buying more CDs in the absence of file sharing. You might not believe (or like) this possibility, but I don't see anything (in the data) to suggest that it's a less valid possibility than your conclusion.
Someone should patent the idea for an accelerated patent approval process. ('Why no, I'm not aware of any prior art!)
Then we could force them to stop using the process! (Or at least, demand royalties!)
...with all of our current problems -- homelessness and crime on the home front, war fighting and terrorism abroad...This argument can be used to make almost any expenditure look silly. I can't believe, with all of the homelessness, that our government is [sponsoring arts programs | paying for students to take field trips | building monuments to fallen soldiers | repaving roads |
Just because you have certain problems, doesn't mean that you do without anything else, until those problems are solved.
Then again, I can't believe that you bought yourself a television, when you could have donated your money to fight homelessness, etc...
'Supply and demand' and 'open source community' aren't necessarily contradictory...
Not having read TFA, my gut reaction is that, while supply and demand are obviously important, you need to look carefully at the supply side. In simple microeconomic terms, 'supply' refers to the aggregate quantity that producers are willing to provide, given the prevailing 'price' in the market (i.e., the value which they will receive in return).
It is worth noting that, given the limited 'value' which (most) open source developers receive in return for their work, there are likely few producers that are willing to provide large quantities of product. The smallish set that DOES generate the BULK of that product appears to have characteristics of a community-- that 'core group of believers' are the ones who are most willing to produce for 'free'. Furthermore, since their 'return' tends to be intangible, the supply curve might shift dramatically-- if they are treated badly, their perceived 'return' may be diminished significantly, causing them to reduce output.
Sorry, this post was an incomplete version of one which follows...
I recently switched to a VoIP provider. The cost is about 1/3 of what a land line would cost me for the same features. I understand that a large portion of the cost savings is realized because data passes over the public internet. I also realize that this means the service is unlikely to provide service that is equivalent (in terms of uptime quality) to a PSTN line. I'm extremely happy with the tradeoff. The service has been excellent so far.
.6% downtime that I'm likely to encounter with my VoIP service...
I plan to use the savings to get a cell phone which I would not otherwise have. In addition to the added benefit of mobile communication, it will cover me during the
I recently switched to a VoIP provider. The cost is about 1/3 of what a land line would cost me for the same features. I understand that a large portion of the cost savings is realized because data passes over the public internet. I also realize that this means the service is unlikely to provide service that is equivalent (in terms of uptime quality) to a PSTN line. I'm extremely happy with the tradeoff. The service has been excellent so far.
Can't it be both? Sounds like a question of technology vs. application...
What about using an excrypted overlay network (a la FreeNet) as a control channel? In addition to finding files over the encrypted network, requests for segments of the file could be transmitted to peers that way. However, the actual data could be transmitted fast over the regular network.
Using UDP with incorrect source addressing would ensure that a receiver would never have the sender's source address; PKI signatures could ensure the client that each packet came from the intended source.
The sender would know the receiver's IP address, but in many jurisdictions, that isn't a problem.
So who wants to make fun of my cheap SMC box now?... (When the hole is discovered, it will be posted here too, right?)
Seriously, there are hundreds of them in stock, but you never see them on the shelves, because they are ALWAYS out. You have to search the catalog just to see what's available, and place holds to get them.
A woman at the 'checkout' said that she feels like she works at Blockbuster, more than at a library...