Well... I've often wondered what "force pranks" would be like. You know... cause somebody a leg cramp by force-pinching a nerve... or perhaps pinch the butt of the cute secretary from across the room.
a) Burn times are a big factor here, sure 850GB is great... but not if it takes almost a day for a backup run. Current DVD burning is fairly fast though... so hopefully we get good speeds (5-30 times faster than today's DVDs sounds promising)
b) If (a) works out well, and discs don't cost a crapload... you can burn multiple DVD's just in case of disc-rot. Store both in good conditions. Media is still subject to reliability, but many a company has relied on tapes as well only to find them demagnetized, etc at restore time (TEST those tapes, people).
c) Storage space could be saved big-time with this, and a multi-disk burner could be fairly easy to setup too
d) Tapes may not rot as easily, but DVD's don't get mad if you post 'em up using hard-drive magnets:-)
Yes, but from my understanding of the article the encryption wasn't used in conjunction with the alleged crime. If I'm charged with murder and I happen to have bought a bag of lime or something that can be used to dissolve a body or hide evidence... then a body is found but without any traces of lime... how is the lime in any way connected to the so-called crime?
You can't deal in possiblities. Certainly if the dude had encrypted kiddy stuff on his machine they could use that against him... but he didn't, just encryption software which could very well have been from a completely unrelated issue.
How about "send nasty messages to your boss" (or your co-workers, clients, etc). You could do it randomly over time to different people... parse an email that exists, send a message as a reply (with the original body quoted) stating "well I think you're an a**hole and I have no f**king use for you"...
A little more legit-sounding than your standard spoofed email, and more dangerous.
Some of the happiest people I know are some that (no offence intended) aren't the biggest thinkers. I find that your standard geek tends to think too much, internalizing possibilities, issues, etc.
Some people just live on a daily/weekly basis. They pay their bills, go to work, make babies, and don't sweat the rest... maybe not the best thing in the overall picture but often happier in general. Those who think on the bigger picture are often looking for the happiness of a group... others don't have to deal with such a big picture.
I find it's easier now that I have my primary visa and chequing account with the same bank. All my recurring bills go on Visa, Visa gets paid by moving money from my chequing account, no muss no fuss.
And don't forget lack of sex (doesn't apply to all, but quite a few I know). I've noticed my own moods tend to be more errated when I'm getting less "activity," though you can substitute in other activities frankly a good ol' fashioned healthy sex-life often does wonders for one's mood.
Really, nobody has much used the world pirate that I can recall, until it got attached to copyright infringement. While I think that the word is being misused... you're more likely to hear something like "huh, I thought you mean he was copying music" in the case of a pirate on the seas than the opposite with a music pirate.
It really depends on your mindset. I just did my own brake calipers a week ago. Most people wouldn't dream of touching brakes on their own but they're generally not that difficult.
If I'd screwed up I'd just have to be filling to foot a towtruck and the regular repair bill anyhow.
What do you do to deal with a company that won't respect their warrantees. I've had plenty of people state they bought product X, it broke, and the store was either a pain in the ass or outright wouldn't accept the return. Personally I'm dealing with the local Canadian Tire because the brakes rotors they put in my car keep shuddering something fierce on hills (likely warped rotors)... but they claim it's not their brakes at fault but bad calipers (replaced calipers myself, still shudders, go figure).
Where are you looking that you find so many negetive reviews... perhaps you're just looking in the wrong place(s). I tend to check sites such as Epinions, wherein many of the projects have a nice mix of good and bad reviews. And when reading bad reviews... pay attention to the comments. If somebody is bitching about how an mp3 player doesn't have "as much capacity" as others (which people do, even though the capacity was stated before purchase) you can disregard it... if they're regularly bitching that the thing sucks batteries and corrupts files then perk up a bit...
My co-worker just spend about a half-hour going through his Bell cellular phone bill. It seems that every month since he started (about 6+ months ago I think) they've screwed up on his bill, and never in his favor. The main screwups seem to be with "companion phones" which are not supposed to be billed when they call each other, often they'll not charge when B calls A, but will for A calling B. This month he found $18 in errors... go figure.
How many people don't check their bills, and get screwed to the cellular company's profit...
Using patents like this is like the principle of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). Both sides had nukes, neither can use them for fear that the enemy would also, leaving both a smoking ruin.
So here you have two countries with potential world-destroying force aimed at each other... each depending on the other side being too afraid to use their weaponry for fear of retaliation. Sound like a good way to do things? I thought not.
So what if they could change it to say that after 1 year(s) usage, you now owe them $500/year?
Terms change can apply to continual services (bank accounts, etc) but should not be applicable to a one-time-purchase product.
The applicable license for when you bought the product would stand, but it might "change without notice" for future purchases, not your original purchase.
You might notice that EULA's do change with time. Finding an EULA on a website might not mean that you have the same EULA as the one you purchased a product with 3 years ago...
A book is less easily reproducable than software though. Sure you can take time and run a book through the photocopier, but unless you're a college student on a budget who would actually do this?
Not that I think serial keys and/or other such means are a good idea... they annoy much more than they protect as quite often the crack is available within a week of the product's release or possibly even before!
So you charge a small service charge for the lost keys. Having tons of customers calling when they lose keys might be an annoyance, but a service charge would dissuade carelessness while still providing service for lost keys.
Yes, but here we're talking about driver patches. If a console needed it, probably a huge pain in the arse yes (BIOS patch or hardware fix perhaps). But with a PC one of the major issues are the sheer number of different hardware options. On a console, games are built towards the hardware... which will always be the same (barring legacy support such as PS1 games on a PS2, etc).
The game will always *know* what the hardware is, and during testing they can catch more errors. On a console, the vendor can't test cards A B C D... X Y Z for every little thing, and thus might miss some weird conflicts/bugs/etc.
You could actually buy or come close to buying a new PC (maybe sans monitor) video a video card capable of handling more current games...
Or you could buy a PS3 and a not-quite-so-bloody-expensive-but-still-damn-good video card...
Maybe they're just hoping that by offering an obscene initial price the cards will seem really spectacular. A few rich fanboys will buy 'em, then they can dump the price and others will think they've become a good deal...
I wouldn't consider "laying somebody off" much different from when they quit for their own reasons. Currently, I am leaving my employer for one in a bigger city. I've given my notice, and am hanging on for a little over 3 weeks. As I'm the primary tech and they'll probably need work from me for awhile after, I'd expect that the SSH passwords etc won't be changed when I leave.
Now if I were laid off, same thing. Quite often a layoff is due to financial reasons or suffering from cutbacks. Your boss may want to keep you, your co-workers may love you, but they just can't afford you. I've been laid off and I still keep contact and good relations with my old employer. Heck, if they need me in the future and I've been laid off I'll still be happy to supply expertise (at a cost, of course).
Now the last issue is firing. If we fired somebody , it means they've either been caught doing something very bad (likely repeatedly depending on severity), or generally were jerks in the workplace. In some cases of course it also might be something beyond their control, or a personality conflict with management. Regardless or reason, a firing generally involves bitterness, and anyone being fired should generally involve extra precaution. Once they're gone, they have no access to the system. That's it, done, gone. If I were fired, I wouldn't be inclined to hack my former employer (that just invites problems) but any future calls for assistance etc - likely inevitable - would be met with a resounding hangup.
Maybe it's different elsewhere... but back in the day my school IT staff were pretty reasonable. I remember that we had a fair bit of fun hacking other students accounts until the prof got annoyed, at which point we showed him the holes and he plugged 'em.
Nowadays, I am one of the school IT staff. If a student were to show me a flaw in the system I'd be quite happy to address and fix it... no suspensions etc. If a student were to exploit a hole in the system and then bring it to my attention... well that's a different story. I've had quite a few students claim "3l33t h4x0r 5ki11z" and the ability to crack the network, most are just running brute-force programs and never actually get anywhere anyhow...
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Well... I've often wondered what "force pranks" would be like. You know... cause somebody a leg cramp by force-pinching a nerve... or perhaps pinch the butt of the cute secretary from across the room.
(some of these apply to tape as well)
:-)
a) Burn times are a big factor here, sure 850GB is great... but not if it takes almost a day for a backup run. Current DVD burning is fairly fast though... so hopefully we get good speeds (5-30 times faster than today's DVDs sounds promising)
b) If (a) works out well, and discs don't cost a crapload... you can burn multiple DVD's just in case of disc-rot. Store both in good conditions. Media is still subject to reliability, but many a company has relied on tapes as well only to find them demagnetized, etc at restore time (TEST those tapes, people).
c) Storage space could be saved big-time with this, and a multi-disk burner could be fairly easy to setup too
d) Tapes may not rot as easily, but DVD's don't get mad if you post 'em up using hard-drive magnets
Yes, but from my understanding of the article the encryption wasn't used in conjunction with the alleged crime. If I'm charged with murder and I happen to have bought a bag of lime or something that can be used to dissolve a body or hide evidence... then a body is found but without any traces of lime... how is the lime in any way connected to the so-called crime?
You can't deal in possiblities. Certainly if the dude had encrypted kiddy stuff on his machine they could use that against him... but he didn't, just encryption software which could very well have been from a completely unrelated issue.
It's called amateur. While some sites might charge for collections of "amateur" porn often others will post their own for free.
How about "send nasty messages to your boss" (or your co-workers, clients, etc). You could do it randomly over time to different people... parse an email that exists, send a message as a reply (with the original body quoted) stating "well I think you're an a**hole and I have no f**king use for you"...
A little more legit-sounding than your standard spoofed email, and more dangerous.
Some of the happiest people I know are some that (no offence intended) aren't the biggest thinkers. I find that your standard geek tends to think too much, internalizing possibilities, issues, etc.
Some people just live on a daily/weekly basis. They pay their bills, go to work, make babies, and don't sweat the rest... maybe not the best thing in the overall picture but often happier in general. Those who think on the bigger picture are often looking for the happiness of a group... others don't have to deal with such a big picture.
I find it's easier now that I have my primary visa and chequing account with the same bank. All my recurring bills go on Visa, Visa gets paid by moving money from my chequing account, no muss no fuss.
And don't forget lack of sex (doesn't apply to all, but quite a few I know). I've noticed my own moods tend to be more errated when I'm getting less "activity," though you can substitute in other activities frankly a good ol' fashioned healthy sex-life often does wonders for one's mood.
a) Does this mean that they have to "archive" messages caught by the spam filters?
b) Even if (a) is false... spam could account for a whole lotta email in three years...
Really, nobody has much used the world pirate that I can recall, until it got attached to copyright infringement. While I think that the word is being misused... you're more likely to hear something like "huh, I thought you mean he was copying music" in the case of a pirate on the seas than the opposite with a music pirate.
It really depends on your mindset. I just did my own brake calipers a week ago. Most people wouldn't dream of touching brakes on their own but they're generally not that difficult.
If I'd screwed up I'd just have to be filling to foot a towtruck and the regular repair bill anyhow.
What do you do to deal with a company that won't respect their warrantees. I've had plenty of people state they bought product X, it broke, and the store was either a pain in the ass or outright wouldn't accept the return. Personally I'm dealing with the local Canadian Tire because the brakes rotors they put in my car keep shuddering something fierce on hills (likely warped rotors)... but they claim it's not their brakes at fault but bad calipers (replaced calipers myself, still shudders, go figure).
Are there any groups to enforce warrantee?
Where are you looking that you find so many negetive reviews... perhaps you're just looking in the wrong place(s). I tend to check sites such as Epinions, wherein many of the projects have a nice mix of good and bad reviews. And when reading bad reviews... pay attention to the comments. If somebody is bitching about how an mp3 player doesn't have "as much capacity" as others (which people do, even though the capacity was stated before purchase) you can disregard it... if they're regularly bitching that the thing sucks batteries and corrupts files then perk up a bit...
My co-worker just spend about a half-hour going through his Bell cellular phone bill. It seems that every month since he started (about 6+ months ago I think) they've screwed up on his bill, and never in his favor. The main screwups seem to be with "companion phones" which are not supposed to be billed when they call each other, often they'll not charge when B calls A, but will for A calling B. This month he found $18 in errors... go figure.
How many people don't check their bills, and get screwed to the cellular company's profit...
How much of that spam actually conforms to the rules of CAN-SPAM though?
Using patents like this is like the principle of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). Both sides had nukes, neither can use them for fear that the enemy would also, leaving both a smoking ruin.
So here you have two countries with potential world-destroying force aimed at each other... each depending on the other side being too afraid to use their weaponry for fear of retaliation. Sound like a good way to do things? I thought not.
So what if they could change it to say that after 1 year(s) usage, you now owe them $500/year?
Terms change can apply to continual services (bank accounts, etc) but should not be applicable to a one-time-purchase product.
The applicable license for when you bought the product would stand, but it might "change without notice" for future purchases, not your original purchase.
You might notice that EULA's do change with time. Finding an EULA on a website might not mean that you have the same EULA as the one you purchased a product with 3 years ago...
A book is less easily reproducable than software though. Sure you can take time and run a book through the photocopier, but unless you're a college student on a budget who would actually do this?
Not that I think serial keys and/or other such means are a good idea... they annoy much more than they protect as quite often the crack is available within a week of the product's release or possibly even before!
If they can't find the serial keys, what are the chances that the EULA and/or other papers are still hanging around?
So you charge a small service charge for the lost keys. Having tons of customers calling when they lose keys might be an annoyance, but a service charge would dissuade carelessness while still providing service for lost keys.
Yes, but here we're talking about driver patches. If a console needed it, probably a huge pain in the arse yes (BIOS patch or hardware fix perhaps). But with a PC one of the major issues are the sheer number of different hardware options. On a console, games are built towards the hardware... which will always be the same (barring legacy support such as PS1 games on a PS2, etc).
... X Y Z for every little thing, and thus might miss some weird conflicts/bugs/etc.
The game will always *know* what the hardware is, and during testing they can catch more errors. On a console, the vendor can't test cards A B C D
You could actually buy or come close to buying a new PC (maybe sans monitor) video a video card capable of handling more current games...
Or you could buy a PS3 and a not-quite-so-bloody-expensive-but-still-damn-good video card...
Maybe they're just hoping that by offering an obscene initial price the cards will seem really spectacular. A few rich fanboys will buy 'em, then they can dump the price and others will think they've become a good deal...
I wouldn't consider "laying somebody off" much different from when they quit for their own reasons. Currently, I am leaving my employer for one in a bigger city. I've given my notice, and am hanging on for a little over 3 weeks. As I'm the primary tech and they'll probably need work from me for awhile after, I'd expect that the SSH passwords etc won't be changed when I leave.
Now if I were laid off, same thing. Quite often a layoff is due to financial reasons or suffering from cutbacks. Your boss may want to keep you, your co-workers may love you, but they just can't afford you. I've been laid off and I still keep contact and good relations with my old employer. Heck, if they need me in the future and I've been laid off I'll still be happy to supply expertise (at a cost, of course).
Now the last issue is firing. If we fired somebody , it means they've either been caught doing something very bad (likely repeatedly depending on severity), or generally were jerks in the workplace. In some cases of course it also might be something beyond their control, or a personality conflict with management. Regardless or reason, a firing generally involves bitterness, and anyone being fired should generally involve extra precaution. Once they're gone, they have no access to the system. That's it, done, gone. If I were fired, I wouldn't be inclined to hack my former employer (that just invites problems) but any future calls for assistance etc - likely inevitable - would be met with a resounding hangup.
Maybe it's different elsewhere... but back in the day my school IT staff were pretty reasonable. I remember that we had a fair bit of fun hacking other students accounts until the prof got annoyed, at which point we showed him the holes and he plugged 'em.
Nowadays, I am one of the school IT staff. If a student were to show me a flaw in the system I'd be quite happy to address and fix it... no suspensions etc. If a student were to exploit a hole in the system and then bring it to my attention... well that's a different story. I've had quite a few students claim "3l33t h4x0r 5ki11z" and the ability to crack the network, most are just running brute-force programs and never actually get anywhere anyhow...