Pirate Bay, one of the flagships of the anti-copyright movement, makes thousands of euros from advertising on its site, while maintaining its anti-establishment "free music" rhetoric.
How much of that "thousands of euros" goes towards bandwidth, maintaining the site, legal fees? I bet they don't have a very good bottom line. Besides, if it's so profitable to offer free, advertising supported music downloads why doesn't the music industry do it themselves, legally?
AllOfMP3.com, the well-known Russian web site, has not been licensed by a single IFPI member, has been disowned by right holder groups worldwide and is facing criminal proceedings in Russia.
My understanding was that they were legally licensed by the appropriate authority in Russia. The international recording industry groups noticed and said, "you can't do that", and pushed for criminal proceedings. Anyone care to correct this if I'm wrong?
Organized criminal gangs and even terrorist groups use the sale of counterfeit CDs to raise revenue and launder money.
Ok, two points to debunk on this. (1) There is a major difference between mass production counter fitting and sharing files online with friends and the P2P community. I highly doubt you'll see organized criminals or terrorists making money from the latter. (2) So what? Terrorists can make money lots of ways, some of them very legal. Should we stop earning money legally just because terrorists do it? What if a terrorist eats spaghetti for dinner, should we outlaw the eating of spaghetti?
Illegal file-sharers don't care whether the copyright-infringing work they distribute is from a major or independent label.
If that's not a vague statement that is made up off the top of someone's head, I don't know what is. Ok, there are certainly some file sharers that fall into that category. There will also be at least some who care about the difference of where the music comes from. There are also those that outright refuse to buy or listen to music released by major record labels period, and a myriad of other categories. Until I see some valid, unbiased statistical survey to support who falls into what category this statement is meaningless to me. Even after seeing such a survey I doubt that it will show anything other than what we already know, some people care and some people don't, that's humanity, get over it.
Reduced revenues for record companies mean less money available to take a risk on "underground" artists and more inclination to invest in "bankers" like American Idol stars.
You spend your money where you want to, but don't be surprised if no one likes the results. I ceartainly won't be buying an "American Idle" CD in the near future. Also, why should I be concerned about propping up your failing business model just so that you can sell me music I want to hear? I'm the consumer, not an investor. You first go out and find artists and music that I like (and sell it DRM free on the store shelves and online) and then I will buy it, not before.
ISPs often advertise music as a benefit of signing up to their service, but facilitate the illegal swapping on copyright infringing music on a grand scale.
If you have a problem with the way that ISPs advertise take it up with the ISP, I can't control that. As for "facilitating", you mean they don't actively block and cripple my internet connection to cow down to your demands, then that's a good thing. The day that I get crippled service from my ISP because they gave in to your demands is the day that I switch ISPs, so I would say that ISPs have a good incentive to not cripple my connection, they want to keep their customers.
You can easily make a working website in linked PDF, its small compressed and has any layout you like, though not dynamic unless
your CS can dynamically make pdf from any source. If you have a targeted audience of specific content, then use pdf. Html shouldnt
be enhanced beyond design to achieve something else.
You're joking, right? You say you shouldn't enhance HTML to do something it's not designed to do, and what are you advocating, Building websites with PDF? PDF files are huge compared to HTML. It is slow, and the available browser plugins are extremely bloated. Your browser has to load a plugin to display PDF files, but it displays HTML natively. PDF is designed and well suited for cross platform print documents, but not in anyway suited for making websites with. Trying to design a website with PDF is the very definition of "enhancing" a file format to do something it wasn't designed to do.
HTML was designed from the ground up for displaying web pages and web sites. It's been extended so much and in so many different ways that it is rather Frankenstinian in appearance, but it still works amazingly well and I have yet to see a file format that can replace it effectively, ceartainly not PDF.
The GPs statement statement comes from web programmers who have to then take that design and make it work in a complex web application and it often times involves (1) re-creating images so they work with multiple backgrounds instead of the one background the designer drew it on, (2) re-coding the entire page or even site so that you can actually read the excuse for HTML that has been dumped out by those programs, (3) removing all the redundant tags and replacing the others with proper CSS, (4) renaming style1, style2, style3, etc... to actual proper decent style names so they actually describe what they are representing (top_menu_text, for instance), (5) fixing the pages so that fonts can actually be resized without completely messing up the layout of the page (and breaking image alignment, etc).
Gah, I can go on and on about the crap that frontpage and dreamweaver spit out as an excuse for HTML, and don't even get me started on XHTML. Designers who use those tools can do great creative things with it and it looks great on one or two browsers that are configured they way most browsers are configured. Unfortunately in my line of work I have usually take what the designer has done and completely rewrite it. If designers were actually forced to write in HTML or at least look at the HTML output of the programs they used, then I wouldn't have to do that nearly as much.
but Apple just slapped a "license plate" on all the music they could. It sounds like this may have been the missing link in the monitoring system.
Perfect analogy! So let me get this straight, you would advocate removing the license plates from all vehicles on the road? Because that's what you're complaining about, the license plates being on the cars. There are no "cameras", but if there were they would come in the form of media players that phone home and report the stored metadata for each track played. I would certainly complain about that, but I will no more complain about the metadata itself being there than I do about the requirement that cars display a valid license plate.
Oh, and this is not even that bad, because you can remove these "plates" without incurring any legal penalty (note IANAL, so don't take this as legal advice).
a) I don't expect to be tracked by items I purchase forever after purchase.
Who's tracking? They are simply stamping the info in as metadata on the track you purchased. Until they find a way to read this info for everything you do with the song there's nothing to track.
b) I don't want every song in my collection that might be shared (legally over say iTunes sharing) to contain my email addr;
So strip the info out, there are lots of programs that can edit the metadata on a music track.
c) If I paid extra for DRM free music I should be able to do whatever I want with it within the same bounds as ripping a song from a CD. That is what I thought I was paying extra for.
You can do anything with these tracks that you can do with one you ripped from a CD. There is no technological measure put in place to prevent that. DRM free has never meant that you now have a license to redistribute the file to anyone via P2P networks, it simply means there is no technological measure put in place to prevent it.
Honestly, this just sounds like whining because you want to be able to share your files illegally and are afraid of having it come back to bite you.
My only though : Is it programmable ? Could it be reflashed to function as something else more creative and be powered from a wall-socket USB 5v power brick ?
Could be a nice source of Gum-Stick-PC grade board for building fun gadgets.
Considering (1) it runs Linux (debian based according to TFA), (2) there will be regular updates available (from TFA), (3) it has 128 MB flash RAM (in two chips of 64 megs each) possibly expandable in the future plus two chips of SD RAM of unstated size (again, from TFA), I'm sure we'll see all sorts of neat stuff that can be done with it. They will be obligated to share the source code, so it should be possible to modify it to turn it into nearly anything. Considering, though, that the USB interface is its only interface to the outside world, I doubt it would be very useful if you just plugged it into a power brick.
That sucker passed emissions testing right off. No "spend $400 and we'll pretend your car is okay" type stuff. It just passed. This car has not been loved by any means. Cars don't need those silly, silly things.
That's because smog checks hold the vehicle to the emissions standard at the time of manufacture. Passing the check simply means that your vehicle is close enough to the standard of it's time to be within those specs. It does not mean that your 25 year old car will conform to the same standard as a new 2008 model.
I'm pretty sure that one can actually happen. Your motherboard has enough brains (somewhere) to bootstrap as far as BIOS config without a processor at all. I'm fairly sure of that, because when you screw up the processor overclock settings, it doesn't work, and you can start up and correct the problem usually. (Depending on what mobo type you have).
I'm pretty sure that a predetermined slow boot speed is used during POST and the CPU speed gets reset to the CMOS stored values during POST, probably after the setup is run. This is because (1) CMOS settings are read during the POST, not before, so any over clocking setting cannot be applied before the POST and (2) it's also a really easy way to give you a chance to change your messed up settings in a stable environment before they have a chance to take out the system.
There is no way that your computer can do anything without a CPU. If you doubt that, then try removing the CPU from your motherboard some time and see how far into the POST you get.
I remember that keylock. Annoyed the hell out of the people who thought it was security when I just popped the case, and unplugged the jumper. Some of the original ones actually had a latch that locked the case itself closed as well. If you locked it and subsequently lost the key then the lock had to be drilled or the case forced open with a crowbar to fix it.
(actually it would only fry a tiny 1 cent micro-controller but in today's throw-away-society that of course means the entire board is as good as bust). Actually it's a fuse. It's a tiny "picofuse" which looks like a resistor and is soldered onto the motherboard somewhere in the vicinity of the keyboard jack. Usually both the keyboard and mouse are on the same circuit so they both get taken out when the fuse is blown. You can get a replacement fuse for around $1-2 at most electronics stores, and if you're handy with a soldering iron fix it yourself. I used to do it all the time when I worked at a computer repair shop on Packard Bell proprietary form factor motherboards. Since replacement boards were several hundred dollars we could get away with charging $200 for the repair, though we told the customer that it was a "keyboard interface module" to justify the cost more.
"As currently structured, Basic Pilot does not detect duplicate active records in its database," John Shandley, the company's senior vice president of human resources, told politicians. "The same Social Security number could be in use at another employer, and potentially multiple employers, across the country."
In a recent statement about the bill, the White House maintained that the proposal will allow for "unprecedented" information sharing among federal and state agencies, and that Homeland Security will be able to receive "information on multiple uses of the same Social Security number by more than one individual."
I see a huge potential problem with this. In order to detect duplicate employment employers will have to report that an employee is working with them and also report when an employee quits or is fired. Imagine moving across the country to a new job only to find that they can't employ you because your previous employer forgot (either genuinely or maliciously) to report that you had stopped working for them, so the system sees you working on the other side of the country and determines that you must be using fraudulent credentials.
Also, what about those people who simply need to maintain two jobs?
It's not just Solaris, here's part of/etc/login.defs on a Gentoo box:
# Number of significant characters in the password for crypt().
# Default is 8, don't change unless your crypt() is better.
# Ignored if MD5_CRYPT_ENAB set to "yes".
#
#PASS_MAX_LEN 8
# If set to "yes", new passwords will be encrypted using the MD5-based
# algorithm compatible with the one used by recent releases of FreeBSD.
# It supports passwords of unlimited length and longer salt strings.
# Set to "no" if you need to copy encrypted passwords to other systems
# which don't understand the new algorithm. Default is "no".
#
MD5_CRYPT_ENAB yes Old DES crypt() hashing is only significant to 8 chars on any system. That's why modern systems (including Gentoo) use MD5 hashing by default which has no limit on the length of the password to hash. Notice that MD5_CRYPT_ENAB is set to "yes" above which causes it to ignore the PASS_MAX_LEN setting.
This is a really interesting device, I wonder if it has some darker uses, though...
Could you use this device to assist shoplifting by having it in your pocket when you walk past the RFID readers at the store entrance? This would effectively block the readers from being able to "see" the RFID security tags on the merchandise.
Depending on how low-cost these devices are (they are planning to sell them at cost, after all), could someone attach one surreptitiously to the bottom of a modern car preventing the RFID tag built into the ignition key from being read, thereby disabling the car?
Here in New Zealand, they recently passed a law requiring that all pet dogs have RFID chips implanted in them. It would be laughable if a small version of this were made which would could be attached to the collar of the dog to effectively disable the RFID chip implanted in them (admittedly I can't see this particular usage being helpful the the dog or the owner in any way, but it is funny to think about).
Other issues:
Since this is a powered transmitting device, it might not be legal to have it turned on while on board an airplane in flight. Since it can't be effective while turned off, it would still be possible to read passports of people in-flight unless protected by some other means (aluminum foil, farraday cage).
Realistically, do you really need HD video to watch a woman getting screwed by three hung guys?
You'd be surprised how many of Kink.com's videos have absolutely no intercourse at all, and of the ones that do have intercourse it is usually not the primary focus.
It should be effective if the openings in the mesh are small enough. The size of the mesh openings depends on the frequency that needs to be blocked. I think it has to do with the way that radio waves pass through the air.
The same thing works for microwaves which is why they use a metal screen with lots of holes in it to block microwaves escaping out through the glass door of your microwave oven. The holes are spaced close enough together and are numerous enough that you can see through them and focus your sight on the food inside, yet they are small enough to not allow the microwaves to pass through.
The monitor only lets the OLPC authority shutdown the machine IF the anti-theft server says the machine has been stolen, OR the laptop is kept from accessing the server for more than x days (21 I think). It's variable, to be set by the government of the applicable country (RTFA).
The laptop uses code signing to prevent the operating system from being permanently modified (if you have the master key(s), or the developer key, you can modify it as much as you want, if you don't you can modify most of it but only in a copy of the system files, its a very nice way to allow most of the system to be modifiable by the kids, but if they bork it, you can just reset to using the original system files (assuming you didn't modify the original using the master/developer keys). What you describe is Tivo-isation. If indeed that is what the OLPC project is planning then I hope they don't need any new versions of GNU software (most of the core system utilities) after GPLv3 comes out or they may be out of luck (depending, if this only applies to the kernel then they'll probably scrape by because the Linux kernel will remain GPLv2).
I agree with 21 as a good drinking age, but I don't like the idea of the Federal govt enforcing that on the states, it should be up to each state to decide without pressure from the feds.
Yes I know there are advantages to both imperial and metric systems. The biggest problem with imperial systems, imo is that they differ from one country to the next and so, for example, a gallon in the states is smaller than a gallon in the UK. Also conversion between imperial and metric units is difficult since there are no exact matches.
Why not alter the imperial measurements so that (1) they are the same everywhere and (2) they match a close metric unit. To help reduce confusion we could have a metric/imperial name for them. Note that this is already done for some units (the metric ton is equal to 1000 kilos but is close to an imperial ton which is 2000 lbs). We could do this for lots of measurements (note that from this point forward the "metric imperial" units shown are not real, just imagined)...
metric ton = 1000 kilos (already done) metric lb = 500 grams (metric ounce would be based on 1/16 of a metric lb)
metric yard = 1 meter (or metre, take your pick) (not really necessary, since we could just call it a meter, but it becomes a base for conversion of metric foot, metric inch, etc.) a metric mile gets converted to 2000 metric yards (meters) or 6000 metric feet, so a metric mile becomes significantly longer than a mile but not so much as to throw off our sense of what a mile is and becomes easy to convert to km (2 km per metric mile).
metric miles per gallon is easy to convert to liters/100km (divide 200 by the metric miles per gallon so 20 metric miles per gallon = 200/20 = 10 liters/100km)
km/h is exactly twice the number of metric miles per hour (Americans will love this because we would get to drive faster for the same speed limit since 70 metric miles per hour is actually 87 miles per hour).
metric gallon = 4 liters (or litres, take your pick) hence: metric quart = 1 liter (not really necessary, but there for completeness, it would probably just be called a liter) metric pint = 500ml (you can still have your pint of beer and it's not too far off from what it used to be) metric cup = 250 ml (already done) (metric liquid ounce based on 1/8 of a metric cup)
temperature conversion is rather difficult and may be best left alone.
by pushing countries to new units such as these it becomes easy to convert and Americans can still feel that they haven't lost their old units. Unfortunately it will also create some confusion when you need precision measurements to line up with old work. We can solve this for tools by keeping the old imperial measurements for them and using metric tools for the new system.
Can someone tell me how many feet in 10 metre waves? Well, 1 meter is slightly longer than a yard which is 3 feet, so a little over 30 feet. Think a 3 story building.
What's 21 millimetres in rods? WTF is a rod? Anyways, 21mm is 2.1cm or slightly less than an inch.
Attempting to track its people in a completely useless way that probably wastes billions of dollars? I bet the DHS is wishing they thought of this first.
What's to say that MS didn't know about this the day Acer began shipping systems with the code and exploited it from Hotmail? You honestly think that Microsoft needs ACER to put a backdoor into MICROSOFT Windows for them? I'm sure they are more than capable of putting their own back doors in and they would work on more than just ACER computers. The idea that Microsoft would be using ACERs exploit is laughable.
Which programmers in what top level positions at Acer knew about this? Which.com companies did they invest in which may have made use of their priveleged knowledge?
Nobody can really know That's right, no one can know, so why assume the worst when incompetence and stupidity is a much more plausible explanation. ACER is in the business of selling new computers, not repairing old ones. They probably outsource their repairs just like most other computer manufacturers. Making them break early doesn't put more money in ACERs pocket it puts the money in the pockets of the repair shops. As for the argument of maybe the customer will buy another new ACER computer, I highly doubt it, how many people do you know that will go out and buy a new computer of the same brand as the one that failed on them just out of warranty when they have dozens of other choices? They are giving business to ther competition that way, not themselves.
but the fact is that this example is truly only a drop in the bucket. Millions of lines of code have thousands of potential bugs and, from my experience, nearly every bug can be turned into some sort of exploit. Not that this has any relevance to the topic at hand, but (1) this is not a bug, it is obviously an intentional feature (albeit a very poorly implemented one). It is, in fact an intentional back door put in place by ACER. It is not failing to do what it was designed to do but it does exactly what it was designed to do. (2) Most bugs do not result in security vulnerabilities or exploits of any magnitude.
Every coder working on code which gets shipped to production systems is potentially the first guy to know about a bug and, therefore, an exploit. A political corollary is that those who write the rules know the loopholes. If the bug is discreet enough not to be noticed in an everyday code audit then that coder is also the guy most likely to be exploiting it. So you're basing this assumption on politics? I have no doubt that there are some very bad hackers who have been exploiting this vulnerability for years, I doubt that the coders who wrote this are, though it's entirely possible that they may have gotten drunk at a new years eve party and told someone else about it. All I have to support this "theory" of mine is that most people are not out to cause harm to others or exploit others. It's lots more than what you have to support your theory.
When thinking about this with respect to global botnets and zero-day exploits it becomes apparent that the most logical conclusion is that the computing world is under clandestine monitoring (and exploitation) by individuals who associate with both large code bases and Congressional subcommittees--the intersection of the relevant social circles. The unemployed friends of politicians or major military contractors who have a family member working at a major software company would be the first suspects in my book.
This is no longer conspiracy theory. It is simply the largest mathematical intersection of the relevant data sets. "clandestine monitoring", "congressional subcommittees", "social circles". Sure sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
Err, I think there was a bit more concern over internet security back in '98 than you seem to remember. Let me rephrase that then. Back in 1998 large computer manufacturers and other companies such as Microsoft were largely unconcerned about the security of their customer's PCs. Only after hitting them repeatedly over the several years since then with a clue stick have the internet community at large gotten them to pay anything more than lip service. Even now security for companies like that is almost an afterthought.
I can suppose that it wasn't intentionally malicious, but I'd have to hear a more convincing explanation than that--i.e. exactly what is or was it used for? AFAICT it was not used at all. I think it's likely that they intended to use it for customer service applications but never got around to actually implementing a use for it. It was probably forgotten after that.
Or did some random employee manage to sneak the code in there for it? That is always possible and a more likely explanation than malicious intent on the part of ACER as a company. I still think that it was more a case of just a benign customer service oriented intent that resulted in an extremely stupid bit of code than anything else, though.
The ability to execute arbitrary programs means that your computer is already thoroughly 0wn3d, after all. The only remaining steps would be to make controlling that PC a little more user friendly. Yep. I don't argue that this is a very high risk vulnerability that is extremely easy to exploit. I just don't think that the intent of ACER was malicious. They were very stupid, but not intending to cause any harm to their customers imo.
Since Acer would presumably have the power to control any aspect of your computer when you use it to log onto any webpage, all they need to do is to wait for you to access a site under their control, and bingo, they can lift all of your installation logs, cookies, saved passwords, MS WORD docs containing the words 'budget; personal; finance; medical; records; debt; sex, SSN (and all applicable variants),etc.
OK, let's say you are gullible enough to think that they can take all of that they want, and still not put you at risk - now, think for just a moment about who 'they' are...? What are the odds of 'they' going to all that trouble and not having some plan to do something with what they glean that you will not be pleased with...? Still not impressed?
How's this... Acer sits around and waits for just the right time and boom - they toggle a flag on your computer that makes it appear that it needs to have XYZ repaired, and what do you know, the only resource is...ACER!! I doubt their intentions are anything so malicious. TFA states that this control is from back in 1998. Back then internet security wasn't as big of a concern as it is now. They probably put the control in place with the intention that they could use it to launch a help-desk application or run commands for repairing the computer remotely (ie from a help desk tech). Maybe have knowledge base articles that link to pages that automatically run the repairs needed. The active-x control can certainly do all this easily. It's not too far fetched to think that they would have forgotten about it after that and not even thought to remove it from future releases.
There is an old saying (paraphrased, I don't recall the exact quote), "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence." I think this is just a case of gross incompetence, but not malice.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, here it is, point by point...
Pirate Bay, one of the flagships of the anti-copyright movement, makes thousands of euros from advertising on its site, while maintaining its anti-establishment "free music" rhetoric.
How much of that "thousands of euros" goes towards bandwidth, maintaining the site, legal fees? I bet they don't have a very good bottom line. Besides, if it's so profitable to offer free, advertising supported music downloads why doesn't the music industry do it themselves, legally?
AllOfMP3.com, the well-known Russian web site, has not been licensed by a single IFPI member, has been disowned by right holder groups worldwide and is facing criminal proceedings in Russia.
My understanding was that they were legally licensed by the appropriate authority in Russia. The international recording industry groups noticed and said, "you can't do that", and pushed for criminal proceedings. Anyone care to correct this if I'm wrong?
Organized criminal gangs and even terrorist groups use the sale of counterfeit CDs to raise revenue and launder money.
Ok, two points to debunk on this. (1) There is a major difference between mass production counter fitting and sharing files online with friends and the P2P community. I highly doubt you'll see organized criminals or terrorists making money from the latter. (2) So what? Terrorists can make money lots of ways, some of them very legal. Should we stop earning money legally just because terrorists do it? What if a terrorist eats spaghetti for dinner, should we outlaw the eating of spaghetti?
Illegal file-sharers don't care whether the copyright-infringing work they distribute is from a major or independent label.
If that's not a vague statement that is made up off the top of someone's head, I don't know what is. Ok, there are certainly some file sharers that fall into that category. There will also be at least some who care about the difference of where the music comes from. There are also those that outright refuse to buy or listen to music released by major record labels period, and a myriad of other categories. Until I see some valid, unbiased statistical survey to support who falls into what category this statement is meaningless to me. Even after seeing such a survey I doubt that it will show anything other than what we already know, some people care and some people don't, that's humanity, get over it.
Reduced revenues for record companies mean less money available to take a risk on "underground" artists and more inclination to invest in "bankers" like American Idol stars.
You spend your money where you want to, but don't be surprised if no one likes the results. I ceartainly won't be buying an "American Idle" CD in the near future. Also, why should I be concerned about propping up your failing business model just so that you can sell me music I want to hear? I'm the consumer, not an investor. You first go out and find artists and music that I like (and sell it DRM free on the store shelves and online) and then I will buy it, not before.
ISPs often advertise music as a benefit of signing up to their service, but facilitate the illegal swapping on copyright infringing music on a grand scale.
If you have a problem with the way that ISPs advertise take it up with the ISP, I can't control that. As for "facilitating", you mean they don't actively block and cripple my internet connection to cow down to your demands, then that's a good thing. The day that I get crippled service from my ISP because they gave in to your demands is the day that I switch ISPs, so I would say that ISPs have a good incentive to not cripple my connection, they want to keep their customers.
your CS can dynamically make pdf from any source. If you have a targeted audience of specific content, then use pdf. Html shouldnt
be enhanced beyond design to achieve something else.
You're joking, right? You say you shouldn't enhance HTML to do something it's not designed to do, and what are you advocating, Building websites with PDF? PDF files are huge compared to HTML. It is slow, and the available browser plugins are extremely bloated. Your browser has to load a plugin to display PDF files, but it displays HTML natively. PDF is designed and well suited for cross platform print documents, but not in anyway suited for making websites with. Trying to design a website with PDF is the very definition of "enhancing" a file format to do something it wasn't designed to do.
HTML was designed from the ground up for displaying web pages and web sites. It's been extended so much and in so many different ways that it is rather Frankenstinian in appearance, but it still works amazingly well and I have yet to see a file format that can replace it effectively, ceartainly not PDF.
The GPs statement statement comes from web programmers who have to then take that design and make it work in a complex web application and it often times involves (1) re-creating images so they work with multiple backgrounds instead of the one background the designer drew it on, (2) re-coding the entire page or even site so that you can actually read the excuse for HTML that has been dumped out by those programs, (3) removing all the redundant tags and replacing the others with proper CSS, (4) renaming style1, style2, style3, etc ... to actual proper decent style names so they actually describe what they are representing (top_menu_text, for instance), (5) fixing the pages so that fonts can actually be resized without completely messing up the layout of the page (and breaking image alignment, etc).
Gah, I can go on and on about the crap that frontpage and dreamweaver spit out as an excuse for HTML, and don't even get me started on XHTML. Designers who use those tools can do great creative things with it and it looks great on one or two browsers that are configured they way most browsers are configured. Unfortunately in my line of work I have usually take what the designer has done and completely rewrite it. If designers were actually forced to write in HTML or at least look at the HTML output of the programs they used, then I wouldn't have to do that nearly as much.
but Apple just slapped a "license plate" on all the music they could. It sounds like this may have been the missing link in the monitoring system.
Perfect analogy! So let me get this straight, you would advocate removing the license plates from all vehicles on the road? Because that's what you're complaining about, the license plates being on the cars. There are no "cameras", but if there were they would come in the form of media players that phone home and report the stored metadata for each track played. I would certainly complain about that, but I will no more complain about the metadata itself being there than I do about the requirement that cars display a valid license plate.
Oh, and this is not even that bad, because you can remove these "plates" without incurring any legal penalty (note IANAL, so don't take this as legal advice).
a) I don't expect to be tracked by items I purchase forever after purchase.
Who's tracking? They are simply stamping the info in as metadata on the track you purchased. Until they find a way to read this info for everything you do with the song there's nothing to track.
b) I don't want every song in my collection that might be shared (legally over say iTunes sharing) to contain my email addr;
So strip the info out, there are lots of programs that can edit the metadata on a music track.
c) If I paid extra for DRM free music I should be able to do whatever I want with it within the same bounds as ripping a song from a CD. That is what I thought I was paying extra for.
You can do anything with these tracks that you can do with one you ripped from a CD. There is no technological measure put in place to prevent that. DRM free has never meant that you now have a license to redistribute the file to anyone via P2P networks, it simply means there is no technological measure put in place to prevent it.
Honestly, this just sounds like whining because you want to be able to share your files illegally and are afraid of having it come back to bite you.
I don't see an Ethernet port on it. Where are you looking?
Could be a nice source of Gum-Stick-PC grade board for building fun gadgets.
Considering (1) it runs Linux (debian based according to TFA), (2) there will be regular updates available (from TFA), (3) it has 128 MB flash RAM (in two chips of 64 megs each) possibly expandable in the future plus two chips of SD RAM of unstated size (again, from TFA), I'm sure we'll see all sorts of neat stuff that can be done with it. They will be obligated to share the source code, so it should be possible to modify it to turn it into nearly anything. Considering, though, that the USB interface is its only interface to the outside world, I doubt it would be very useful if you just plugged it into a power brick.
I own a 1981 DeLorean DMC-12.
That sucker passed emissions testing right off. No "spend $400 and we'll pretend your car is okay" type stuff. It just passed. This car has not been loved by any means. Cars don't need those silly, silly things.
That's because smog checks hold the vehicle to the emissions standard at the time of manufacture. Passing the check simply means that your vehicle is close enough to the standard of it's time to be within those specs. It does not mean that your 25 year old car will conform to the same standard as a new 2008 model.
I'm pretty sure that a predetermined slow boot speed is used during POST and the CPU speed gets reset to the CMOS stored values during POST, probably after the setup is run. This is because (1) CMOS settings are read during the POST, not before, so any over clocking setting cannot be applied before the POST and (2) it's also a really easy way to give you a chance to change your messed up settings in a stable environment before they have a chance to take out the system.
There is no way that your computer can do anything without a CPU. If you doubt that, then try removing the CPU from your motherboard some time and see how far into the POST you get.
"As currently structured, Basic Pilot does not detect duplicate active records in its database," John Shandley, the company's senior vice president of human resources, told politicians. "The same Social Security number could be in use at another employer, and potentially multiple employers, across the country."
In a recent statement about the bill, the White House maintained that the proposal will allow for "unprecedented" information sharing among federal and state agencies, and that Homeland Security will be able to receive "information on multiple uses of the same Social Security number by more than one individual."
I see a huge potential problem with this. In order to detect duplicate employment employers will have to report that an employee is working with them and also report when an employee quits or is fired. Imagine moving across the country to a new job only to find that they can't employ you because your previous employer forgot (either genuinely or maliciously) to report that you had stopped working for them, so the system sees you working on the other side of the country and determines that you must be using fraudulent credentials.
Also, what about those people who simply need to maintain two jobs?
# Number of significant characters in the password for crypt().
# Default is 8, don't change unless your crypt() is better.
# Ignored if MD5_CRYPT_ENAB set to "yes".
#
#PASS_MAX_LEN 8
# If set to "yes", new passwords will be encrypted using the MD5-based
# algorithm compatible with the one used by recent releases of FreeBSD.
# It supports passwords of unlimited length and longer salt strings.
# Set to "no" if you need to copy encrypted passwords to other systems
# which don't understand the new algorithm. Default is "no".
#
MD5_CRYPT_ENAB yes
Old DES crypt() hashing is only significant to 8 chars on any system. That's why modern systems (including Gentoo) use MD5 hashing by default which has no limit on the length of the password to hash. Notice that MD5_CRYPT_ENAB is set to "yes" above which causes it to ignore the PASS_MAX_LEN setting.
This is a really interesting device, I wonder if it has some darker uses, though...
Could you use this device to assist shoplifting by having it in your pocket when you walk past the RFID readers at the store entrance? This would effectively block the readers from being able to "see" the RFID security tags on the merchandise.
Depending on how low-cost these devices are (they are planning to sell them at cost, after all), could someone attach one surreptitiously to the bottom of a modern car preventing the RFID tag built into the ignition key from being read, thereby disabling the car?
Here in New Zealand, they recently passed a law requiring that all pet dogs have RFID chips implanted in them. It would be laughable if a small version of this were made which would could be attached to the collar of the dog to effectively disable the RFID chip implanted in them (admittedly I can't see this particular usage being helpful the the dog or the owner in any way, but it is funny to think about).
Other issues:
Since this is a powered transmitting device, it might not be legal to have it turned on while on board an airplane in flight. Since it can't be effective while turned off, it would still be possible to read passports of people in-flight unless protected by some other means (aluminum foil, farraday cage).
Realistically, do you really need HD video to watch a woman getting screwed by three hung guys?
You'd be surprised how many of Kink.com's videos have absolutely no intercourse at all, and of the ones that do have intercourse it is usually not the primary focus.
It should be effective if the openings in the mesh are small enough. The size of the mesh openings depends on the frequency that needs to be blocked. I think it has to do with the way that radio waves pass through the air.
The same thing works for microwaves which is why they use a metal screen with lots of holes in it to block microwaves escaping out through the glass door of your microwave oven. The holes are spaced close enough together and are numerous enough that you can see through them and focus your sight on the food inside, yet they are small enough to not allow the microwaves to pass through.
I agree with 21 as a good drinking age, but I don't like the idea of the Federal govt enforcing that on the states, it should be up to each state to decide without pressure from the feds.
Yes I know there are advantages to both imperial and metric systems. The biggest problem with imperial systems, imo is that they differ from one country to the next and so, for example, a gallon in the states is smaller than a gallon in the UK. Also conversion between imperial and metric units is difficult since there are no exact matches.
Why not alter the imperial measurements so that (1) they are the same everywhere and (2) they match a close metric unit. To help reduce confusion we could have a metric/imperial name for them. Note that this is already done for some units (the metric ton is equal to 1000 kilos but is close to an imperial ton which is 2000 lbs). We could do this for lots of measurements (note that from this point forward the "metric imperial" units shown are not real, just imagined)...
metric ton = 1000 kilos (already done)
metric lb = 500 grams (metric ounce would be based on 1/16 of a metric lb)
metric yard = 1 meter (or metre, take your pick) (not really necessary, since we could just call it a meter, but it becomes a base for conversion of metric foot, metric inch, etc.)
a metric mile gets converted to 2000 metric yards (meters) or 6000 metric feet, so a metric mile becomes significantly longer than a mile but not so much as to throw off our sense of what a mile is and becomes easy to convert to km (2 km per metric mile).
metric miles per gallon is easy to convert to liters/100km (divide 200 by the metric miles per gallon so 20 metric miles per gallon = 200/20 = 10 liters/100km)
km/h is exactly twice the number of metric miles per hour (Americans will love this because we would get to drive faster for the same speed limit since 70 metric miles per hour is actually 87 miles per hour).
metric gallon = 4 liters (or litres, take your pick) hence:
metric quart = 1 liter (not really necessary, but there for completeness, it would probably just be called a liter)
metric pint = 500ml (you can still have your pint of beer and it's not too far off from what it used to be)
metric cup = 250 ml (already done) (metric liquid ounce based on 1/8 of a metric cup)
temperature conversion is rather difficult and may be best left alone.
by pushing countries to new units such as these it becomes easy to convert and Americans can still feel that they haven't lost their old units. Unfortunately it will also create some confusion when you need precision measurements to line up with old work. We can solve this for tools by keeping the old imperial measurements for them and using metric tools for the new system.
Anyways, just a thought.
Attempting to track its people in a completely useless way that probably wastes billions of dollars? I bet the DHS is wishing they thought of this first.
Nobody can really know That's right, no one can know, so why assume the worst when incompetence and stupidity is a much more plausible explanation. ACER is in the business of selling new computers, not repairing old ones. They probably outsource their repairs just like most other computer manufacturers. Making them break early doesn't put more money in ACERs pocket it puts the money in the pockets of the repair shops. As for the argument of maybe the customer will buy another new ACER computer, I highly doubt it, how many people do you know that will go out and buy a new computer of the same brand as the one that failed on them just out of warranty when they have dozens of other choices? They are giving business to ther competition that way, not themselves. but the fact is that this example is truly only a drop in the bucket. Millions of lines of code have thousands of potential bugs and, from my experience, nearly every bug can be turned into some sort of exploit. Not that this has any relevance to the topic at hand, but (1) this is not a bug, it is obviously an intentional feature (albeit a very poorly implemented one). It is, in fact an intentional back door put in place by ACER. It is not failing to do what it was designed to do but it does exactly what it was designed to do. (2) Most bugs do not result in security vulnerabilities or exploits of any magnitude. Every coder working on code which gets shipped to production systems is potentially the first guy to know about a bug and, therefore, an exploit. A political corollary is that those who write the rules know the loopholes. If the bug is discreet enough not to be noticed in an everyday code audit then that coder is also the guy most likely to be exploiting it. So you're basing this assumption on politics? I have no doubt that there are some very bad hackers who have been exploiting this vulnerability for years, I doubt that the coders who wrote this are, though it's entirely possible that they may have gotten drunk at a new years eve party and told someone else about it. All I have to support this "theory" of mine is that most people are not out to cause harm to others or exploit others. It's lots more than what you have to support your theory. When thinking about this with respect to global botnets and zero-day exploits it becomes apparent that the most logical conclusion is that the computing world is under clandestine monitoring (and exploitation) by individuals who associate with both large code bases and Congressional subcommittees--the intersection of the relevant social circles. The unemployed friends of politicians or major military contractors who have a family member working at a major software company would be the first suspects in my book.
This is no longer conspiracy theory. It is simply the largest mathematical intersection of the relevant data sets. "clandestine monitoring", "congressional subcommittees", "social circles". Sure sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
OK, let's say you are gullible enough to think that they can take all of that they want, and still not put you at risk - now, think for just a moment about who 'they' are...? What are the odds of 'they' going to all that trouble and not having some plan to do something with what they glean that you will not be pleased with...? Still not impressed?
How's this... Acer sits around and waits for just the right time and boom - they toggle a flag on your computer that makes it appear that it needs to have XYZ repaired, and what do you know, the only resource is...ACER!! I doubt their intentions are anything so malicious. TFA states that this control is from back in 1998. Back then internet security wasn't as big of a concern as it is now. They probably put the control in place with the intention that they could use it to launch a help-desk application or run commands for repairing the computer remotely (ie from a help desk tech). Maybe have knowledge base articles that link to pages that automatically run the repairs needed. The active-x control can certainly do all this easily. It's not too far fetched to think that they would have forgotten about it after that and not even thought to remove it from future releases.
There is an old saying (paraphrased, I don't recall the exact quote), "Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence." I think this is just a case of gross incompetence, but not malice.