This seems to me like a terrible business decision made short-sighted people who haven't done the proper research into consumer habits... Restrictions like this may appear to increase copyright-holder's revenue, and perhaps even do so in the very short-term, but in the long-term these kinds of restrictions REDUCE the revenue they make.
Or, to say it another way, less restrictive copy controls actually INCREASE the amount of money made on a property, so long as the expense is primarily discretionary.
Remember, I can entertain myself in many other ways aside from TV/Movie -- and so the convienence factor is a primary purchasing decision. If the _perceived_ value of the purchase is low: because of price, annoying rules, etc -- then I will go and spend my money somewhere else.
PPV is a perfect example of this... Up until last year, I was _never_ interested in PPV: why spend as much money as a rental, and not be able to pause for the bathroom, get interrupted, whatever. I occasionally rented movies: but renting is a pain, I have to go to the store, then I have to remember to return it (which I often don't) etc. As a result, I only rented movies when I was ready to have "a movie night" --and as a result rented movies once a month or less: 2 movie rentals/month.
Last year, I got the DirecTivo. DirecTivo with PPV is great: Every once in a while I go onto the PPV lists and pick a few movies I might want to watch, the Tivo records them and they're waiting. I find that I watch a lot more good movies this way: since anytime I want to chill for an hour I can just pop on a good movie (or the end of one I was interrupted watching). Using PPV like this, I buy probably 5-6 movies a month.
What's the downside to the movie studios here? The average person does not watch even a purchased DVD more than once or twice -- does the movie industry really think I'm gonna keep it stored on my Tivo for 2 years and watch it so many times that I will stop buying other movies?...Is this really that complicated to understand? By relaxing the rules, they've convinced me to SPEND MORE MONEY.
Oh well, I guess I'll just stop buying PPV when this happens -- just like Copy-Protected CDs and the various other inconvienent drm formats that i've ignored...
You are absolutely correct -- since the hash code is shorter than the string, then there must be some pair of inputs that hash to the same code......but you're missing the point. They didn't find this pair by chance -- logically think about it: they'd have to have hit the 1-in-2^64 jackpot! We're talking number of atoms in the universe here!! No: the point is that they found some pair not by chance but by an algorithm of some sort that let them **generate a pair of inputs that hashed to the same key**.
Here's why it matters: lets say you "digitally sign" (this isn't just limited to signatures, take my word for it that the same argument applies all encryption using MD5 or SHA-0) some important piece of data to protect it from tampering. That means you take the data and calculate the hash code of it -- and store the hash somewhere. You can tell if the data is ever changed by looking at the hash code.
In theory, nobody in the world can tamper with the data without you knowing: because if they change the data at all, then it won't hash to the same value. In fact, it is computationally Hard (ie requires trying ~2^64 possible inputs) to find another input that will hash to the same signature that you have!
2^64 is too big a space to search -- if the bad guy really has to just blindly try inputs to find one that matches your key: you're pretty safe.
On the other hand -- if the bad guys found an _algorithm_ that made this faster -- so that they didn't have to search quite so far to find another message that hashed to your key -- then you're in a lot of trouble.
You with me so far? Think back to that 2^64 chance here: the fact that someone out there in the world was able to find _any_ pair of inputs that hash to the same output -- well, that is *huge*. It strongly implies that is some algorithm which lets you compute a second input given a first input.
You with me? See why it is a big deal?
Note that I'm definitely glossing over a ton of subtlety and Important Details here, -- but this could very well be a significant thing...
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This seems to me like a terrible business decision made short-sighted people who haven't done the proper research into consumer habits... Restrictions like this may appear to increase copyright-holder's revenue, and perhaps even do so in the very short-term, but in the long-term these kinds of restrictions REDUCE the revenue they make.
...Is this really that complicated to understand? By relaxing the rules, they've convinced me to SPEND MORE MONEY.
Or, to say it another way, less restrictive copy controls actually INCREASE the amount of money made on a property, so long as the expense is primarily discretionary.
Remember, I can entertain myself in many other ways aside from TV/Movie -- and so the convienence factor is a primary purchasing decision. If the _perceived_ value of the purchase is low: because of price, annoying rules, etc -- then I will go and spend my money somewhere else.
PPV is a perfect example of this... Up until last year, I was _never_ interested in PPV: why spend as much money as a rental, and not be able to pause for the bathroom, get interrupted, whatever. I occasionally rented movies: but renting is a pain, I have to go to the store, then I have to remember to return it (which I often don't) etc. As a result, I only rented movies when I was ready to have "a movie night" --and as a result rented movies once a month or less: 2 movie rentals/month.
Last year, I got the DirecTivo. DirecTivo with PPV is great: Every once in a while I go onto the PPV lists and pick a few movies I might want to watch, the Tivo records them and they're waiting. I find that I watch a lot more good movies this way: since anytime I want to chill for an hour I can just pop on a good movie (or the end of one I was interrupted watching). Using PPV like this, I buy probably 5-6 movies a month.
What's the downside to the movie studios here? The average person does not watch even a purchased DVD more than once or twice -- does the movie industry really think I'm gonna keep it stored on my Tivo for 2 years and watch it so many times that I will stop buying other movies?
Oh well, I guess I'll just stop buying PPV when this happens -- just like Copy-Protected CDs and the various other inconvienent drm formats that i've ignored...
correction: with sha-0, the expected work to find a matching pair is 1-in-2^80, not 1-in-2^64....which makes it even more surprising to find a match.
You are absolutely correct -- since the hash code is shorter than the string, then there must be some pair of inputs that hash to the same code... ...but you're missing the point. They didn't find this pair by chance -- logically think about it: they'd have to have hit the 1-in-2^64 jackpot! We're talking number of atoms in the universe here!! No: the point is that they found some pair not by chance but by an algorithm of some sort that let them **generate a pair of inputs that hashed to the same key**.
Here's why it matters: lets say you "digitally sign" (this isn't just limited to signatures, take my word for it that the same argument applies all encryption using MD5 or SHA-0) some important piece of data to protect it from tampering. That means you take the data and calculate the hash code of it -- and store the hash somewhere. You can tell if the data is ever changed by looking at the hash code.
In theory, nobody in the world can tamper with the data without you knowing: because if they change the data at all, then it won't hash to the same value. In fact, it is computationally Hard (ie requires trying ~2^64 possible inputs) to find another input that will hash to the same signature that you have!
2^64 is too big a space to search -- if the bad guy really has to just blindly try inputs to find one that matches your key: you're pretty safe.
On the other hand -- if the bad guys found an _algorithm_ that made this faster -- so that they didn't have to search quite so far to find another message that hashed to your key -- then you're in a lot of trouble.
You with me so far? Think back to that 2^64 chance here: the fact that someone out there in the world was able to find _any_ pair of inputs that hash to the same output -- well, that is *huge*. It strongly implies that is some algorithm which lets you compute a second input given a first input.
You with me? See why it is a big deal?
Note that I'm definitely glossing over a ton of subtlety and Important Details here, -- but this could very well be a significant thing...
because the issue is the tips of the fingers -- and handwarmers only really warm your palms.