Just as you would not go into a video store and steal a DVD copy of Star Wars and claim that you should be permitted to do that because you own the VHS version
Raffi isn't a tivo hacker, nor has he released any software for the tivo. His only contribution has been a book about the tivo, but to say that he wrote the book himself is also misleading. He solicited other people from the tivo community (including myself) to write sections for him.
In other words, he hasn't done anything and the drafts of the book don't look too promising.
Is it just me or does this start to look like the software defined modem (aka winmodem) craze? What's to stop hardware manufacturers from releasing 802.11b gear based around a software radio?
Sure it'd be able to adapt to newer standards but I really don't want my cpu time wasted with host based encoding/decoding, especially if it turns out I need a proprietary driver to do so.
If you look up the infinite monkey theorem in the jargon file you'll run across this quote:
Other hackers maintain that the Infinite-Monkey Theorem cannot be
true - otherwise the exponenntial expansion of AOL would have reproduced the entire canon of great literature by now.
There's a reason why all the examples they show are wireframe.
The device is just a spinning disc with lights, the disc is transparent so all you end up seeing are the lights apparently floating in a 3d plane. None of the points of light are going to be able to block eachother to display solid surfaces -- if you try to display a solid cube then each surface of the cube will be translucent and you'll end up seeing all sides of the cube atonce.
Without being able to display solid surfaces you're pretty limited the applications for it.
People already hate advertising, they'll do what they can to block it or otherwise mentally ignore it. The advertisers know this, they've made it their quest to make the ads even more intrusive annoying and otherwise harder to ignore, as if being forced to watch the ad is going to make us buy the product. If anything it's going to make me boycott the product and probably the sites supporting this new ad format.
The problem with current adverising is really that they're either in your face annoying or suspicously attached to a glowing review of their product. Targetted advertising is good in the fact that it's actually related to something you already use, but you trade off personal privacy.
There used to be websites where upon registering you'd get a whole checklist of marketing categories you were interested in, which were then reflected in the advertising. It's still targeted advertising but better in the fact that you have control over what the adverisers know about you. Unfortunately you don't see this much anymore.
Of course, the way I look at it this whole article is just an advertisment for UNICAST's ad format...
The packet nolonger goes to the customer, so the customer nologner pays the bill... that doesn't solve the problem that the ISP still recieves the packet and still has to pay their upstream provider. The ISP still uses up bandwidth, all it means is that they can't charge the customer for it.
The screenshots have been replaced since this article was posted. The original screenshots were on a white background with a much higher quality rendering.
My pc gets it's time set via PBS. Take a bt848 tv capture card capable of reading the "extended data services" line of video, bit of C and you can get a semi accurate time source.
Write an application to track keyword usage over time, when a keyword goes from only 10 hits to several thousand then flag it for jargon. The jargon can then be presented as a webpage of the top whatever with various statistics over popularity and suspected origin urls.
A. you can opt out of data collection if you want (you did read the manual right?)
B. they don't log 'mr. x has watched the slashdot show' they log 'someone in zipcode 1234 has watched the slashdot show'
Oh, and I just "discovered" the other day that some http servers actually these things called refer logs, that not only log your IP and what page you're visiting but where you came from; in some cases being able to detect search engine keywords used to get to that page. Given the fact that they could call up your ISP and request modem and customer information it's possible that they could do a heck of alot more damage than knowing you're a grown man who still watches teletubbies.
(...but since this is slashdot we'll completely ignore anything factual)
With the ability to rate routes via some software protocol what prevents someone from artificially flooding their network with false routing information?
I'd be abit worried if someone created a gravitational hole near doubleclick.net funneling traffic through it; dispite the possibilities of DoS'ing them it'd also mean letting them sniff out marketable data.
The TiVo doesn't allow access to the MPEG stream though, it's played out through an analog connector and stored on a proprietary filesystem. No DMCA issues there, although those folks that insist on finding a way to offload the MPEG streams will probably be making slashdot headlines. - MbM
Yes, but much of the information is stored on a proprietary filesystem known as MFS (media file system). It's complicated by the fact the standard scripts only allow upgrades, not downgrades (hence why TiVo refused to reload the 1.3 software).
The proceedure for restoring the old software isn't easy, it's still on the disk but you need some means of accessing it. For those not familiar with the TiVO it goes something like this:
The tivo has a connector on the back for interfacing a DSS satellite system, with the addition of a null modem adapter a user can access the PROM menu and change configutation data like the kernel bootup params. The 1.3 startup scripts used to have a backdoor -- bash would be run if you added the variable shondss=true (sh on dss port) to the kernel commandline. Unfortunately that's one of the things they remove in the new software. Bugger.
Ok we'll boot the 1.3 root partition, just a change of root= right? nope. The UI is loaded on the MFS and the supporting applications on the root filesystem, mixing and matching them can cause real trouble. Ok, let's not start the UI, let's set 'runmyworld=false'.
So now we've altered the root=, added shondss=false and runmyworld=false and we finally have a bash prompt. What now? well now we have to remove the new version of the software via tivosh (a convoluted shell built around tcl).. I won't even get into that mess.
Oh.. one other thing, the database format used on the MFS partition has changed between 1.3 and 2.0. I'm not aware of how much has changed, it may only be portions used by the subscription in which case you could revert.
At any rate attempting to revert the softare would void your warranty and possibly screw up your tivo. Fun huh? - MbM
Slashdot Mirror
"I am the walrus."
Raffi isn't a tivo hacker, nor has he released any software for the tivo. His only contribution has been a book about the tivo, but to say that he wrote the book himself is also misleading. He solicited other people from the tivo community (including myself) to write sections for him.
In other words, he hasn't done anything and the drafts of the book don't look too promising.
Is it just me or does this start to look like the software defined modem (aka winmodem) craze? What's to stop hardware manufacturers from releasing 802.11b gear based around a software radio?
Sure it'd be able to adapt to newer standards but I really don't want my cpu time wasted with host based encoding/decoding, especially if it turns out I need a proprietary driver to do so.
There's a reason why all the examples they show are wireframe.
The device is just a spinning disc with lights, the disc is transparent so all you end up seeing are the lights apparently floating in a 3d plane. None of the points of light are going to be able to block eachother to display solid surfaces -- if you try to display a solid cube then each surface of the cube will be translucent and you'll end up seeing all sides of the cube atonce.
Without being able to display solid surfaces you're pretty limited the applications for it.
People already hate advertising, they'll do what they can to block it or otherwise mentally ignore it. The advertisers know this, they've made it their quest to make the ads even more intrusive annoying and otherwise harder to ignore, as if being forced to watch the ad is going to make us buy the product. If anything it's going to make me boycott the product and probably the sites supporting this new ad format.
The problem with current adverising is really that they're either in your face annoying or suspicously attached to a glowing review of their product. Targetted advertising is good in the fact that it's actually related to something you already use, but you trade off personal privacy.
There used to be websites where upon registering you'd get a whole checklist of marketing categories you were interested in, which were then reflected in the advertising. It's still targeted advertising but better in the fact that you have control over what the adverisers know about you. Unfortunately you don't see this much anymore.
Of course, the way I look at it this whole article is just an advertisment for UNICAST's ad format...
The packet nolonger goes to the customer, so the customer nologner pays the bill ... that doesn't solve the problem that the ISP still recieves the packet and still has to pay their upstream provider. The ISP still uses up bandwidth, all it means is that they can't charge the customer for it.
Where's the incentive for the ISP?
Last CES they promised a developer program which suddenly disappeared a few weeks after -- Can you say marketing gimmick?
The screenshots have been replaced since this article was posted. The original screenshots were on a white background with a much higher quality rendering.
(original fairy head seen here)
Also of note:
this screenshot vs this screenshot
I'm sure he's got a small airplane in there somewhere...
.. the only winning move is not to play
My pc gets it's time set via PBS. Take a bt848 tv capture card capable of reading the "extended data services" line of video, bit of C and you can get a semi accurate time source.
Incase anyone was wondering what it looked like, here's a screenshot from one of the help pages: screenshot
I think he just "stole" it himself to get the insurance claim.
Does this mean that doubleclick must be a wealth of information? There certainly is a number of sites linking to it...
not quite, that tracks what people search for and not the jargon that appears in the webpages themselves
(we're talking a few orders of magnitude more complex)
Write an application to track keyword usage over time, when a keyword goes from only 10 hits to several thousand then flag it for jargon. The jargon can then be presented as a webpage of the top whatever with various statistics over popularity and suspected origin urls.
A. you can opt out of data collection if you want (you did read the manual right?)
B. they don't log 'mr. x has watched the slashdot show' they log 'someone in zipcode 1234 has watched the slashdot show'
Oh, and I just "discovered" the other day that some http servers actually these things called refer logs, that not only log your IP and what page you're visiting but where you came from; in some cases being able to detect search engine keywords used to get to that page. Given the fact that they could call up your ISP and request modem and customer information it's possible that they could do a heck of alot more damage than knowing you're a grown man who still watches teletubbies.
(...but since this is slashdot we'll completely ignore anything factual)
http://www.automation.fujitsu.com/jp/products/lig
It appears the device runs on a 300Mhz pentium
the fujitsu site has abit more info and a picture
http://pr.fujitsu.com/en/news/2001/09/10.html
With the ability to rate routes via some software protocol what prevents someone from artificially flooding their network with false routing information?
I'd be abit worried if someone created a gravitational hole near doubleclick.net funneling traffic through it; dispite the possibilities of DoS'ing them it'd also mean letting them sniff out marketable data.
Actually there's no records of him ever saying that although it's often attributed to him.
- MbM
The TiVo doesn't allow access to the MPEG stream though, it's played out through an analog connector and stored on a proprietary filesystem. No DMCA issues there, although those folks that insist on finding a way to offload the MPEG streams will probably be making slashdot headlines.
- MbM
Yes, but much of the information is stored on a proprietary filesystem known as MFS (media file system). It's complicated by the fact the standard scripts only allow upgrades, not downgrades (hence why TiVo refused to reload the 1.3 software).
The proceedure for restoring the old software isn't easy, it's still on the disk but you need some means of accessing it. For those not familiar with the TiVO it goes something like this:
The tivo has a connector on the back for interfacing a DSS satellite system, with the addition of a null modem adapter a user can access the PROM menu and change configutation data like the kernel bootup params. The 1.3 startup scripts used to have a backdoor -- bash would be run if you added the variable shondss=true (sh on dss port) to the kernel commandline. Unfortunately that's one of the things they remove in the new software. Bugger.
Ok we'll boot the 1.3 root partition, just a change of root= right? nope. The UI is loaded on the MFS and the supporting applications on the root filesystem, mixing and matching them can cause real trouble. Ok, let's not start the UI, let's set 'runmyworld=false'.
So now we've altered the root=, added shondss=false and runmyworld=false and we finally have a bash prompt. What now? well now we have to remove the new version of the software via tivosh (a convoluted shell built around tcl).. I won't even get into that mess.
Oh.. one other thing, the database format used on the MFS partition has changed between 1.3 and 2.0. I'm not aware of how much has changed, it may only be portions used by the subscription in which case you could revert.
At any rate attempting to revert the softare would void your warranty and possibly screw up your tivo. Fun huh?
- MbM