This is all good and dandy, but if something can be protected, it can be cracked.
Yes, and it usually doesn't take that long. Makes one wonder: are there any examples where DRM has actually worked?
Sure, maybe there are some business applications where protection of internal company documents works dandy, but for mass market uses? If a protection scheme would really be unbreakable, people would likely avoid that product. And as soon as incentive (money, fair use rights, other) is strong enough, and the market is big enough, DRM does get cracked, right? Only a matter of time.
You seem to be very concerned about those poor folks in Tibet (and I happen to agree with that btw), or you're really just bored out of your skull, and abusing/. for fun. Who knows?
Checking a few articles, it looks like you've been trolling every other story here on Slashdot (for moderators: just browse at -1 threshold, and look for comments containing "China", or the same link from the parent post). Can't you read the title: "News for Nerds" ?
If you really feel strong about the subject, just go make your own site, or contribute to other sites on the subject, okay? Slashdot moderators will have spotted this by now, and just mod you out of sight, so you're wasting your time. Otherwise, get a life!
"Hello! I am calling you to inform you of our wonderful new product line, introduced this week. Would you care to take a little time and hear more about it?"
"WTF ?!?"
"I see. Sorry to have bothered you. Have a nice day, ma'am."
I wonder where MSFT thinks the money for this extra software should come from?
I mean, are IT budgets of customers (including Joe Sixpack) suddenly going up, so that extra funds are available to sink into these tools? If not, that would mean that either:
Windows should get cheaper, otherwise customers wouldn't have money left over to invest in these extra tools. This seems feasible; with competition from Free/OSS and users getting fed up with buggy software, market value of Windows is likely to drop. This could be a covert way to restore profit margins.
Hardware should get cheaper, so that more money is left over for software. Doesn't seem likely; hardware does get cheaper, but Joe Sixpack still buys expensive PC's, he just gets more bang for his bucks.
These extra tools are meant to replace competitor's offerings. Interesting option: if they are just another offering in a crowded field, okay. But first given away as a freebie, and then start charging after a while, when users become convinced they absolutely need it? In that case, could be an interesting candidate for another anti-competitive investigation.
If you can't baffle them with brilliance, dazzle them with bullshit.
The last time I had to design a circuit board, the boss told me to find a way to do it for free. We found some demo software on the internet that would print out samples of the board overlaid with a grid. (To remove grid, buy the software.) We then had to print to plastic and scrape the grid off with an exacto-knife.
Why not use paper & pencil for the design, take copper-plated circuit board, and scrape off the copper directly? Ah, anyway, just think of those poor folks in China that recycle some of our electronic trash. At least you get do the creative end of the work. So stop whining! You should be grateful to have a boss that empowers you to do such high-tech work!
With something that has to meet such varied design goals as a browser, it will likely go the way many complex pieces of technology go: by the time there's nothing left to improve, it has become obsolete.
So the time that any browser is finally 'perfect', is likely the same time that WWW browsing is obsoleted by other means of using the 'net.
The history of mankind is a long record of obstacles placed in the way of the more efficient for the benefit of the less efficient. -Ludwig von Mises
"So, if this works 'transparently' to browsers, ect, does this mean slashdotting a site will be much harder?"
Well... if you consider 'swarming' to mean: "every recipient is potentially a distributor as well", then yes. 100 Million downloaders/readers, a little time -> 100 million mirror sites. Slashdotting then becomes a non-issue.
Site getting slow... here ya go, you can use the copy in my browser's cache, if only I knew what URL it has.
If you want to moderate the parent post, please take note of this:
The parent poster is likely referring to the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. His murderer pinned a letter on his victims chest with a knife, containing some rant about why Theo van Gogh should be 'silenced'.
If you think that is funny, go ahead. If you think that is bad, but parent comment is funny nevertheless, go ahead. I'd rate it as "funny, but tasteless". If you have any mod points, I'd advise simply not to waste them on comments like the above.
we have won a number of battles, but the war is far from over.
The war never ends, it's only lost when people give up. Many people view struggles like this as a one-shot effort, that will take years, but when it passes into law, all is lost. I don't believe so.
With opposing political views, the only long-term stable situation is one that fluctuates around the middle. Whenever it moves in one direction, the opposing forces become stronger.
Take the currently unpopular government in the Netherlands (see recent Slashdot article for example), led by prime minister Balkenende. The more unpopular choices they make, the bigger their losses at the next election, and opposition parties will then move things back in the reverse direction.
If software patents pass into law, and negative effects become obvious, it would reinforce the anti-software-patent movement, and increase support to scrap software patents at a later time. The slow legislation process only makes, that much time passes before a 'final' decision is made, and unfortunate choices take a long time to correct.
As you said, the main point is to keep on fighting for what you believe in, and never give up.
with all these papers going electronic. I mean, it's always worked for me to wipe my ass with. Now I'd have to go out and buy toiletpaper. Have you seen them prices on that 3-layer tissue stuff lately?
Give a man a fish... and he'll use an old newspaper to wrap it in.
Teach a man how to fish... and he'll use old newspapers from this day forth.
"The software that survives in the future will be the one with the shortest vulnerability to patch cycle. The others will die off... only the strong survive!"
Software with the quickest patch cycle may survive on the market, but not on the 'net. As you claim yourself, the bad guys are always ahead.
Just suppose: everybody gets automatic updates, malware producers are extremely skillful, vendors put out patches 2 seconds after they're informed of an exploit, and unpatched machines are compromised immediately when connected to the 'net. What happens then?
Black hat finds hole: numerous exploited machines before exploit is reported to vendor & the (remaining!) machines are patched. White hat finds hole: vendor puts out patch, black hat reverse engineers & makes exploit quickly, and manages to compromise some machines before the update reaches all corners of the 'net. Some holes will be found by black hats, some by white hats. Either way, there's always a pool of exploited/exploitable machines (likely a growing number, as the net keeps growing) at any given time, even IF vendors do a good job AND users patch their machines quickly. And any single machine has some chance of being compromised sooner or later.
The only software that truly survives here, isn't software that gets patched quickly, but software that doesn't need a patch. Software that only fails when the hardware does, but otherwise works, reliable, solid, period.
Possible? Some argue not, I think it can be done. Software is ultimately based on mathematical principles, and last time I checked, 1+1=2 was still valid. Hardware fails, 1+1=2 doesn't. The rest is a matter of design/software engineering in a broader sense. How to write reliable software, how to manage complexity? Hard, but not impossible.
When you have the equipment to show the true difference (which I repeat is HUGE) you will notice and you will care.
Agreed. To add, I would define the 'most desired format' for consumers as: a format that is 'good enough' to show off the highest quality equipment that they have access to. Above that, a better quality source format does little to improve the experience.
That's why MP3, and CD-quality audio is still the norm rather than high-definition audio. To appreciate the difference, you need quality listening equipment that most consumers don't have.
Why would they upgrade then? Well, simple: when they buy that high-definition, 50" TV set. And with these format wars going on, consumers will be smart enough to postpone replacement of their DVD collection, until that new TV set is up and running.
That links the popularity of new formats to the popularity of available replay equipment. You may have that, but somehow I doubt that quality, 120" front projection systems will be commonplace any time soon (or ever will be).
As an African myself, I think this has something to do with the temperature on one's body "down there", where the tool is left to dangle in the air.
Quite right... why DO you think the business would be dangling there? For the p*s okay, but for the scrotum? Wouldn't it be better to tuck the crown jewels safely away inside the body? So if it's not, nature will have a good reason; evolution is very good at optimizing designs. The culture of wearing (tight) pants just sort of defeats that design...
On a side note: where's the "It's funny. Laugh." icon next to the headline? I know it's a serious subject... no it's funny... no it's serious... no it's funny... serious... funny.. Funny, definately.
OMG!!! I see a shitload of "dangling pointer" jokes coming up...
It is vulnerable, but not when you open the link in a new tab, only when you open a new window. So when you enable Single Window mode, you should be pretty safe.
Using Firefox 0.8 on Win98SE here (/ducks to avoid rotten tomatoes...;-), the only way I can get it to work is by left clicking on the upper of the 2 links (the one meant for "With Pop-up Blocker"). That is with popups blocked in Firefox settings, but without any popup-blocking extensions installed. I can't get it to show with either link, if I select "open in new tab" or "open in new window" from the context menu's (right click).
As expected: disable JavaScript, and... popup window (on CitiBank site) doesn't work, exploit doesn't show.
"On Trinity Southern's Web site, where the price for a doctorate is $499, the school said it awards degrees "to individuals with the same working knowledge as a recent college graduate from a traditional university."
So why shouldn't they award a degree to a cat, if the cat shows it has the working knowledge, is worthy of carrying that degree?
The deputy attorney should be proud to have a cat that smart!
Sign the petition now! Equal rights for cats & people!
From the article summary: ".. of the 928 papers they found, 75% accepted that global warming was caused by human activities, either explicitly or implicitly. 25% made no mention either way. And not a single paper asserted otherwise."
Just because everybody is saying it, doesn't make it true.
But okay, I'm the last person to deny global warming is upon us. Other than some US folks still not convinced or thinking it's not that big a problem (or simply putting their head in the sand), global warming is observed, and the only question is about how much of it is the result of human activities, and how much by natural causes. Oh yeah, and what to do about it.
I just wonder how much longer it will be until a physical size problems emerges.
No worries! By the time structures are just a couple of atoms big, researchers will just continue, and make them even smaller by using sub-atomic particles.
I think you can reasonably accurately predict (with some exceptions of course) where an artist falls on the "Internet Good" or "Internet Bad" debate based on how famous they are.
Don't think so. In the past, with eg. CD-only distribution, CD sold = profit made. Therefore: megastar = many albums sold = lots of profit (probably small part for artist, but hey). So being famous is roughly coupled with lots 'o money flowing in.
Zero-cost distribution a la P2P decouples this. At least in theory, an artist could be extremely popular, and still get 0 money. Or, if only CD's were sold at high price and copy protection would actually work (fat chance), an artist might get very rich, but with few fans.
As a result, an artist might have to choose between: maximize profits, or maximize fame. And then act accordingly. I suspect that most artists would prefer fame, as long as they can make a living somehow.
That would be "Fig.1", taken from patent #6,526,491 "Memory protection system and method for computer architecture for broadband networks" as filed with the US patent office. This describes the architecture in fairly good detail, but to what degree actual machines will match this description, remains to be seen.
BTW. the figure illustrates "the overal architecture of a computer network in accordance with the present invention"
So, why is Cell going to be easy to program, when other parallel systems aren't? The bits of that i've seen about the architecure suggests that programming might be an absolute bear.
That's likely *the* key to success of this architecture. As far as I can tell, it isn't really new in a fundamental sense, parallel/distributed architectures have been around for some time. What IS new, is that this would be the first time that a) this new architecture and b) associated computing potential, hits the mass market, getting into ordinary people's hands.
You're absolutely right here. The real problem is not building such machines, but easy/effectively programming them. I suspect the success of this platform will depend on how easy IBM/Sony will be able to make that. If it's an incredible machine, but hopelessly difficult to program, I'd guess it would be a flop. But if programming it turns out relatively easy, it could be a huge success, and start a whole new era.
You got that right. Have been a long time Firefox user now, and very happy with it. But shameless call on Mozilla developers and project managers here: get your act together on issues like localization. Take the Dutch translation for example:
A lot of tam-tam was done around nov.9, when Firefox hit final 1.0 release. Parties were organised worldwide, and local Dutch media reported the release.
But in the Netherlands, you'd want a Dutch translation, right? Turns out older 0.9 releases had bad or incomplete translation (so lots of translation work had to be re-done), and catching up for 1.0 wasn't done during 1.0 pre-release period, but mostly started *after* 1.0 final release (sorry, but I think that's braindead project management style). As a result, it took some 3 weeks (!) after 1.0 release, until a quality, 'officially approved' Dutch translation was available (around dec.2). And when it finally was, very little mention of it in local media. But there's more:
As a Dutch user, you'd try some URL's: Firefox.nl (used by some unknown party), Mozilla.nl (fake, nothing to see here) or http://nl.mozilla.org (says "host not found" here). There DO exist several Dutch Mozilla-related sites, like MozBrowser.nl, but no link to be found anywhere on Mozilla.org. Also, it's possible to install English language version, locale-switcher extension and a language pack, to obtain non-English Firefox. But no mention, or links to this, on Mozilla.org site either (or damn near impossible to find).
Okay, I know Mozilla is a large project, but how hard is it for instance, to make <countrycode>.Mozilla.org domains work, point those to country/language-specific sites, and provide some basic info on options, status and downloads for translations there? Mozilla organisation could improve a lot here. For Dutch translation alone: Netherlands have some 16 million people, computer use & broadband is very common here, so huge potential for localized Mozilla builds.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, and it usually doesn't take that long. Makes one wonder: are there any examples where DRM has actually worked?
Sure, maybe there are some business applications where protection of internal company documents works dandy, but for mass market uses? If a protection scheme would really be unbreakable, people would likely avoid that product. And as soon as incentive (money, fair use rights, other) is strong enough, and the market is big enough, DRM does get cracked, right? Only a matter of time.
Anyone got some counterexamples?
Checking a few articles, it looks like you've been trolling every other story here on Slashdot (for moderators: just browse at -1 threshold, and look for comments containing "China", or the same link from the parent post). Can't you read the title: "News for Nerds" ?
If you really feel strong about the subject, just go make your own site, or contribute to other sites on the subject, okay? Slashdot moderators will have spotted this by now, and just mod you out of sight, so you're wasting your time. Otherwise, get a life!
(some ugly namecalling deleted)
"Yes? Hello?"
"Hello! I am calling you to inform you of our wonderful new product line, introduced this week. Would you care to take a little time and hear more about it?"
"WTF ?!?"
"I see. Sorry to have bothered you. Have a nice day, ma'am."
If you can't baffle them with brilliance, dazzle them with bullshit.
It is not anyone's right to break the law, no matter how silly the law is.
You're right. If the law is silly enough, then it's not your right, but your duty to break it. It's called civil disobedience.
And I bet you would just love intellectual property laws if you had any intellectual property.
I do have some intellectual 'property', and no, both as consumer and producer copyright laws and such are still just a bother to me.
Why not use paper & pencil for the design, take copper-plated circuit board, and scrape off the copper directly? Ah, anyway, just think of those poor folks in China that recycle some of our electronic trash. At least you get do the creative end of the work. So stop whining! You should be grateful to have a boss that empowers you to do such high-tech work!
Back in the days... oh never mind
Hmmm... I thought it was: alpha stage, beta stage, release, service pack 1, service pack 2, some more updates, and still you are going to find issues.
So the time that any browser is finally 'perfect', is likely the same time that WWW browsing is obsoleted by other means of using the 'net.
The history of mankind is a long record of obstacles placed in the way of the more efficient for the benefit of the less efficient. -Ludwig von Mises
Well... if you consider 'swarming' to mean: "every recipient is potentially a distributor as well", then yes. 100 Million downloaders/readers, a little time -> 100 million mirror sites. Slashdotting then becomes a non-issue.
Site getting slow... here ya go, you can use the copy in my browser's cache, if only I knew what URL it has.
If you want to moderate the parent post, please take note of this:
The parent poster is likely referring to the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. His murderer pinned a letter on his victims chest with a knife, containing some rant about why Theo van Gogh should be 'silenced'.
If you think that is funny, go ahead. If you think that is bad, but parent comment is funny nevertheless, go ahead. I'd rate it as "funny, but tasteless". If you have any mod points, I'd advise simply not to waste them on comments like the above.
The war never ends, it's only lost when people give up. Many people view struggles like this as a one-shot effort, that will take years, but when it passes into law, all is lost. I don't believe so.
With opposing political views, the only long-term stable situation is one that fluctuates around the middle. Whenever it moves in one direction, the opposing forces become stronger.
Take the currently unpopular government in the Netherlands (see recent Slashdot article for example), led by prime minister Balkenende. The more unpopular choices they make, the bigger their losses at the next election, and opposition parties will then move things back in the reverse direction.
If software patents pass into law, and negative effects become obvious, it would reinforce the anti-software-patent movement, and increase support to scrap software patents at a later time. The slow legislation process only makes, that much time passes before a 'final' decision is made, and unfortunate choices take a long time to correct.
As you said, the main point is to keep on fighting for what you believe in, and never give up.
Son: Dad, I have to choose what to study next year, and I think I want to become a software engineer. You think that would be a cool job?
Dad: Yes, son, but did you hear that software patents got passed in the EU last year?
Son: Yes, I heard. So I'd better study to become a lawyer then, eh?
Dad: Yeah, not so cool a job, but one day it'll buy you a bigger house than ours, son.
Give a man a fish... and he'll use an old newspaper to wrap it in.
Teach a man how to fish... and he'll use old newspapers from this day forth.
Software with the quickest patch cycle may survive on the market, but not on the 'net. As you claim yourself, the bad guys are always ahead.
Just suppose: everybody gets automatic updates, malware producers are extremely skillful, vendors put out patches 2 seconds after they're informed of an exploit, and unpatched machines are compromised immediately when connected to the 'net. What happens then?
Black hat finds hole: numerous exploited machines before exploit is reported to vendor & the (remaining!) machines are patched. White hat finds hole: vendor puts out patch, black hat reverse engineers & makes exploit quickly, and manages to compromise some machines before the update reaches all corners of the 'net. Some holes will be found by black hats, some by white hats. Either way, there's always a pool of exploited/exploitable machines (likely a growing number, as the net keeps growing) at any given time, even IF vendors do a good job AND users patch their machines quickly. And any single machine has some chance of being compromised sooner or later.
The only software that truly survives here, isn't software that gets patched quickly, but software that doesn't need a patch. Software that only fails when the hardware does, but otherwise works, reliable, solid, period.
Possible? Some argue not, I think it can be done. Software is ultimately based on mathematical principles, and last time I checked, 1+1=2 was still valid. Hardware fails, 1+1=2 doesn't. The rest is a matter of design/software engineering in a broader sense. How to write reliable software, how to manage complexity? Hard, but not impossible.
The optimal solution is not needing one.
Agreed. To add, I would define the 'most desired format' for consumers as: a format that is 'good enough' to show off the highest quality equipment that they have access to. Above that, a better quality source format does little to improve the experience.
That's why MP3, and CD-quality audio is still the norm rather than high-definition audio. To appreciate the difference, you need quality listening equipment that most consumers don't have.
Why would they upgrade then? Well, simple: when they buy that high-definition, 50" TV set. And with these format wars going on, consumers will be smart enough to postpone replacement of their DVD collection, until that new TV set is up and running.
That links the popularity of new formats to the popularity of available replay equipment. You may have that, but somehow I doubt that quality, 120" front projection systems will be commonplace any time soon (or ever will be).
Quite right... why DO you think the business would be dangling there? For the p*s okay, but for the scrotum? Wouldn't it be better to tuck the crown jewels safely away inside the body? So if it's not, nature will have a good reason; evolution is very good at optimizing designs. The culture of wearing (tight) pants just sort of defeats that design...
On a side note: where's the "It's funny. Laugh." icon next to the headline? I know it's a serious subject... no it's funny... no it's serious... no it's funny... serious... funny.. Funny, definately.
OMG!!! I see a shitload of "dangling pointer" jokes coming up...
Using Firefox 0.8 on Win98SE here (/ducks to avoid rotten tomatoes... ;-), the only way I can get it to work is by left clicking on the upper of the 2 links (the one meant for "With Pop-up Blocker"). That is with popups blocked in Firefox settings, but without any popup-blocking extensions installed. I can't get it to show with either link, if I select "open in new tab" or "open in new window" from the context menu's (right click).
As expected: disable JavaScript, and... popup window (on CitiBank site) doesn't work, exploit doesn't show.
So why shouldn't they award a degree to a cat, if the cat shows it has the working knowledge, is worthy of carrying that degree?
The deputy attorney should be proud to have a cat that smart!
Sign the petition now! Equal rights for cats & people!
Just because everybody is saying it, doesn't make it true.
But okay, I'm the last person to deny global warming is upon us. Other than some US folks still not convinced or thinking it's not that big a problem (or simply putting their head in the sand), global warming is observed, and the only question is about how much of it is the result of human activities, and how much by natural causes. Oh yeah, and what to do about it.
For the rest: nothing to see here.
Anyway, when Firefox hits 95% market share, and IE drops below 3%, then the lower statistics for Firefox just become the norm again.
Maybe someone should code up a random-ad-clicking extension for Firefox?
No worries! By the time structures are just a couple of atoms big, researchers will just continue, and make them even smaller by using sub-atomic particles.
Don't think so. In the past, with eg. CD-only distribution, CD sold = profit made. Therefore: megastar = many albums sold = lots of profit (probably small part for artist, but hey). So being famous is roughly coupled with lots 'o money flowing in.
Zero-cost distribution a la P2P decouples this. At least in theory, an artist could be extremely popular, and still get 0 money. Or, if only CD's were sold at high price and copy protection would actually work (fat chance), an artist might get very rich, but with few fans.
As a result, an artist might have to choose between: maximize profits, or maximize fame. And then act accordingly. I suspect that most artists would prefer fame, as long as they can make a living somehow.
BTW. the figure illustrates "the overal architecture of a computer network in accordance with the present invention"
Previous /. article provides link to this description.
That's likely *the* key to success of this architecture. As far as I can tell, it isn't really new in a fundamental sense, parallel/distributed architectures have been around for some time. What IS new, is that this would be the first time that a) this new architecture and b) associated computing potential, hits the mass market, getting into ordinary people's hands.
You're absolutely right here. The real problem is not building such machines, but easy/effectively programming them. I suspect the success of this platform will depend on how easy IBM/Sony will be able to make that. If it's an incredible machine, but hopelessly difficult to program, I'd guess it would be a flop. But if programming it turns out relatively easy, it could be a huge success, and start a whole new era.
We'll see, time will tell...
You got that right. Have been a long time Firefox user now, and very happy with it. But shameless call on Mozilla developers and project managers here: get your act together on issues like localization. Take the Dutch translation for example:
A lot of tam-tam was done around nov.9, when Firefox hit final 1.0 release. Parties were organised worldwide, and local Dutch media reported the release.
But in the Netherlands, you'd want a Dutch translation, right? Turns out older 0.9 releases had bad or incomplete translation (so lots of translation work had to be re-done), and catching up for 1.0 wasn't done during 1.0 pre-release period, but mostly started *after* 1.0 final release (sorry, but I think that's braindead project management style). As a result, it took some 3 weeks (!) after 1.0 release, until a quality, 'officially approved' Dutch translation was available (around dec.2). And when it finally was, very little mention of it in local media. But there's more:
As a Dutch user, you'd try some URL's: Firefox.nl (used by some unknown party), Mozilla.nl (fake, nothing to see here) or http://nl.mozilla.org (says "host not found" here). There DO exist several Dutch Mozilla-related sites, like MozBrowser.nl, but no link to be found anywhere on Mozilla.org. Also, it's possible to install English language version, locale-switcher extension and a language pack, to obtain non-English Firefox. But no mention, or links to this, on Mozilla.org site either (or damn near impossible to find).
Okay, I know Mozilla is a large project, but how hard is it for instance, to make <countrycode>.Mozilla.org domains work, point those to country/language-specific sites, and provide some basic info on options, status and downloads for translations there? Mozilla organisation could improve a lot here. For Dutch translation alone: Netherlands have some 16 million people, computer use & broadband is very common here, so huge potential for localized Mozilla builds.
"You think that is air you're breathing?"