I think that the system architecture of the PC we are familiar with is too "open" for implementing DRM seriously:
Everybody can install new hardware.
Everybody can install new software, and, even worse, create new software that has access to all hardware devices.
Everybody can exchange arbitrary data over the net.
So, the Palladium hardware won't have many relations to the PC any more, but become something like a mobile phone or a gaming console: a closed system. Probably, customers will be attracted with the argument that this new device will be easier to use and less complex. Maybe, Microsoft's XBox is even the first foundation of this new system architecture! By the way, this won't be anything new. It's only the continuation of a longer trend: Taking the user further and further away from the hardware. On Windows 95, you weren't able any more to write programs that controlled the hardware directly. You had to use Microsoft's API. Now, you will have to use Microsoft's API for everything that happens on the computer. So:
The user will be even further away from the hardware
Microsoft will control even more layers between the user and the hardware and become even more powerful.
At first, I want to say that I don't support the position of the music industry. But if I were Overpeer, I would make the errors in the MP3 files less obvious. If the time between the download and your detection that a file is bogus becomes longer, more people will download the file. This may be a key factor to pollute the network effectively.
So, don't destroy the file content completely, only change some subtle details so that you won't detect the difference until you've heard the original version somewhere. Make people on the believe that the version they have is the real, unmodified version, but remove e.g. some vocals, samples etc. Create a "P2P remix" that sounds very realistic, but has something missing when compared directly to the CD version.
Of course, this has already to be done in the recording studio. But if the user detect that the songs they download may not be the "real" ones, they will quickly distrust P2P.
What about rearranging the positions of keys like "Home", "End", "Del", "BkSp" etc.? A good keyboard layout should also take into account the possibility to correct typos and move around in the text quickly, especially when it comes to writing program code.
Full ACK.
Why should you allow a company to control your destiny even after you have finished working there? If they don't want you to go to a competitor and apply your experience there, why don't they pay you better, give you better working conditions etc.? If you're so valuable that letting you go would threat you current employer so much, this employer should do something for you and not vice versa.
Moreover, when you are applying past knowledge a second time, it won't be completely new any more. So, if time hasn't stood still in your old company, they should have made further developments based on your original idea. Why should you prevent ideas from spreading slowly? It will only harm innovation.
The only thing I would regard as an infringement of IP is direct copy-and-paste of source code and maybe violation of non-software patents. But software patents suck, and non-compete clauses suck even more.
Maybe I'm an old-fashioned European:-), but I think that employees should have more rights in this area.
<sarcasm>
But the best solution might be treating you with a Neuralizer(tm) when you're leaving your job, to make you forget everything.
</sarcasm>
Its legally grey, and all it really takes is for some paranoid person to sue, and then the fireworks start.
Hmmm... Imagine that there would be a Web Content
Writers Association Of America (WCWAA). Then we
would have the biggest copyright lawsuit in
human history;-)
Pretending to be IE with Mozilla (or Konq or Galeon...) is not too uncommon.
I think this is a bad method, because then, you don't get seen as a user of a non-IE-browser any more. Web designers will just say "Well, we've 95% IE users here, so why bother about the rest?".
Complaining is always the better solution!
Unfortunately, Konqueror is the only browser where you can set the UserAgent to an individual value for each site.
It's too late to plug the analog hole.
ACK. Maybe you can compare it to the Clipper chip. Wasn't this a chip that was intended to be used for every kind of encryption? But even this didn't work, and encryption is a much smaller area than "receiving content".
OK, there's a huge industry behind it today, but even this won't make it become reality. I think, the arms race will just continue, maybe with some reduction of freedom on the net, but not with a modification of every kind of electronic device!
P.S.: Please correct me when I'm saying something wrong about the Clipper chip. I'm not an American and I paid not much attention to it when it was a hot topic.
Symbolic representations let me use my imagination.
Yes, I would agree to this. I'm just beta testing a small text adventure game my cousin developed and I have to say that it's not less exciting than a graphics adventure.
You can have immersion with text, too, like with a good book.
There is a language called
Cyclone .
It aims to be as compatible as possible to C, but it has some language constructs to avoid buffer overflows, dangling pointers etc.
Does anyone have experience using this?
Slashdot Mirror
yeah, completely unusable, but very powerful :-)
- Everybody can install new hardware.
- Everybody can install new software, and, even worse, create new software that has access to all hardware devices.
- Everybody can exchange arbitrary data over the net.
So, the Palladium hardware won't have many relations to the PC any more, but become something like a mobile phone or a gaming console: a closed system. Probably, customers will be attracted with the argument that this new device will be easier to use and less complex. Maybe, Microsoft's XBox is even the first foundation of this new system architecture!By the way, this won't be anything new. It's only the continuation of a longer trend: Taking the user further and further away from the hardware. On Windows 95, you weren't able any more to write programs that controlled the hardware directly. You had to use Microsoft's API.
Now, you will have to use Microsoft's API for everything that happens on the computer. So:
So, don't destroy the file content completely, only change some subtle details so that you won't detect the difference until you've heard the original version somewhere. Make people on the believe that the version they have is the real, unmodified version, but remove e.g. some vocals, samples etc. Create a "P2P remix" that sounds very realistic, but has something missing when compared directly to the CD version.
Of course, this has already to be done in the recording studio. But if the user detect that the songs they download may not be the "real" ones, they will quickly distrust P2P.
What about rearranging the positions of keys like "Home", "End", "Del", "BkSp" etc.? A good keyboard layout should also take into account the possibility to correct typos and move around in the text quickly, especially when it comes to writing program code.
What do other think - Should keyboards be dynamically reconfigurable dependant on the programming language in use?
Yeah!Wouldn't this be another great feature for Emacs? Automatic keyboad layout switching, combined with automatic input language detection
You can hide your messages in spam, too.
I dunno though, could someone from Europe reply. Is baseball very popular over there?
Well, we in Tuebingen (Germany) have a baseball team that plays in the highest german lague, and their average number of spectators last year was 350!Full ACK. :-), but I think that employees should have more rights in this area.
Why should you allow a company to control your destiny even after you have finished working there? If they don't want you to go to a competitor and apply your experience there, why don't they pay you better, give you better working conditions etc.? If you're so valuable that letting you go would threat you current employer so much, this employer should do something for you and not vice versa.
Moreover, when you are applying past knowledge a second time, it won't be completely new any more. So, if time hasn't stood still in your old company, they should have made further developments based on your original idea. Why should you prevent ideas from spreading slowly? It will only harm innovation.
The only thing I would regard as an infringement of IP is direct copy-and-paste of source code and maybe violation of non-software patents. But software patents suck, and non-compete clauses suck even more.
Maybe I'm an old-fashioned European
<sarcasm>
But the best solution might be treating you with a Neuralizer(tm) when you're leaving your job, to make you forget everything.
</sarcasm>
Its legally grey, and all it really takes is for some paranoid person to sue, and then the fireworks start.
;-)
Hmmm... Imagine that there would be a Web Content Writers Association Of America (WCWAA). Then we would have the biggest copyright lawsuit in human history
Pretending to be IE with Mozilla (or Konq or Galeon...) is not too uncommon.
I think this is a bad method, because then, you don't get seen as a user of a non-IE-browser any more. Web designers will just say "Well, we've 95% IE users here, so why bother about the rest?".Complaining is always the better solution!
Unfortunately, Konqueror is the only browser where you can set the UserAgent to an individual value for each site.
<sillyjoke>
Yeah, and I think they'll forget their passwords.
</sillyjoke>
Some people mentioned it already, but here's information about a case in Germany that is similar, dealing with Nazi propaganda.
Do you know where I can look when the next eclipse will be at my place? I searched on this site, but I didn't find anything.
What about a distributed project for playing Go? Go is much more complex than chess, because there is even more parallelism, see this page.
ACK. Maybe you can compare it to the Clipper chip. Wasn't this a chip that was intended to be used for every kind of encryption? But even this didn't work, and encryption is a much smaller area than "receiving content".
OK, there's a huge industry behind it today, but even this won't make it become reality. I think, the arms race will just continue, maybe with some reduction of freedom on the net, but not with a modification of every kind of electronic device!
P.S.: Please correct me when I'm saying something wrong about the Clipper chip. I'm not an American and I paid not much attention to it when it was a hot topic.
Symbolic representations let me use my imagination.
Yes, I would agree to this. I'm just beta testing a small text adventure game my cousin developed and I have to say that it's not less exciting than a graphics adventure. You can have immersion with text, too, like with a good book.Maybe Lego will sue you for this!
Daemons that are run by default are reduced to a minimum.
Easy upgrading of security-critical packages (no, that's no ad for Debian, of course :-;)
Ability to a install a minimum system with a minimum number of packages.
Careful file permissions and special user groups (i.e. "dialup","audio")
Use of "secure" programs for a particular purpose (i.e. ssh instead of telnet, not sendmail as MTA, ...)
Any other ideas?
There is a language called Cyclone . It aims to be as compatible as possible to C, but it has some language constructs to avoid buffer overflows, dangling pointers etc. Does anyone have experience using this?