I don't know Finnish law and haven't read the court's decision (how's that for a disclaimer prior to spouting off?), but I wouldn't just assume that buying a DVD and using a licensed player, is enough to make it legal. It may be that all CSS-scrambled DVDs are now illegal to watch in Finland, regardless of the player device.
The fine summary is hugely off the mark and there seems to be a lot of confusion in what was really decided by the court. I try to clear things up a bit here...
Court didn't rule that breaking CSS protection is illegal. What was ruled was that manufacturing and distributing such a device or a software that improperly breaks CSS is illegal. I couldn't come up to conclude that if mere owning such a device or software is legal or not.
Things started when some guy whose lastname is Rauhala ordered a piece of software from person X which breaks CSS. Rauhala didn't say who X is. Rauhala payed 0.05 for that software. X wrote some Haskell code which did the job and delivered it to Rauhala. And the act of delivering the software was ruled to be illegal. It seems that this was just a case to get precedent verdict from Rauhala's part.
I read the court verdict and found something else that is pretty interesting and weird. Illegally decrypted DVDs are considered to be legal. So the product of decryption is legal and so is the process of decrypting it but the tools used in the process are illegal.
The more I try to make out of this the more puzzled I am. Finnish copyright law seems to be really obscure and I think we need to get many precedents from Finnish supreme court before one can really understand it. If understanding is possible at all.
You missed a little, but crucial point. You must download non-encrypted version of the movie from P2P network. If you download encrypted one, you are still breaking the law if you are watching it without properly licensed player. And you must download it by using a client which doesn't share the same file you are downloading.
This law, Lex Karpela as some might call it, is really confusing but luckily I don't have to deal with it. I do live in Finland but I own a standalone DVD player and buy all my DVDs:)
The interesting thing is that the utility for helping impaired people is run as SYSTEM when it really doesn't have to be.
My hunch would be that the utility has to insert some system level hooks into Windows in order to read text from every widget (window, control, or whatever you call them) in the system. This is why it needs elevated privileges.
But the whole article is stupid. I "hacked" into my coworker's Win2000 installation almost decade ago. He was on holiday and we needed something from his PC. I downloaded nice little program from the internet, copied it to disk, booted it and changed admin password. Then we just log on to his system using the new password. Wow! Maybe I should post an article to Slashdot about this!
We all know, or at least should know, that constantly overstraining employer leads to burn out and all kinds of nasty health problem. But it is little known that contant underload can lead to same problems. I've read couple of studies/articles about this.
I don't know how things go in your country but I would surf the web, chat in IRC and watch videos at Youtube for a week and then go to see a doctor. I would explain the situation to the doctor and most probably get at least a week off the work. Sick leave is fully paid here.
At least UAC on my Vista setup asks administrator password when some stupid application want's to access something it is not supposed to. Writing 11 character long password with big and small letters and couple of numbers is pretty active thing to do. I don't really think that typing "sudo" before that would do any difference.
I'm not working right? Wow! You are actually saying that I should use command prompt to unzip/unrar files and not doing so costs in development time? Well I get something like 1 ZIP packet in a month by email attachement. I double click the attachement, select Open and copypaste files to wherever is suitable.
Listing processes and killing them? Why? I just switch to the process window and click ALT+F4. I'm not the type who constantly keeps 20 browser windows open at the desktop.
Why would I need command line UNIX tools? I have Visual Studio which has all the nice regexp search and replace stuff I need plus very, very nice code refactoring feature. My job is not to edit text but to produce code.
Ping. Now there's something which I do from command prompt. But last time I pinged something... I think it was in February. Network action is shown in the nice little network icon on systray. I don't need command line tools for that. DHCP renewal, WLAN access point selection and such can also be done through that icon.
I really don't do any those like ever! I don't scramble with various config files or multi-task-kill processes. I do config stuff through UI and it has worked fine all these 12 years I've used Windows. I'm not a newb, I can tell you. I've developed ways to do things efficiently and command prompt would only slow me down on Windows.
Point taken. But I've never mass renamed files. I can see that if someone downloads a heck load of MP3s from P2P and want's to rename all those files to be more appropriate but I, personally, would write a small C#.NET program or PowerShell script for it:)
Normal user, as others mentioned, aren't even supposed to know about Windows Services. Program installers and configurators should do all the necessary service configuration stuff. If not, those are lousy programs written by lazy developers and this isn't Operating System related issue at all.
Interface that locks up is a bitch! Program is doing something lengthy non-asynchronously and blocking Windows from refreshing the UI. This is very bad behavior and program's designer(s) should be shot at noon. Luckily Vista alleviates this a bit.
Care to elaborate what those tasks are that require command prompt in Windows? I've been writing software for Win NT/98/2K/XP/Vista, plus some apps and scripts for Linux and BSD, for years now and never have I had to go to command prompt but in some rare cases I prefer it (like quickly check my IP). Allthough I must admit that I haven't done anything like administrating huge networks and stuff but what I've heard you don't actually need command prompt in those cases either.
Yes, it is stupid thing that people reinstall their Windowses and loose all their apps in the process. Someone should show them the wonders of repair install.
"Shared source" IS open source. But it is NOT free software.
I don't really care about this distinction. If I can see the source it is open enough for me. Usually I don't even use other's code, at least not directly. I check how things are done and write my own implementation of it. Yes, I reinvent the wheel but I learn much from the process of doing it.
If I ever release code to the wild I use BSD license. I don't care to get code changes back because I wouldn't use those changes (again, I would write implementation of my own). All I care that my code is out there and it has my name in it.
Re:Is it a parody? Comedy?
on
Iron Sky Trailer
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· Score: 2, Informative
Well the motorbike made engine noises, in a vacuum........
But they do! Exhaust gases can carry sound waves and if the microfone is suitably located we can hear the engine. But don't ask me where those gases are coming from;)
Well then we could have a good old fire fight down here! I mean to answer the question "how secure is your data center" I'd say that I have two shotguns and two very large dogs protecting our properties;)
I actually kid about this at work. If someone was to stole our servers all he would have to do is break in, grap server and walk out. Security gets there in about 10 - 15 minutes if ever. To steal my home server would be much more difficult thing to do.
Could you be a little more specific? I've written.NET apps for some years now at work and I've never had to use P/Invoke. At least not at work. And I really don't see your problem with static classes. If you don't want to use for example File class there's always FileInfo class which can be instantiated.
Only thing where MS dropped the ball, in my opinion of course, was that they dragged the abomination of VB to the.NET world. Now there's a heck load of VB.NET programmers who don't know a shit about object oriented programming and are doing everything in the old god forsaken ASP way.
Small dogs? We have two large dogs. You most definetely don't catch them either. They catch you, hard. I wouldn't change them for a small dog since small dogs don't usually rip your arms off:)
Why is Slashdot crowd concerned how long Microsoft is selling and/or supporting Windows XP all the sudden? I thougth it is common understanding here that Vista sucks and is bringing MS down to bankcruptcy or whatever. So why shouldn't stop selling XPs, in your point of view?
As so has ASP.NET. I write (almost) all my database queries parametrized like this
SqlConnection conn =...
SqlCommand cmd =...
cmd.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM Foo WHERE Bar = @bar";
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("bar", barValue);
This way I'm pretty safe from SQL injection attacks. Add all the HTML encoding/decoding stuff to that and you can rest your nights peacefully.
Then enter the PHB. Now a days we stuff all the parameters straight to the DB procedure where they aren't sanitized at all. We build SQL query inside the stored proc by concatenating strings and call sp_execute to execute them. So all my earlier input validation and parameterized queries went down the drain. PHB's reasoning? - We trust our users.
SSL and sertificate isn't necessarily enough. Ask Finnish Sampo bank for instance. They opened up a huge XSS hole on their website where specially crafted URL could do wonders. Sertiface said sampopankki.fi, URL said sampopankki.fi, lock icon was visible, but the actual content was downloaded from evilwebsite.com.
Slashdot Mirror
The fine summary is hugely off the mark and there seems to be a lot of confusion in what was really decided by the court. I try to clear things up a bit here...
Court didn't rule that breaking CSS protection is illegal. What was ruled was that manufacturing and distributing such a device or a software that improperly breaks CSS is illegal. I couldn't come up to conclude that if mere owning such a device or software is legal or not.
Things started when some guy whose lastname is Rauhala ordered a piece of software from person X which breaks CSS. Rauhala didn't say who X is. Rauhala payed 0.05 for that software. X wrote some Haskell code which did the job and delivered it to Rauhala. And the act of delivering the software was ruled to be illegal. It seems that this was just a case to get precedent verdict from Rauhala's part.
I read the court verdict and found something else that is pretty interesting and weird. Illegally decrypted DVDs are considered to be legal. So the product of decryption is legal and so is the process of decrypting it but the tools used in the process are illegal.
The more I try to make out of this the more puzzled I am. Finnish copyright law seems to be really obscure and I think we need to get many precedents from Finnish supreme court before one can really understand it. If understanding is possible at all.
I've heard that bundleware vendors pay some money to OEMs in order to get their stuff bundled with Windows PC. This lowers the prize.
You missed a little, but crucial point. You must download non-encrypted version of the movie from P2P network. If you download encrypted one, you are still breaking the law if you are watching it without properly licensed player. And you must download it by using a client which doesn't share the same file you are downloading.
This law, Lex Karpela as some might call it, is really confusing but luckily I don't have to deal with it. I do live in Finland but I own a standalone DVD player and buy all my DVDs :)
My hunch would be that the utility has to insert some system level hooks into Windows in order to read text from every widget (window, control, or whatever you call them) in the system. This is why it needs elevated privileges.
But the whole article is stupid. I "hacked" into my coworker's Win2000 installation almost decade ago. He was on holiday and we needed something from his PC. I downloaded nice little program from the internet, copied it to disk, booted it and changed admin password. Then we just log on to his system using the new password. Wow! Maybe I should post an article to Slashdot about this!
In the end it doesn't really matter what technical devices I have in the house 2013. My wife still rules the remote control with an iron grip.
We all know, or at least should know, that constantly overstraining employer leads to burn out and all kinds of nasty health problem. But it is little known that contant underload can lead to same problems. I've read couple of studies/articles about this.
I don't know how things go in your country but I would surf the web, chat in IRC and watch videos at Youtube for a week and then go to see a doctor. I would explain the situation to the doctor and most probably get at least a week off the work. Sick leave is fully paid here.
At least UAC on my Vista setup asks administrator password when some stupid application want's to access something it is not supposed to. Writing 11 character long password with big and small letters and couple of numbers is pretty active thing to do. I don't really think that typing "sudo" before that would do any difference.
I'm not working right? Wow! You are actually saying that I should use command prompt to unzip/unrar files and not doing so costs in development time? Well I get something like 1 ZIP packet in a month by email attachement. I double click the attachement, select Open and copypaste files to wherever is suitable.
Listing processes and killing them? Why? I just switch to the process window and click ALT+F4. I'm not the type who constantly keeps 20 browser windows open at the desktop.
Why would I need command line UNIX tools? I have Visual Studio which has all the nice regexp search and replace stuff I need plus very, very nice code refactoring feature. My job is not to edit text but to produce code.
Ping. Now there's something which I do from command prompt. But last time I pinged something... I think it was in February. Network action is shown in the nice little network icon on systray. I don't need command line tools for that. DHCP renewal, WLAN access point selection and such can also be done through that icon.
I really don't do any those like ever! I don't scramble with various config files or multi-task-kill processes. I do config stuff through UI and it has worked fine all these 12 years I've used Windows. I'm not a newb, I can tell you. I've developed ways to do things efficiently and command prompt would only slow me down on Windows.
You cleverly omitted the ":)" part from the quote.
Point taken. But I've never mass renamed files. I can see that if someone downloads a heck load of MP3s from P2P and want's to rename all those files to be more appropriate but I, personally, would write a small C#.NET program or PowerShell script for it :)
Normal user, as others mentioned, aren't even supposed to know about Windows Services. Program installers and configurators should do all the necessary service configuration stuff. If not, those are lousy programs written by lazy developers and this isn't Operating System related issue at all.
Interface that locks up is a bitch! Program is doing something lengthy non-asynchronously and blocking Windows from refreshing the UI. This is very bad behavior and program's designer(s) should be shot at noon. Luckily Vista alleviates this a bit.
Care to elaborate what those tasks are that require command prompt in Windows? I've been writing software for Win NT/98/2K/XP/Vista, plus some apps and scripts for Linux and BSD, for years now and never have I had to go to command prompt but in some rare cases I prefer it (like quickly check my IP). Allthough I must admit that I haven't done anything like administrating huge networks and stuff but what I've heard you don't actually need command prompt in those cases either.
Yes, it is stupid thing that people reinstall their Windowses and loose all their apps in the process. Someone should show them the wonders of repair install.
/end-defensive-mode
And you learn more when you write your own (virtual) device driver which crashes your kernel and renders it to unbootable state :)
Not that I know anyone who has done so... or at least I wont admit it!
But recent study showed that video games aren't as dangerous as thought to be. So I guess we are back to action movies and heavy metal then.
I don't really care about this distinction. If I can see the source it is open enough for me. Usually I don't even use other's code, at least not directly. I check how things are done and write my own implementation of it. Yes, I reinvent the wheel but I learn much from the process of doing it.
If I ever release code to the wild I use BSD license. I don't care to get code changes back because I wouldn't use those changes (again, I would write implementation of my own). All I care that my code is out there and it has my name in it.
Well there's something called Moonlight on Mono-project's website. You can check it out here: http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight
But they do! Exhaust gases can carry sound waves and if the microfone is suitably located we can hear the engine. But don't ask me where those gases are coming from ;)
Well then we could have a good old fire fight down here! I mean to answer the question "how secure is your data center" I'd say that I have two shotguns and two very large dogs protecting our properties ;)
I actually kid about this at work. If someone was to stole our servers all he would have to do is break in, grap server and walk out. Security gets there in about 10 - 15 minutes if ever. To steal my home server would be much more difficult thing to do.
Could you be a little more specific? I've written .NET apps for some years now at work and I've never had to use P/Invoke. At least not at work. And I really don't see your problem with static classes. If you don't want to use for example File class there's always FileInfo class which can be instantiated.
Only thing where MS dropped the ball, in my opinion of course, was that they dragged the abomination of VB to the .NET world. Now there's a heck load of VB.NET programmers who don't know a shit about object oriented programming and are doing everything in the old god forsaken ASP way.
Small dogs? We have two large dogs. You most definetely don't catch them either. They catch you, hard. I wouldn't change them for a small dog since small dogs don't usually rip your arms off :)
Why is Slashdot crowd concerned how long Microsoft is selling and/or supporting Windows XP all the sudden? I thougth it is common understanding here that Vista sucks and is bringing MS down to bankcruptcy or whatever. So why shouldn't stop selling XPs, in your point of view?
As so has ASP.NET. I write (almost) all my database queries parametrized like this
SqlConnection conn = ... ...
SqlCommand cmd =
cmd.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM Foo WHERE Bar = @bar";
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("bar", barValue);
This way I'm pretty safe from SQL injection attacks. Add all the HTML encoding/decoding stuff to that and you can rest your nights peacefully.
Then enter the PHB. Now a days we stuff all the parameters straight to the DB procedure where they aren't sanitized at all. We build SQL query inside the stored proc by concatenating strings and call sp_execute to execute them. So all my earlier input validation and parameterized queries went down the drain. PHB's reasoning? - We trust our users.
How many other fast-tracked or not-fast-tracked ISO standards have no conforming implementations?
Only the Sith deal in absolutes.
How can it be hinderance to have sources where problem exists and where it is fixed? Just run a damn diff of them and there you have it.
SSL and sertificate isn't necessarily enough. Ask Finnish Sampo bank for instance. They opened up a huge XSS hole on their website where specially crafted URL could do wonders. Sertiface said sampopankki.fi, URL said sampopankki.fi, lock icon was visible, but the actual content was downloaded from evilwebsite.com.