A credit card needs to be swiped... but the distance on these things are in centimeters and definately require conscious effort to use. It'd be nice if you had to press a button to enable it on the watch, but even without it it's not much less secure than credit cards.
What good does signing for it do? They don't actually check the signatures or anything.
I doubt pictures would be checked even if they were in widespread use. The whole "it's my mom/dad's card" can get past that anyway.
What do these things have to do with anything? Just because there was (spoofable) logging and the data couldn't be easily intercepted doesn't mean anything if the wrong person had the credit card in the first place.
Also, UPS/USPS don't normally require signatures, and they deliver anywhere you tell them to. How does this add security?
This is more convenient. I know I would perfer it, though my roommate's been lauding the whole cell phone thing for many years.
I would simply rather wave my speedpass/ID in front of a sensor instead of having to have my cell phone (I don't own one anyway, can't afford it) and type on it.
when I make a purchase, I want it to be a conscious decision.
Why can't it be both consious and easy? If the burden of typing in a number can be done away with securely then fantastic! I can buy what I want with less trouble and that's good for everyone.
That just happens to be what corporate America wants too! You make so many mindless little purchases in a day, waving your arms about and clicking around the Web, you don't know what you bought.
Oh no! Not corporate America! If you don't know what you bought then you shouldn't have bought it. If you're so worried about being ripped off then turn off your computer and don't leave the house. And if you're charged for something that you didn't agree to purchase then don't pay for it.
The article says watches with this technology will only cost a few dollars more than watches without it. If it was really in the customer's best interest and not the corporation's, they would be charging $25 to $50 more for these watches.
I don't get how you can even suggest this. There are so many different reasons as to why they would want to sell these watches cheaply... not to mention the fact that even at these prices Timex is comfortable with their profit margins.
They have their target market, and this market requires certain prices. This is very obviously a case where pricing for volume is the right thing to do, as infrastructure has to be built that isn't there now.
I suggested this to a school district near where I grew up and they loved it. I can echo the whole no problems for install experience and all. This summer they will be setting up some demo labs to try it out and next school year it might be running.
Depending on if it can do what they actually need to do, of course. I think it will.
It seems that everyone here is overlooking the benefits of these things because of, I think, overplayed concerns for privacy.
First of all, I'm sure the readers for these things, particularly ones that can read without a person's knowledge, would be horribly expensive and simply beyond the reach of most of the people involved in examples people have been proposing on here.
And that's not even considering how easy it would be to disable these things. For many things you remove the packaging from your groceries, and the RF tag would be thrown away with the package. If you were really paranoid you could follow the suggestions of some people here and EM blast your trash to hell before it goes out.
For things like your porno mags simply deliver a swift holepunch right through the tag.
The real negative of this thing is the cost. 5 cents is still huge compaired to the cost of a UPC. The payoff in convienience to consumers is great, though.
They couldn't figure out whether to be a romance or a documentary, and so it ended up being too empty and shallow for a romance and not focused/interesting enough for a documentary or biography type of narration.
Second of all the sole purpose of the name Lindows is to sound like Windows. They are profiting, or attempting to, off of Windows popularity, then it is an infringement.
I don't think this is so. I think the name is supposed to conjure a hint at Windows, after all it's supposed to be a drop in replacement, more or less, but I don't think its main purpose is to sound like Windows. The only reason the thing isn't called "Linuxdows" is because that name sounds horrible.
They're not trying to profit off of Windows popularity any more than a game would that brags about running under XP or something.
I was under the impression that they were under the obligation to sue just about everyone or else they would risk the name becoming too generic to protect in the future. Is this not so?
I think the word "Windows" is already too generic to protect by itself. Before Microsoft Windows came out there were already windows running on other GUIs, right? That were called windows? I'd say that if it's not "microsoft windows" then its not trademarkable.
I'd say a name change would do no good or bad, but it shouldn't be forced upon them.
Well, because that wouldn't sound as cool, which is another way of saying it wouldn't have the desired effect of sounding like its main competitor, Microsoft Windows!
No, not at all. Whether the name sounds cool or not has nothing to do with its competitors.
His policies caused the recession that we are in now, not that it's even that bad a recession, thanks to the handling it's getting right now.
Clinton's buddies looted the public till much more throughly and overtly than anyone else recently. Not to mention his selling of domestic inteligence to other contries.
And talk about boozing... gah...
Look around. The Clintons were (and still are) a leech on America.
I'm not talking about the lying stuff. All of that really means very little in the general scheme of things.
However, there is a ton of stuff that is STILL being investigated, and a ton that will never be completely discovered, I'm sure. Just the sellout of this country to China alone could probably fill volumes.
The Bush administration probably does have a slightly weak domestic policy, but that's better than the completely nonexistant foreign policy of the Clinton era. He sold us out to our future enemies, big time.
It took a lot of mismanagement during Clinton's watch to screw up the economy.
Clinton had nothing to do with the good economy we had then, but he has everything to do with the not as good one we have now. The policies of his administration served to reverse the direction of the acceleration of the economy, really, if that makes sense.
For about five years economic indicators have been showing that things were heading towards slowing down, but this was ignored. It could have been taken into account and we would be better off now still enjoying a nice boom, except for the Clinton mismanagement.
It is a popular misconception that that guy did anything at all good for this country, and particularly for the economy.
A slight hint at the possibility of Bush's being swayed by Microsoft's intrests is better than the flat out and admitted criminal and traitor that we had in the White House the last eight years.
It'll be two decades before we fully recover from the harm Clinton did to this country and to the world.
So what if the dows is referring to Windows? The "win" in Winmodem is referring to Windows and in the majority of the other computer related project names that they came up with the win or dows was referring to windows.
The word windows, no matter what it is referring to, is just too generic to try to protect in this way.
These people have already given their software out to the greater good. They've given up their ability to directly profit from it, and how is that bad? It's their decision.
As for price, let the markets decide if it's worth it. DOn't call anyone stupid for using the program, let them decide if it's worth it to them and trust in their own judgement. If Lindows fails then it fails and it's not skin off of anyone's back.
If it succeeds, though, it will help move linux out into the real world a lot more and in the end it will actually help the rest of the distributions. The people who wrote these programs will benefit in that indirect way. This is really what they signed up for in releasing their software under OS.
Hopefully Lindows will contribute improvements back to the main projects, but even if it doesn't it's still a good thing. I think you're completely offbase with this attack on Michael's project.
Ya know, this seems to be the unpopular viewpoint, but I think it's kind of not right that some rights can't be signed away or that some contracts simply wouldn't be upheld in a court of law. It seems quite simple to me that if both parties agree to a contract, and there is no foul play involved, then both parties should be bound by that contract. End of question.
I'm ranting about this at the moment partially because I fell asleep watching one of those stupid TV judge shows last night, and it always annoys me to no end that these judges never uphold a contract that gives money to a provider. The little group of lowlifes on the street that they interview during the show, of course, agree with this completely, so I guess the judge is just making the popular decision.
A contract is a contract. If you don't like the terms, don't agree to it.
Things are very different on the Internet. This post also isn't anti-governmental at all.
The worry is that this court case might have validated some arguments (that seemed good at the time and in the context) that will come back and bite us later.
Vague analogy: I believe that while transmitting a virus knowingly should be illegal, creating one should be legal (education, research, whatever). Yet I worry that laws against transmission would bite the curious and cautious writers too.
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A credit card needs to be swiped... but the distance on these things are in centimeters and definately require conscious effort to use. It'd be nice if you had to press a button to enable it on the watch, but even without it it's not much less secure than credit cards.
What good does signing for it do? They don't actually check the signatures or anything.
I doubt pictures would be checked even if they were in widespread use. The whole "it's my mom/dad's card" can get past that anyway.
Treat them like very easy to use cash and there won't be able problems.
What do these things have to do with anything?
Just because there was (spoofable) logging and the data couldn't be easily intercepted doesn't mean anything if the wrong person had the credit card in the first place.
Also, UPS/USPS don't normally require signatures, and they deliver anywhere you tell them to. How does this add security?
This is more convenient.
I know I would perfer it, though my roommate's been lauding the whole cell phone thing for many years.
I would simply rather wave my speedpass/ID in front of a sensor instead of having to have my cell phone (I don't own one anyway, can't afford it) and type on it.
What a misguided commment!
when I make a purchase, I want it to be a conscious decision.
Why can't it be both consious and easy? If the burden of typing in a number can be done away with securely then fantastic! I can buy what I want with less trouble and that's good for everyone.
That just happens to be what corporate America wants too! You make so many mindless little purchases in a day, waving your arms about and clicking around the Web, you don't know what you bought.
Oh no! Not corporate America!
If you don't know what you bought then you shouldn't have bought it. If you're so worried about being ripped off then turn off your computer and don't leave the house. And if you're charged for something that you didn't agree to purchase then don't pay for it.
The article says watches with this technology will only cost a few dollars more than watches without it. If it was really in the customer's best interest and not the corporation's, they would be charging $25 to $50 more for these watches.
I don't get how you can even suggest this. There are so many different reasons as to why they would want to sell these watches cheaply... not to mention the fact that even at these prices Timex is comfortable with their profit margins.
They have their target market, and this market requires certain prices. This is very obviously a case where pricing for volume is the right thing to do, as infrastructure has to be built that isn't there now.
Bah, signatures do nothing to help.
It still goes through your credit card... you can cancel the charge there.
At least with my credit card company you can...
I suggested this to a school district near where I grew up and they loved it. I can echo the whole no problems for install experience and all. This summer they will be setting up some demo labs to try it out and next school year it might be running.
Depending on if it can do what they actually need to do, of course. I think it will.
Because you pay it. End of story.
They can charge $1000 for a ticket if they wanted to and people paid for it.
Why do we need this amendment in the first place?
It's a pointless guarantee.
Freenet does not randomly lose data...
It seems that everyone here is overlooking the benefits of these things because of, I think, overplayed concerns for privacy.
First of all, I'm sure the readers for these things, particularly ones that can read without a person's knowledge, would be horribly expensive and simply beyond the reach of most of the people involved in examples people have been proposing on here.
And that's not even considering how easy it would be to disable these things. For many things you remove the packaging from your groceries, and the RF tag would be thrown away with the package. If you were really paranoid you could follow the suggestions of some people here and EM blast your trash to hell before it goes out.
For things like your porno mags simply deliver a swift holepunch right through the tag.
The real negative of this thing is the cost. 5 cents is still huge compaired to the cost of a UPC. The payoff in convienience to consumers is great, though.
They couldn't figure out whether to be a romance or a documentary, and so it ended up being too empty and shallow for a romance and not focused/interesting enough for a documentary or biography type of narration.
Very disappointing.
Second of all the sole purpose of the name Lindows is to sound like Windows. They are profiting, or attempting to, off of Windows popularity, then it is an infringement.
I don't think this is so. I think the name is supposed to conjure a hint at Windows, after all it's supposed to be a drop in replacement, more or less, but I don't think its main purpose is to sound like Windows. The only reason the thing isn't called "Linuxdows" is because that name sounds horrible.
They're not trying to profit off of Windows popularity any more than a game would that brags about running under XP or something.
I was under the impression that they were under the obligation to sue just about everyone or else they would risk the name becoming too generic to protect in the future. Is this not so?
I think the word "Windows" is already too generic to protect by itself. Before Microsoft Windows came out there were already windows running on other GUIs, right? That were called windows? I'd say that if it's not "microsoft windows" then its not trademarkable.
I'd say a name change would do no good or bad, but it shouldn't be forced upon them.
Well, because that wouldn't sound as cool, which is another way of saying it wouldn't have the desired effect of sounding like its main competitor, Microsoft Windows!
No, not at all. Whether the name sounds cool or not has nothing to do with its competitors.
Take up those points with Clinton.
His policies caused the recession that we are in now, not that it's even that bad a recession, thanks to the handling it's getting right now.
Clinton's buddies looted the public till much more throughly and overtly than anyone else recently. Not to mention his selling of domestic inteligence to other contries.
And talk about boozing... gah...
Look around. The Clintons were (and still are) a leech on America.
I'm not talking about the lying stuff. All of that really means very little in the general scheme of things.
However, there is a ton of stuff that is STILL being investigated, and a ton that will never be completely discovered, I'm sure. Just the sellout of this country to China alone could probably fill volumes.
The Bush administration probably does have a slightly weak domestic policy, but that's better than the completely nonexistant foreign policy of the Clinton era. He sold us out to our future enemies, big time.
It took a lot of mismanagement during Clinton's watch to screw up the economy.
Clinton had nothing to do with the good economy we had then, but he has everything to do with the not as good one we have now. The policies of his administration served to reverse the direction of the acceleration of the economy, really, if that makes sense.
For about five years economic indicators have been showing that things were heading towards slowing down, but this was ignored. It could have been taken into account and we would be better off now still enjoying a nice boom, except for the Clinton mismanagement.
It is a popular misconception that that guy did anything at all good for this country, and particularly for the economy.
A slight hint at the possibility of Bush's being swayed by Microsoft's intrests is better than the flat out and admitted criminal and traitor that we had in the White House the last eight years.
It'll be two decades before we fully recover from the harm Clinton did to this country and to the world.
So what if the dows is referring to Windows? The "win" in Winmodem is referring to Windows and in the majority of the other computer related project names that they came up with the win or dows was referring to windows.
The word windows, no matter what it is referring to, is just too generic to try to protect in this way.
Why shouldn't they?
Why should they?
These people have already given their software out to the greater good. They've given up their ability to directly profit from it, and how is that bad? It's their decision.
As for price, let the markets decide if it's worth it. DOn't call anyone stupid for using the program, let them decide if it's worth it to them and trust in their own judgement. If Lindows fails then it fails and it's not skin off of anyone's back.
If it succeeds, though, it will help move linux out into the real world a lot more and in the end it will actually help the rest of the distributions. The people who wrote these programs will benefit in that indirect way. This is really what they signed up for in releasing their software under OS.
Hopefully Lindows will contribute improvements back to the main projects, but even if it doesn't it's still a good thing. I think you're completely offbase with this attack on Michael's project.
Yeah, where were the pretzels to choke Clinton? Too bad they were a couple years off from hitting the REAL crook.
Ya know, this seems to be the unpopular viewpoint, but I think it's kind of not right that some rights can't be signed away or that some contracts simply wouldn't be upheld in a court of law. It seems quite simple to me that if both parties agree to a contract, and there is no foul play involved, then both parties should be bound by that contract. End of question.
I'm ranting about this at the moment partially because I fell asleep watching one of those stupid TV judge shows last night, and it always annoys me to no end that these judges never uphold a contract that gives money to a provider. The little group of lowlifes on the street that they interview during the show, of course, agree with this completely, so I guess the judge is just making the popular decision.
A contract is a contract. If you don't like the terms, don't agree to it.
Yes, this would be where you change into phonton-as-a-wave mode of thinking. The photon, as energy, gets transferred to the electron.
Things are very different on the Internet. This post also isn't anti-governmental at all.
The worry is that this court case might have validated some arguments (that seemed good at the time and in the context) that will come back and bite us later.
Vague analogy: I believe that while transmitting a virus knowingly should be illegal, creating one should be legal (education, research, whatever). Yet I worry that laws against transmission would bite the curious and cautious writers too.