Okay, so if I can pick up a TiVo for a couple of hundred bucks, how much is a MythTV box? You need a fast pentium box with a large HD, right? Plus a video encoder. What's the cheapest MythTV box that I could put together that competes with a base TiVo?
Couple of things here. First off you can get a baseline Tivo (40 hour) for $99 before rebates. I happened to pick mine up on special (after rebate) for $49.99.
The 40 hour Tivo is really about a 25 hour Tivo if you are looking to not have super shit quality on all your recordings. The cost is also a lot more than $50 or $99 because you have to pay the bastards $12.99 a month (or $300 for life).
Ok, so you get a Tivo and a lifetime subscription for $400. You would need to start comparing MythTV at that point. Most people would probably want to also add the extra $50 to $100 (depending on rebates) for a decent HD to equate to something you would probably have with MythTV (say 80GB to 120GB). I would figure the baseline MythTV box would have to start around $500 or so.
I can't predict the actions of another individual and his cabinet running this country (and neither can you). I can state, for a fact, that Bush is spending money we do not have and digging a deficit hole so deep that we will spend many, many, years recovering from.
Internal conflict is what I worry about...
on
In the Year 2020
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
US Unipolarity--How Long Can It Last?
A world with a single superpower is unique in modern times. Despite the rise in anti-Americanism, most major powers today believe countermeasures such as balancing are not likely to work in a situation in which the US controls so many of the levers of power. Moreover, US policies are not perceived as sufficiently threatening to warrant such a step.
Eh, with the Dollar doing as shitty as it has been and the country being run into financial ruins by someone known to have little success with any other financial venture he spearheaded I really don't think that we will be able to recover in as little as twelve years. We are digging an enormous hole right now both financially and in public opinion. When a leader sends a country to war on what we figured were false pretenses but ends up ahead at the end we might forgive them. When a leader sends a country to war on what we figured were false pretenses but ends of admitting we found squat I just don't think that public opinion will remain high...
The country may weaken itself due to internal conflict. Especially if the draconian measures continue to erode our personal freedoms.
In the future, growing distrust could prompt governments to take a more hostile approach, including resistance to support for US interests in multinational forums and development of asymmetric military capabilities as a hedge against the US.
Too bad they can't come right out and say that the distrust is justified. Who the fuck is going to go to bat for us when we get owned by more organized terrorists (or internal conflict) when anything the leaders of our country have said over the past 10 years is proven bullshit?
Many countries increasingly believe that the surest way to gain leverage over Washington is by threatening to withhold cooperation. In other forms of bargaining, foreign governments will try to find ways to "bandwagon" or connect their policy agendas to those of the US--for example on the war on terrorism--and thereby fend off US opposition to other policies.
And with the dollar so weak and public opinion (both nationally and internationally) low this will probably work. Any pressure they put on us 10 years ago would mean nothing. We would just use our leverage and shove back. With our country weakened on multiple fronts we won't have much leverage or public desire to have leverage (ie more deficit dollars).
Parent: While some people will tend to think that stuff in the kitchen is cool, others will think it should include coding. Others will want automotive and others will prefer architecture or explosives or metalwork or hide tanning or alternative energy.
Article: Make brings the do-it-yourself mindset to all the technology in your life. Make is loaded with exciting projects that help you make the most of your technology at home and away from home. This is a magazine that celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your own will.
You know the when I was reading this I was hoping for something like the computer magazines of the past. 1000s of lines of BASIC code that you could create something with and build from there. Instead this seems like a lame attempt at a lame "hacking" book.
Great, the premeire issue shows you how to suspend a video camera from a kite. Woo. How about something that hasn't been done before?
I think the real question is, do we still need magazines?
The second I can have a spare Internet device tucked under my sink or stacked on top of my toilet when I am in a pinch (pun not intended) then no. Until then I am happy to have my Maxim's stocked right there.
How did you know the virus did not delete data on his system before he could backup? How did you know the virus did not delete some Windows dlls preventing the machine to load in order for him to do his backup?
Because he lost and entire year's worth of receipts. Thus he was not backing them up on a regular basis. Hell, he wasn't even backing them up on a monthly basis. Thus there is no excuse.
You don't need a fancy backup solution to store receipts. You need a bunch of floppies, a Zip disk, or even a more difficult CDRW. You might use ZIP archiving but you could probably just store them normally.
ISP's can not block such things with the current internet protocal. I think switching to IPV6 and inventing some extensions that can track computers and an end to spoofing is what is needed.
IPV6 will do nothing but create more problems enabling people to quickly switch IPs (as they can control millions of them) and do their damage.
But 2004 "was a real turning point in a bad direction," said technology analyst Ted Schadler of Forrester Research. "People are getting really angry. They're angry at Dell and Microsoft and their cable providers, and that's appropriate. They should be."
Be upset at MSFT for the spyware, trojans, and worms. Be upset at the little bastards that make this shit. Be upset at yourself for not properly protecting yourself. But certainly do no blame Dell and do not blame your Cable provider as they aren't at fault.
We are in a time period of blaming everyone else for our problems. Personally, I spent the time protecting myself and my network from issues. Yeah, they could probably still come through but I have at least closed most of the holes that I know of. If you are on the Internet without a hardware router/firewall and using software without a software firewall and surfing the web without virus protection and Spyware detection I really don't feel sorry for you.
For the person that they quoted at the beginning of the article saying that he was playing Pong and had the first desktop on his block... I'm sure he knew what he had to do to protect himself. He was just too lazy to do so.
Gerald Stark, 52, trained on computers in school and in the Navy before starting a small cleaning business in Lisbon Falls, Maine.....A virus killed one machine. Then spyware infested the next one, wiping out a year's worth of receipt records.
No, Gerald lost his receipt records. Why weren't there adequate backups? Why didn't he keep the originals for 7 years? Why didn't he have multiple off-site backups in a format like TXT or CSV which is not vulnerable?
People need to protect themselves and stop asking the government to do it for them. LEARN to use a computer, LEARN how to protect yourself, and LEARN not to be stupid.
Not everyone can know everything but at least know the basics and you will be a lot better off.
Well, as much as I would enjoy a Mac mini, from what I see they are pricey for a decent amount of RAM (add $425 for 1GB), they don't exactly have a blazing processor, and they will likely act sluggish if the touted features of Tiger are actually as power/graphics hungry as the ZDNet article kinda mentions...
Do you want the spectrum to be regulated by a free market (which in your view leads inevitably to undesirable consolidation)
And what is happening now? The slices of spectrum are not priced within the range of anyone except a handful of companies which is already leading to consolidation. Then on top of that we are allowing even more consolidation within the market (AT&T/Cingular, etc).
This sounds like one of those conspiracy folk who feel that widescreen DVDs are a conspiracy by Asians and short people cause they see horizontally better.
Excuse me but DVD technology wasn't paid for by my tax dollars. It was created by the market and succeeded because it was a better alternative not because the government decided to waste our money on making it succeed.
Yeah! Like the Internet! That's a free-for-all, and look where that got us!
Oh, yeah, that's right. A whole new era.
If you weren't being sarcastic I suggest you read the rest of his article. He mentions that most businesses thought it was a passing fad and that deregulation did cause the Internet to boom.
The problem that I see is that both businesses and governments understand now that they have little to no control over the Internet and they will not allow that to happen again.
Over-the-air TV now serves less than 20% of the market. Each analog channel could be replaced by six digital channels. And one TV tower blankets an entire city transmitting a single program, instead of hundreds of small street-corner antennas each sending out hundreds of different shows and reusing the same bandwidth over and over again.
And what would happen if this was the case? A single entity would buy up all the individual local markets and begin transmitting their own crap back over it. They might even keep the individual programs but still carry them under their own waving flag.
We all know what I'm talking about so I won't even bother to give them the free advertising space... So when the local market is bought up by the conglomerate company what happens? Any number of things but most likely a dampening of freedom due to needing to show the world what a great company your station represents.
An end to freedom.
And third, spectrum is so politicized that nimble decision-making is impossible. For more than a decade the FCC, in a vain attempt to save the U.S. consumer-electronics industry, has pushed high-definition TV onto broadcasters.
Like I give a fuck about the broadcasters. The FCC pushed HD on to the people. The same people that own that fucking spectrum and should be the ones choosing what happens with it. Sadly the FCC has taken on more and more power to do what IT thinks best not what IS best.
HDTV is a joke. It's a waste of money and time. There were thousands of better things that we could have used that money on. Not to mention that it was mandated to be in every TV and every broadcast by a certain date. We had to pay for it once to be mandated and now we have to pay for it again to be used. THANKS! Just what I wanted... To be able to see the noise hairs and sweat on an NBA player.
Personally, I think they should have spent the time and money protecting us from consolidation in the media markets but that's me. I didn't have a say in it and neither did any of the rest of us.
Talk about win-win-win! Everyone would gain, especially the U.S. economy. As the successful pioneers of the first broad, free-market-driven spectrum exchange, we would set world standards for usage and equipment. The U.S. economy, the home of innovation and the lone entrepreneur, would prevail once more.
You are suggesting something that the government and the business world cannot fathom. You are suggesting that there be a true free market. Not one regulated by a single entity handing out slices like it was the last piece of pie on earth... Not one that gives instant money in large chunks rather than small bits here and there over time...
Businesses want control so that they can continue to win. If everyone had access then they couldn't dish it out and hold on. Why would they want to have other people innovating and using the networks like they could be? They can run everything on antiquated crap and offer shit services for high prices.
Overpeer is a company known to be paid by the MPAA and RIAA member companies to upload corrupted files onto the networks.
Now it appears to be setting up a side-line, generating ad revenue by tricking gullible users to download its faux warez.
It's like calling the cops to tell them that you were robbed while buying drugs. Yeah it sucks that you got 0wn3d while downloading warez but who the hell are you going to complain to and have anything done about it?
If you tattle you both get in trouble. You might get in more trouble than they will. Sad but true. Remember who has the better lawyers and the political backing...
Well, to be precise it opens which ever media player is associated with the media file you are trying to open. You can also override this on a per-filetype basis by specifiying a different handler for the file under the "Downloads" section of the Options box - the section titled "File Types". Whether your motivation for switching to Firefox was security, features, web standards or because it's FOSS, then the same motivation should apply to WMP too. Certainly on my Windows boxes none of the primary media types are associated with the DRM and security hole infested WMP.
By default, unless you remove it or change the media player in the browser setup, every recent Windows machine has WMP and thus regardless of browser, is vunerable.
What was Microsoft thinking when they made it possible for movies to automatically open URL's and install stuff?
To make it easier for users to watch movies. Codecs to watch movies are available all over the place but a generally dumb Windows user wouldn't have the faintest idea where to get that.
Microsoft was attempting to make their media viewing a bit easier by telling them the codec wasn't installed (rather than displaying their famous acid-trip screen saver) and that WMP could attempt to install it for them.
It's partly the users' fault for clicking on "stop bugging me about this in the future and just install everything known to man without asking."
For those who still don't suspect, you might try Firefox.
What does Firefox have to do with ending Spyware via WMP? Absolutely nothing. Last time I checked Firefox opened WMP on Windows machines when you attempted to play a media file.
Hmm.
Now maybe if you had suggested some little known media player that didn't automatically install codecs after you clicked "don't ask me again, just install" then maybe your post would have been worth something.
"It's pretty ingenious," said Patrick Hinojasa, chief technical officer at Panda Software. "To take an anti-piracy feature and use it to feed spyware is extremely ironic."
Not quite ingenious but certainly not ironic. Perhaps if they were loading copyrighted materials such as movies and music onto your machine while you were attempting to download the license for DRM *then* it would be ironic.
The sad thing is that 99% of Windows users are likely telling WMP to install these licenses automatically when they try to play a media file. It's the "popup addiction" at work. People can't stand popups and anything to get them out of the way for good is they way they want to go.
This is going to become yet another excuse for trusted computing and single codec repositories. "Look! You are being infected by those bad sites on the Internet! Want protection? Use trusted computing and you'll never have a problem again! Just sign here, here and here. Pay here and connect here. Ahh, isn't that better?"
In addition to attempting to blow someone away with a nearby shopping cart at the grocery store while reaching for a flag wrapped in plastic I have been told I say, "owned" entirely too much.
Any large publicly available distrobution method for illegal digital products will attract the attention of the authorities and be brought down. Small, regulated, private networks will continue to run despite a crack down. This has always been true.
But than, for the authorities, it really is more important to take down the larger sites not eliminating the problem.
It's like anything "illegal". There's always a thriving underground arena to trade your stuff. The authorities can easily bring down the large and open ones cutting off the general unknowing public to it. That will eliminate 95% of the "problem".
The other 5% would find out how to get it regardless of whether it was public or not.
I guess they just hoped they could scare most people into stopping.
That should have read, "is BitTorrent for Warez dead?" And no, it's not, but it probably won't appear like suprnova.org did again...
Is BitTorrent dead? No, it will never die. Just as FTP for Warez dwindled and other transfer services took over (IRC, Napster, Kazaa, BitTorrent, foo) it didn't kill it. FTP, IRC, BT, foo, all have valid reasons for existing other than warez.
BT though, above all the others, is actually really useful for trasferring large files quickly. Yeah, it's not good for the long term but I'm sure someone will come up with something that will make the protocol attractive for use outside of the Warez arena.
It's just that the warezkids are all about picking up new tech and using it. It's their nature as they are generally tech oriented.
I wish I could be a grad student and publish a bunch of bullshit with graphs and get my degree!
Personally, I was thrilled to find four open WAPs in my neighborhood. When I first moved in I was attempting to get cable TV and cable HSD. Turned out that there was no cable run to our house and the cable company decided to tear up my landscaping to put a 4' long section of coiled cable sticking out of my yard.
I cancelled, went with DSL (who allow servers and don't block ports), and got a dish.
Because of the delay that I caused by going this route I was able to connect to any of the 4 WAPs in the area. Some days DSL was better than cable so I'd use one of the three there. Most of the time the cable had much better speeds so I'd leech from them.
I really don't care if they have wifi security. It keeps me safer. Yeah, I have it locked down pretty good but there's always a way in... If someone else can pwn my neighbors, why bother with me?
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, so if I can pick up a TiVo for a couple of hundred bucks, how much is a MythTV box? You need a fast pentium box with a large HD, right? Plus a video encoder. What's the cheapest MythTV box that I could put together that competes with a base TiVo?
Couple of things here. First off you can get a baseline Tivo (40 hour) for $99 before rebates. I happened to pick mine up on special (after rebate) for $49.99.
The 40 hour Tivo is really about a 25 hour Tivo if you are looking to not have super shit quality on all your recordings. The cost is also a lot more than $50 or $99 because you have to pay the bastards $12.99 a month (or $300 for life).
Ok, so you get a Tivo and a lifetime subscription for $400. You would need to start comparing MythTV at that point. Most people would probably want to also add the extra $50 to $100 (depending on rebates) for a decent HD to equate to something you would probably have with MythTV (say 80GB to 120GB). I would figure the baseline MythTV box would have to start around $500 or so.
Have at it boys.
I can't predict the actions of another individual and his cabinet running this country (and neither can you). I can state, for a fact, that Bush is spending money we do not have and digging a deficit hole so deep that we will spend many, many, years recovering from.
US Unipolarity--How Long Can It Last?
A world with a single superpower is unique in modern times. Despite the rise in anti-Americanism, most major powers today believe countermeasures such as balancing are not likely to work in a situation in which the US controls so many of the levers of power. Moreover, US policies are not perceived as sufficiently threatening to warrant such a step.
Eh, with the Dollar doing as shitty as it has been and the country being run into financial ruins by someone known to have little success with any other financial venture he spearheaded I really don't think that we will be able to recover in as little as twelve years. We are digging an enormous hole right now both financially and in public opinion. When a leader sends a country to war on what we figured were false pretenses but ends up ahead at the end we might forgive them. When a leader sends a country to war on what we figured were false pretenses but ends of admitting we found squat I just don't think that public opinion will remain high...
The country may weaken itself due to internal conflict. Especially if the draconian measures continue to erode our personal freedoms.
In the future, growing distrust could prompt governments to take a more hostile approach, including resistance to support for US interests in multinational forums and development of asymmetric military capabilities as a hedge against the US.
Too bad they can't come right out and say that the distrust is justified. Who the fuck is going to go to bat for us when we get owned by more organized terrorists (or internal conflict) when anything the leaders of our country have said over the past 10 years is proven bullshit?
Many countries increasingly believe that the surest way to gain leverage over Washington is by threatening to withhold cooperation. In other forms of bargaining, foreign governments will try to find ways to "bandwagon" or connect their policy agendas to those of the US--for example on the war on terrorism--and thereby fend off US opposition to other policies.
And with the dollar so weak and public opinion (both nationally and internationally) low this will probably work. Any pressure they put on us 10 years ago would mean nothing. We would just use our leverage and shove back. With our country weakened on multiple fronts we won't have much leverage or public desire to have leverage (ie more deficit dollars).
Parent:
While some people will tend to think that stuff in the kitchen is cool, others will think it should include coding. Others will want automotive and others will prefer architecture or explosives or metalwork or hide tanning or alternative energy.
Article:
Make brings the do-it-yourself mindset to all the technology in your life. Make is loaded with exciting projects that help you make the most of your technology at home and away from home. This is a magazine that celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your own will.
You know the when I was reading this I was hoping for something like the computer magazines of the past. 1000s of lines of BASIC code that you could create something with and build from there. Instead this seems like a lame attempt at a lame "hacking" book.
Great, the premeire issue shows you how to suspend a video camera from a kite. Woo. How about something that hasn't been done before?
I think the real question is, do we still need magazines?
The second I can have a spare Internet device tucked under my sink or stacked on top of my toilet when I am in a pinch (pun not intended) then no. Until then I am happy to have my Maxim's stocked right there.
How did you know the virus did not delete data on his system before he could backup? How did you know the virus did not delete some Windows dlls preventing the machine to load in order for him to do his backup?
Because he lost and entire year's worth of receipts. Thus he was not backing them up on a regular basis. Hell, he wasn't even backing them up on a monthly basis. Thus there is no excuse.
You don't need a fancy backup solution to store receipts. You need a bunch of floppies, a Zip disk, or even a more difficult CDRW. You might use ZIP archiving but you could probably just store them normally.
ISP's can not block such things with the current internet protocal. I think switching to IPV6 and inventing some extensions that can track computers and an end to spoofing is what is needed.
IPV6 will do nothing but create more problems enabling people to quickly switch IPs (as they can control millions of them) and do their damage.
But 2004 "was a real turning point in a bad direction," said technology analyst Ted Schadler of Forrester Research. "People are getting really angry. They're angry at Dell and Microsoft and their cable providers, and that's appropriate. They should be."
Be upset at MSFT for the spyware, trojans, and worms. Be upset at the little bastards that make this shit. Be upset at yourself for not properly protecting yourself. But certainly do no blame Dell and do not blame your Cable provider as they aren't at fault.
We are in a time period of blaming everyone else for our problems. Personally, I spent the time protecting myself and my network from issues. Yeah, they could probably still come through but I have at least closed most of the holes that I know of. If you are on the Internet without a hardware router/firewall and using software without a software firewall and surfing the web without virus protection and Spyware detection I really don't feel sorry for you.
For the person that they quoted at the beginning of the article saying that he was playing Pong and had the first desktop on his block... I'm sure he knew what he had to do to protect himself. He was just too lazy to do so.
Gerald Stark, 52, trained on computers in school and in the Navy before starting a small cleaning business in Lisbon Falls, Maine.....A virus killed one machine. Then spyware infested the next one, wiping out a year's worth of receipt records.
No, Gerald lost his receipt records. Why weren't there adequate backups? Why didn't he keep the originals for 7 years? Why didn't he have multiple off-site backups in a format like TXT or CSV which is not vulnerable?
People need to protect themselves and stop asking the government to do it for them. LEARN to use a computer, LEARN how to protect yourself, and LEARN not to be stupid.
Not everyone can know everything but at least know the basics and you will be a lot better off.
Well, as much as I would enjoy a Mac mini, from what I see they are pricey for a decent amount of RAM (add $425 for 1GB), they don't exactly have a blazing processor, and they will likely act sluggish if the touted features of Tiger are actually as power/graphics hungry as the ZDNet article kinda mentions...
I'd like to know what this kid's major was.
Obviously Business with an Ethics concentration.
Sounds a lot like Slashdot.
Do you want the spectrum to be regulated by a free market (which in your view leads inevitably to undesirable consolidation)
And what is happening now? The slices of spectrum are not priced within the range of anyone except a handful of companies which is already leading to consolidation. Then on top of that we are allowing even more consolidation within the market (AT&T/Cingular, etc).
This sounds like one of those conspiracy folk who feel that widescreen DVDs are a conspiracy by Asians and short people cause they see horizontally better.
Excuse me but DVD technology wasn't paid for by my tax dollars. It was created by the market and succeeded because it was a better alternative not because the government decided to waste our money on making it succeed.
Who? The RIAA and MPAA duh.
Yeah! Like the Internet! That's a free-for-all, and look where that got us!
Oh, yeah, that's right. A whole new era.
If you weren't being sarcastic I suggest you read the rest of his article. He mentions that most businesses thought it was a passing fad and that deregulation did cause the Internet to boom.
The problem that I see is that both businesses and governments understand now that they have little to no control over the Internet and they will not allow that to happen again.
Over-the-air TV now serves less than 20% of the market. Each analog channel could be replaced by six digital channels. And one TV tower blankets an entire city transmitting a single program, instead of hundreds of small street-corner antennas each sending out hundreds of different shows and reusing the same bandwidth over and over again.
And what would happen if this was the case? A single entity would buy up all the individual local markets and begin transmitting their own crap back over it. They might even keep the individual programs but still carry them under their own waving flag.
We all know what I'm talking about so I won't even bother to give them the free advertising space... So when the local market is bought up by the conglomerate company what happens? Any number of things but most likely a dampening of freedom due to needing to show the world what a great company your station represents.
An end to freedom.
And third, spectrum is so politicized that nimble decision-making is impossible. For more than a decade the FCC, in a vain attempt to save the U.S. consumer-electronics industry, has pushed high-definition TV onto broadcasters.
Like I give a fuck about the broadcasters. The FCC pushed HD on to the people. The same people that own that fucking spectrum and should be the ones choosing what happens with it. Sadly the FCC has taken on more and more power to do what IT thinks best not what IS best.
HDTV is a joke. It's a waste of money and time. There were thousands of better things that we could have used that money on. Not to mention that it was mandated to be in every TV and every broadcast by a certain date. We had to pay for it once to be mandated and now we have to pay for it again to be used. THANKS! Just what I wanted... To be able to see the noise hairs and sweat on an NBA player.
Personally, I think they should have spent the time and money protecting us from consolidation in the media markets but that's me. I didn't have a say in it and neither did any of the rest of us.
Talk about win-win-win! Everyone would gain, especially the U.S. economy. As the successful pioneers of the first broad, free-market-driven spectrum exchange, we would set world standards for usage and equipment. The U.S. economy, the home of innovation and the lone entrepreneur, would prevail once more.
You are suggesting something that the government and the business world cannot fathom. You are suggesting that there be a true free market. Not one regulated by a single entity handing out slices like it was the last piece of pie on earth... Not one that gives instant money in large chunks rather than small bits here and there over time...
Businesses want control so that they can continue to win. If everyone had access then they couldn't dish it out and hold on. Why would they want to have other people innovating and using the networks like they could be? They can run everything on antiquated crap and offer shit services for high prices.
Isn't that what communications is all about?
And don't forget the motorcycle cop and the red indian. They were my favourites.
I prefer the sailor myself... Oooh, this is about the MPAA commercials. I thought we were talking about the Village People.
Overpeer is a company known to be paid by the MPAA and RIAA member companies to upload corrupted files onto the networks.
Now it appears to be setting up a side-line, generating ad revenue by tricking gullible users to download its faux warez.
It's like calling the cops to tell them that you were robbed while buying drugs. Yeah it sucks that you got 0wn3d while downloading warez but who the hell are you going to complain to and have anything done about it?
If you tattle you both get in trouble. You might get in more trouble than they will. Sad but true. Remember who has the better lawyers and the political backing...
Well, to be precise it opens which ever media player is associated with the media file you are trying to open. You can also override this on a per-filetype basis by specifiying a different handler for the file under the "Downloads" section of the Options box - the section titled "File Types". Whether your motivation for switching to Firefox was security, features, web standards or because it's FOSS, then the same motivation should apply to WMP too. Certainly on my Windows boxes none of the primary media types are associated with the DRM and security hole infested WMP.
By default, unless you remove it or change the media player in the browser setup, every recent Windows machine has WMP and thus regardless of browser, is vunerable.
What was Microsoft thinking when they made it possible for movies to automatically open URL's and install stuff?
To make it easier for users to watch movies. Codecs to watch movies are available all over the place but a generally dumb Windows user wouldn't have the faintest idea where to get that.
Microsoft was attempting to make their media viewing a bit easier by telling them the codec wasn't installed (rather than displaying their famous acid-trip screen saver) and that WMP could attempt to install it for them.
It's partly the users' fault for clicking on "stop bugging me about this in the future and just install everything known to man without asking."
For those who still don't suspect, you might try Firefox.
What does Firefox have to do with ending Spyware via WMP? Absolutely nothing. Last time I checked Firefox opened WMP on Windows machines when you attempted to play a media file.
Hmm.
Now maybe if you had suggested some little known media player that didn't automatically install codecs after you clicked "don't ask me again, just install" then maybe your post would have been worth something.
At least RTFA.
"It's pretty ingenious," said Patrick Hinojasa, chief technical officer at Panda Software. "To take an anti-piracy feature and use it to feed spyware is extremely ironic."
Not quite ingenious but certainly not ironic. Perhaps if they were loading copyrighted materials such as movies and music onto your machine while you were attempting to download the license for DRM *then* it would be ironic.
The sad thing is that 99% of Windows users are likely telling WMP to install these licenses automatically when they try to play a media file. It's the "popup addiction" at work. People can't stand popups and anything to get them out of the way for good is they way they want to go.
This is going to become yet another excuse for trusted computing and single codec repositories. "Look! You are being infected by those bad sites on the Internet! Want protection? Use trusted computing and you'll never have a problem again! Just sign here, here and here. Pay here and connect here. Ahh, isn't that better?"
In addition to attempting to blow someone away with a nearby shopping cart at the grocery store while reaching for a flag wrapped in plastic I have been told I say, "owned" entirely too much.
Bah. If only I could grapple to work.
That's funny, I downloaded some stuff from bt.etree.org last night and had 205kB/s the whole time.
Strange... That's about my max downstream. While my 2048/256 connection isn't exactly "speedy" it certainly isn't a trickle.
Any large publicly available distrobution method for illegal digital products will attract the attention of the authorities and be brought down. Small, regulated, private networks will continue to run despite a crack down. This has always been true.
But than, for the authorities, it really is more important to take down the larger sites not eliminating the problem.
It's like anything "illegal". There's always a thriving underground arena to trade your stuff. The authorities can easily bring down the large and open ones cutting off the general unknowing public to it. That will eliminate 95% of the "problem".
The other 5% would find out how to get it regardless of whether it was public or not.
I guess they just hoped they could scare most people into stopping.
So seriously, is BitTorrent dead?
No. Well, we don't think so, at least.
That should have read, "is BitTorrent for Warez dead?" And no, it's not, but it probably won't appear like suprnova.org did again...
Is BitTorrent dead? No, it will never die. Just as FTP for Warez dwindled and other transfer services took over (IRC, Napster, Kazaa, BitTorrent, foo) it didn't kill it. FTP, IRC, BT, foo, all have valid reasons for existing other than warez.
BT though, above all the others, is actually really useful for trasferring large files quickly. Yeah, it's not good for the long term but I'm sure someone will come up with something that will make the protocol attractive for use outside of the Warez arena.
It's just that the warezkids are all about picking up new tech and using it. It's their nature as they are generally tech oriented.
I wish I could be a grad student and publish a bunch of bullshit with graphs and get my degree!
Personally, I was thrilled to find four open WAPs in my neighborhood. When I first moved in I was attempting to get cable TV and cable HSD. Turned out that there was no cable run to our house and the cable company decided to tear up my landscaping to put a 4' long section of coiled cable sticking out of my yard.
I cancelled, went with DSL (who allow servers and don't block ports), and got a dish.
Because of the delay that I caused by going this route I was able to connect to any of the 4 WAPs in the area. Some days DSL was better than cable so I'd use one of the three there. Most of the time the cable had much better speeds so I'd leech from them.
I really don't care if they have wifi security. It keeps me safer. Yeah, I have it locked down pretty good but there's always a way in... If someone else can pwn my neighbors, why bother with me?