you would think his website would at least have something to explain what it is going to be... a company called SnoCap from San Franciso, sounds like a snowboarding company
If you haven't already got the hint.. well, Shawn isn't exactly a "hero", or a "luminary", or anything like that. He's some jock kid with mediocre programming skills that dreamed of "getting rich from computers somehow", and then set out to do just that.
It's not that simple. The identifying marks are red herrings. The real identifying marks will be obscured. This is easy to do with modern computing technology. Since they're already making multiple copies, and duplication is the hard part, they can stick assorted different symbols/logos into portions of the movie where they will not be noticed. Even easier; Chop specific scenes down here and there by a second or two. If you're writing the mastering software it should be easy to drop MPEG frames off the end of a clip, alter the header, and create your image for burning without screwing anything up. It would also be fairly trivial to add in assorted sounds which are not found in the movie normally, or time-shift them, by overlaying them onto the audio track later. Studios typically have not done this to date because it is harder than not doing anything, but they will start doing it, because they can't just stop sending out screeners (though screeners will typically be sent to less and less people, I think - maybe we'll start seeing more workprints, which must hurt their bottom line less) but they still want to discourage copying.
It would be harder to use such subtle methods of indentification when the end product is often a very lossy rip. If you were trying to prevent people from making a 1:1 copy, then what you describe would be feasable. I have seen screeners that simply have what looks like random numbers on the top & bottom of the screen. I guess it turns out those numbers weren't random at all.:)
There are only so many screeners sent out by studios - if this guy _was_ sending out as many as they say he did, he probably represented a large portion of all screeners posted to the internet.
They say this guy released 60 screeners a year. There are a lot more than that a year being uploaded to usenet. So, I'm sure this will only make it so that all distributors of pirated screeners in the future will just blur any identifying marks from the film.
Not that Windows is blameless here, mind you, but I seriously suspect that I could cococt a shellscript that could do something similar (at least in terms of self-propagating) and send it to all my friends who run UNIX.
Oh, I've done this. Countless times.. and you're right. Stupid is stupid. Your operating system can only protect you so much.
Well, for those that understand the law, and rights, it's simple. When you are on someone elses property, wether it be their house, or their server.. you have no right to free anything. I can't walk into a store and start marching around with abortion protest signs. I will first be asked to leave, and then arrested for trespass. That's the way America works, for better or for worse. A lot of people think they should be given rights to so many things, but don't realize they forfeited those rights when they failed to read the small print on the "TOS."
You have to realize that every provider of goods, either real or electronic has rights of their own. In this case one really stands out: the right to refuse service.
weird, i fall asleep during lectures all the time, and nothing good has ever come out of it
It was me and the professor. Only, he looked different. He had daisy duke shorts on and was carrying a rifle. I approached him, and he spoke.. but I couldn't understand. I think it was another language. When I got closer, I noticed my skin was burning. And then I realized I was covered in fire ants. I jumped off of a cliff towards what looked like a pool of water at the bottom. Only when I hit it, I realized it was a pool of broken glass. I tried as best as I could to swim through the glass, but my skin was literally falling apart.. when I could no longer move, I woke up.
A strong Russian military and resource starved germany is why Hitler and Stalin didn't wind up ruling the world, and don't forget it.
Yeah, a lot of people don't know that over 12 million Russian soldiers died in WWII. The Germans were tapped on that front. We bombed the shit out of Japan, but really.. I don't think they posed much of a threat to mainland America anyway. With all of their secrecy and military buildup, etc.. all they could really manage to target was a remote US military outpost (Hawaii).
Without having license to sell Windows with their PCs, they would have been unable to remain competitive.
Or on the flipside, if Windows had no PC makers willing to market it's OS for them.. they would have to make a compromise on their licensing.
From the government's point of view, all businesses are supposed to play fair (no anticompetitive monopolies) and not from clubs to stomp out newcomers (collusion). Everybody can play, and every has a level playing field.
I don't see what would be different about rejecting Microsoft's licensing proposal than say.. HP and Whoever agreeing to support a controversial DVD standard. But yes, I know in theory everyone is supposed to have a fair chance to compete. It's just so hard to know where to draw the line. You can get into the area of government subsidies to support the "weaker", "less fortunate" businesses who may have "fallen on hard times", and then the corruption that comes from that can end up promoting weakness. It's a dangerous game to play in my opinion, that's why I am always just leary of talk like that.
This is how to turn a merely successful product into a monopoly, while making a lot of enemies as a free bonus!
Well, I have never actually read into the subject in much detail. And thank you sincerely for the reply, what I just don't understand is why did these OEMs agree to this? Collectively couldn't they have had some leverage against Microsoft in a business sense? I mean, there are other ways to go about things than litigation.
That's what I could find out about "per-processor licensing." What I don't understand is how Microsoft "imposed" anything onto anybody? Did they sign a contract agreeing to that? Oh, they did? Well, then what's the deal? I sign a contract.. agreeing to pay 20% interest on my car loan. Ok, that's arguably bullshit. My friend has the same car, make the same amount of money, and pays 5%. That's unfair. Can I file a lawsuit?
If "trolling" is posting just to get a reaction, then sure.. I'm a troll. I post things to get a reaction, the reaction I'm looking for is an answer.
DES is a special case because the cryptographic algorithm itself is what can be attacked, not the actual implementation. It's rare that a security hole is found within a standard. It's common to find them in implementations.
Yes, SMTP, DNS, IRC, and FTP were all very secure standards by design. Sorry wrong answer, thanks for playing.
I didn't make myself very clear. When I was thinking of my example of diversity within Microsoft, I was thinking of diversity in programming in general I guess. It would be great if everyone used different methods in an attempt to obfuscate their problems.. which is how I think of all security methodology. So far, no operating system has proven secure. Some have lasted longer than others in not getting "rooted", but all are shown to be vulnerable over time. Anyway, I am getting off my point again. What I meant is that it wouldn't be practical to have all of your programmers in your company operating with drastically different procedures. I was making a far-fetched comparison to the amount of diversity you would need on the internet to make sweeping trojans like Blaster irrelevant. You would need to diversify to the point of uselessness.
That's right. They stole it fair and square. Per-Processor licensing was introduced in 1988, and illegal.
The major illegal practice cited in the complaint was that Microsoft imposes a per processor license fee on OEMs, which means the
manufacturers would have to pay Microsoft a royalty for each PC they sold, even if it did not include a Microsoft operating system. Thus, in order to sell a computer with a competitor's operating system (such as OS/2), the OEM would have to pay for the operating system it actually included as well as paying a royalty fee to Microsoft. This discourages OEMs from selling PCs with competing operating systems, or causes them to charge higher prices for the competing systems in order to make up for their extra cost.
That's what I could find out about "per-processor licensing." What I don't understand is how Microsoft "imposed" anything onto anybody? Did they sign a contract agreeing to that? Oh, they did? Well, then what's the deal? I sign a contract.. agreeing to pay 20% interest on my car loan. Ok, that's arguably bullshit. My friend has the same car, make the same amount of money, and pays 5%. That's unfair. Can I file a lawsuit?
No you couldn't. IIS and Apache both implement the HTTP standard, but only one of them was vulnerable to Code Red et al.
Yes, you cited one standard. Congratulations. Unfortunately for you there are thousands more. DES is another. Let's see.. what does DES stand for again?
With some competition Microsoft would be forced to write more secure software faster, so in a way monopoly is to blame.
Then again, AFAIK, Windows is not leading on the server side, but perhaps somebody can correct or confirm that ?
So why doesn't someone step up and compete? Microsoft wasn't exactly handed the market to begin with, you know? If OSX, Linux, or whatever else were on top, do you honestly think there would be less vulnerabilities? I don't. As an exploit/virus/trojan writer.. your goal is usually to get as much attention as possible. Would you get that attention by focusing your efforts on OS/2? Would it make news if a destructive trojan hit every installed BeOS machine? Probably not.
I've never understood this attitude. Is it really so hard to figure out? And don't take this the wrong way.. I'm not some Microsoft groupie or something. I appreciate the usefulness of all different operating systems.
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you would think his website would at least have something to explain what it is going to be... a company called SnoCap from San Franciso, sounds like a snowboarding company
If you haven't already got the hint.. well, Shawn isn't exactly a "hero", or a "luminary", or anything like that. He's some jock kid with mediocre programming skills that dreamed of "getting rich from computers somehow", and then set out to do just that.
It's not that simple. The identifying marks are red herrings. The real identifying marks will be obscured. This is easy to do with modern computing technology. Since they're already making multiple copies, and duplication is the hard part, they can stick assorted different symbols/logos into portions of the movie where they will not be noticed. Even easier; Chop specific scenes down here and there by a second or two. If you're writing the mastering software it should be easy to drop MPEG frames off the end of a clip, alter the header, and create your image for burning without screwing anything up. It would also be fairly trivial to add in assorted sounds which are not found in the movie normally, or time-shift them, by overlaying them onto the audio track later. Studios typically have not done this to date because it is harder than not doing anything, but they will start doing it, because they can't just stop sending out screeners (though screeners will typically be sent to less and less people, I think - maybe we'll start seeing more workprints, which must hurt their bottom line less) but they still want to discourage copying.
:)
It would be harder to use such subtle methods of indentification when the end product is often a very lossy rip. If you were trying to prevent people from making a 1:1 copy, then what you describe would be feasable. I have seen screeners that simply have what looks like random numbers on the top & bottom of the screen. I guess it turns out those numbers weren't random at all.
There are only so many screeners sent out by studios - if this guy _was_ sending out as many as they say he did, he probably represented a large portion of all screeners posted to the internet.
They say this guy released 60 screeners a year. There are a lot more than that a year being uploaded to usenet. So, I'm sure this will only make it so that all distributors of pirated screeners in the future will just blur any identifying marks from the film.
The most hated invention in America -although also one of the most used- is the cell phone
I bet that's what people were saying about "the woman", when she first popped up in the Garden of Eden.
Not that Windows is blameless here, mind you, but I seriously suspect that I could cococt a shellscript that could do something similar (at least in terms of self-propagating) and send it to all my friends who run UNIX.
Oh, I've done this. Countless times.. and you're right. Stupid is stupid. Your operating system can only protect you so much.
My beagle has tape worms.. when is a patch expected? If my dog had been using Linux, this would never have happened!!
Well, for those that understand the law, and rights, it's simple. When you are on someone elses property, wether it be their house, or their server.. you have no right to free anything. I can't walk into a store and start marching around with abortion protest signs. I will first be asked to leave, and then arrested for trespass. That's the way America works, for better or for worse. A lot of people think they should be given rights to so many things, but don't realize they forfeited those rights when they failed to read the small print on the "TOS."
You have to realize that every provider of goods, either real or electronic has rights of their own. In this case one really stands out: the right to refuse service.
You can't even reach Japan from the American mainland, so our military posed no threat to them.
:)
You're right. The bombs we dropped on them were all stamped with "MADE IN JAPAN" on them.
weird, i fall asleep during lectures all the time, and nothing good has ever come out of it
It was me and the professor. Only, he looked different. He had daisy duke shorts on and was carrying a rifle. I approached him, and he spoke.. but I couldn't understand. I think it was another language. When I got closer, I noticed my skin was burning. And then I realized I was covered in fire ants. I jumped off of a cliff towards what looked like a pool of water at the bottom. Only when I hit it, I realized it was a pool of broken glass. I tried as best as I could to swim through the glass, but my skin was literally falling apart.. when I could no longer move, I woke up.
Needless to say, I failed the exam.
A strong Russian military and resource starved germany is why Hitler and Stalin didn't wind up ruling the world, and don't forget it.
Yeah, a lot of people don't know that over 12 million Russian soldiers died in WWII. The Germans were tapped on that front. We bombed the shit out of Japan, but really.. I don't think they posed much of a threat to mainland America anyway. With all of their secrecy and military buildup, etc.. all they could really manage to target was a remote US military outpost (Hawaii).
Seriously, how can you blow up a piece of hardware by loading windows....are you retarded or something??
I don't even think a retard has that kind of power. Maybe some autistic guy somewhere I guess.. they have some pretty cool powers sometimes.
and a toasty warm genital region.
Well, be thankful that's all. Who knows, maybe your grandchildren will be getting STDs from their computers someday.
I dunno about you, but I'd prefer mine to not be broken.
It's an eMachine, you don't have much choice.
Without having license to sell Windows with their PCs, they would have been unable to remain competitive.
Or on the flipside, if Windows had no PC makers willing to market it's OS for them.. they would have to make a compromise on their licensing.
From the government's point of view, all businesses are supposed to play fair (no anticompetitive monopolies) and not from clubs to stomp out newcomers (collusion). Everybody can play, and every has a level playing field.
I don't see what would be different about rejecting Microsoft's licensing proposal than say.. HP and Whoever agreeing to support a controversial DVD standard. But yes, I know in theory everyone is supposed to have a fair chance to compete. It's just so hard to know where to draw the line. You can get into the area of government subsidies to support the "weaker", "less fortunate" businesses who may have "fallen on hard times", and then the corruption that comes from that can end up promoting weakness. It's a dangerous game to play in my opinion, that's why I am always just leary of talk like that.
This is how to turn a merely successful product into a monopoly, while making a lot of enemies as a free bonus!
Well, I have never actually read into the subject in much detail. And thank you sincerely for the reply, what I just don't understand is why did these OEMs agree to this? Collectively couldn't they have had some leverage against Microsoft in a business sense? I mean, there are other ways to go about things than litigation.
If competition were "fair".. we'd all be winners!
Bonus points for whoever knows the first trademark in the UK. Here's a hint - I could go for one right now.
I prefer American beer myself.
Gamers are all going to look like Popeye!
That's what I could find out about "per-processor licensing." What I don't understand is how Microsoft "imposed" anything onto anybody? Did they sign a contract agreeing to that? Oh, they did? Well, then what's the deal? I sign a contract.. agreeing to pay 20% interest on my car loan. Ok, that's arguably bullshit. My friend has the same car, make the same amount of money, and pays 5%. That's unfair. Can I file a lawsuit?
If "trolling" is posting just to get a reaction, then sure.. I'm a troll. I post things to get a reaction, the reaction I'm looking for is an answer.
Do you think the reason that cars are broken into more often than armored trucks is solely because there are more cars around?
Well, partly.. yes. If you reversed the current ratio, you would probably see a dramatic rise in armored car thefts.
DES is a special case because the cryptographic algorithm itself is what can be attacked, not the actual implementation. It's rare that a security hole is found within a standard. It's common to find them in implementations.
Yes, SMTP, DNS, IRC, and FTP were all very secure standards by design. Sorry wrong answer, thanks for playing.
I didn't make myself very clear. When I was thinking of my example of diversity within Microsoft, I was thinking of diversity in programming in general I guess. It would be great if everyone used different methods in an attempt to obfuscate their problems.. which is how I think of all security methodology. So far, no operating system has proven secure. Some have lasted longer than others in not getting "rooted", but all are shown to be vulnerable over time. Anyway, I am getting off my point again. What I meant is that it wouldn't be practical to have all of your programmers in your company operating with drastically different procedures. I was making a far-fetched comparison to the amount of diversity you would need on the internet to make sweeping trojans like Blaster irrelevant. You would need to diversify to the point of uselessness.
That's right. They stole it fair and square. Per-Processor licensing was introduced in 1988, and illegal.
The major illegal practice cited in the complaint was that Microsoft imposes a per processor license fee on OEMs, which means the manufacturers would have to pay Microsoft a royalty for each PC they sold, even if it did not include a Microsoft operating system. Thus, in order to sell a computer with a competitor's operating system (such as OS/2), the OEM would have to pay for the operating system it actually included as well as paying a royalty fee to Microsoft. This discourages OEMs from selling PCs with competing operating systems, or causes them to charge higher prices for the competing systems in order to make up for their extra cost.
That's what I could find out about "per-processor licensing." What I don't understand is how Microsoft "imposed" anything onto anybody? Did they sign a contract agreeing to that? Oh, they did? Well, then what's the deal? I sign a contract.. agreeing to pay 20% interest on my car loan. Ok, that's arguably bullshit. My friend has the same car, make the same amount of money, and pays 5%. That's unfair. Can I file a lawsuit?
Get real. If all the factors were equal, we'd see a LOT more Apache exploits. There are over TWICE as many Apache sites as there are IIS sites.
I agree that Apache has proven to be a more secure webserver than IIS.. Which isn't to say that it's trouble-free though.
No you couldn't. IIS and Apache both implement the HTTP standard, but only one of them was vulnerable to Code Red et al.
Yes, you cited one standard. Congratulations. Unfortunately for you there are thousands more. DES is another. Let's see.. what does DES stand for again?
With some competition Microsoft would be forced to write more secure software faster, so in a way monopoly is to blame. Then again, AFAIK, Windows is not leading on the server side, but perhaps somebody can correct or confirm that ?
So why doesn't someone step up and compete? Microsoft wasn't exactly handed the market to begin with, you know? If OSX, Linux, or whatever else were on top, do you honestly think there would be less vulnerabilities? I don't. As an exploit/virus/trojan writer.. your goal is usually to get as much attention as possible. Would you get that attention by focusing your efforts on OS/2? Would it make news if a destructive trojan hit every installed BeOS machine? Probably not.
I've never understood this attitude. Is it really so hard to figure out? And don't take this the wrong way.. I'm not some Microsoft groupie or something. I appreciate the usefulness of all different operating systems.