Isn't that like saying encryption only works when it's illegal to circumvent it. Encryption doesn't work because cracking it is illegal. It works because it is impractical to crack.
If they would just have improved the strength of their copy protection, they wouldn't have had to buy the DMCA. An additional benefit would have been that the hackers, who should be trying to convince their friends and family to not support the RIAA, would be kept busy trying to break the latest scheme.
The problem is, they _can't_ improve the strength of copy protection enough. It's a fundamentally unwinnable technical battle once you think about - remember, everything that's on the client-side can be broken. If the _private_ keys to decrypt encrypted data are distributed in client-side players... well, that's pretty stupid. But it's the only way DRM can "work". In fact, this battle is as unwinnable for the "content providers" as eliminating aimbots in a first-person shooter.
I guess the people who say "Information wants to be Free" are right after all.
So to take this to its logical extreme, if a person has 139 open and the guest accout enabled on an NT based machine, is it ok for me to browse the files on thier hard drives? They have, afterall, left the door wide open for anyone to connect to thier system and view all of thier files.
I'd say it's okay for you to browse the files. It's not okay for you to exploit other security holes (or a Guest account which, for some stupid reason, has write access to files) to change the contents of the hard disk.
The real problem is that a) most computer users are not educated enough. We're trained from our very childhood that you must always close the door of the house (or lock the car, and so on), but we aren't trained to firewall computers, and b) it is not possible to determine whether a port has been opened on accident or on purpose without connecting to it and looking around
Obviously, this is assuming that you know in advance that the given port is open.
The question is, of course, _how_ you got the information that the port is open. a) Someone tells you it is open. This could happen via a link from another website, but it could also be via a peer-to-peer network or a friend informing you on IRC. b) You portscan the machine.
I'd say that in case of a), connecting to the port and having a look around is perfectly legitimate (unless you were told that the port is supposed to be closed). In the case of b) it isn't. But that's just my opinion.
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Note that MDI means multiple documents in a single window (as opposed to SDI, one document per window).
Gimp is a weird mix of SDI and MDI: every document has its own window (SDI), but then there's only one menu/toolbar for all documents (MDI).
SDI is a good thing because you can easily move different documents into different places. What Gimp does isn't really SDI though.
Isn't that like saying encryption only works when it's illegal to circumvent it. Encryption doesn't work because cracking it is illegal. It works because it is impractical to crack.
If they would just have improved the strength of their copy protection, they wouldn't have had to buy the DMCA. An additional benefit would have been that the hackers, who should be trying to convince their friends and family to not support the RIAA, would be kept busy trying to break the latest scheme.
The problem is, they _can't_ improve the strength of copy protection enough. It's a fundamentally unwinnable technical battle once you think about - remember, everything that's on the client-side can be broken. If the _private_ keys to decrypt encrypted data are distributed in client-side players... well, that's pretty stupid. But it's the only way DRM can "work".
In fact, this battle is as unwinnable for the "content providers" as eliminating aimbots in a first-person shooter.
I guess the people who say "Information wants to be Free" are right after all.
So to take this to its logical extreme, if a person has 139 open and the guest accout enabled on an NT based machine, is it ok for me to browse the files on thier hard drives? They have, afterall, left the door wide open for anyone to connect to thier system and view all of thier files.
I'd say it's okay for you to browse the files. It's not okay for you to exploit other security holes (or a Guest account which, for some stupid reason, has write access to files) to change the contents of the hard disk.
The real problem is that
a) most computer users are not educated enough. We're trained from our very childhood that you must always close the door of the house (or lock the car, and so on), but we aren't trained to firewall computers, and
b) it is not possible to determine whether a port has been opened on accident or on purpose without connecting to it and looking around
Obviously, this is assuming that you know in advance that the given port is open.
The question is, of course, _how_ you got the information that the port is open.
a) Someone tells you it is open. This could happen via a link from another website, but it could also be via a peer-to-peer network or a friend informing you on IRC.
b) You portscan the machine.
I'd say that in case of a), connecting to the port and having a look around is perfectly legitimate (unless you were told that the port is supposed to be closed). In the case of b) it isn't. But that's just my opinion.