Actually, believe it or not, Symantec still does not have an update to detect this worm while most of their competitors have had protection since last August. Once again, Symantec is last. Our company killed incoming email several hours ago awaiting an update from Symantec.
It's not an invasion of privacy. They're just taking what really goes on and putting it out there for the world to see.
Uh, isn't that pretty much the definition of "invasion of privacy"? Would it not be an invasion of your privacy if the local TV news were to bust into your bathroom and broadcast you taking a crap? After all, they're just taking what really goes on and putting it out there for the world to see:)
Very interesting theory. I did know that Hughes is a defense contractor, but never really thought to connect the two together. If your theory were true, it certainly would explain some of the very careless and lax actions they've taken in the past when combating piracy.
Nice to see that such an intelligent comment gets a +1 Bonus.
Anyways, where in my summary did I mention that *I* was using any of the systems that I described? Not one single place. As someone that does have some knowledge about this topic, I obviously was able to shed some light on the other side of the story. But then again that would just get in the way of the DirecTV engineers and the holier-than-thou people here that are high-fiving each other and patting each other's backs from the FUD that DTV is spreading. If one were to replace "DirecTV" with "Microsoft" in this story, I can guarantee that attitudes would be different.
And for your info, I was one of the subscribers that had 2 cards knocked out, spent 3 days with busy signals and on hold before I could talk to a CSR, and am now watching OTA broadcasts until my new cards arrive, which I'll be paying at least $78 for. And if I want a refund on any portion of my bill while my service is out, I get to go through the whole process again in order to talk to someone in accounting. While I'm all for companies combatting piracy, it certainly shouldn't happen at the expense of someone who is paying $55 month for the service. And no, I do not blame the pirates. That would be like blaming the pirates for the upcoming "anti-piracy" registration features that MS is including in Whistler. If my local cable company did't suck eggs and if it wasn't too difficult to get on the roof in the dead of winter to remount the dish to be used with Echostar, you can bet I'd fall into the category of disgruntled customer that cancelled. This certainly wasn't the first time I've lost legit subscriptions due to DTV's inability to specifically target their ECM's.
With a hacked card, you get unlimited viewing of pay-per-view movies (which cost $3.95 each), unlimited viewing of the sports packages such as NFL Sunday Ticket (which costs $169 per season), unlimited access to the premium channels such as HBO, and unlimited access to the porn channels ($5-8 per movie). A standard subscriber package that includes every channel except for any pay-per-view or sports packages can cost upwards of $80/month. A hacked card that can stay active for several months easily pays for itself. And having the ability to choose from multiple timezones for network programming (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX) is very convenient for solving schedule conflicts and is not available through legit subscriptions thanks to the ridiculous laws surrounding distant locals.
I can't believe how carefully this would have had to be planned. Sending a few bytes at a time to form a program? And nobody in the DirecTV cracker community caught on? If they were bright enough to reverse engineer the smartcards themselves, in addition to the code on them, you'd think at least one of them would have analyzed the "random" bytes coming through the satellite dish and noticed a program being formed. After all, they did code workarounds into their cracks (which probably included the parts of the program that had come down the "wire").
The intelligent members of the community did catch this new code in the stream very early on and had been warning the community for months that the only safe way to survive an ECM was to go to emulation.
The card might say that on it, but I'd certainly be interested to see if this claim would stand up in court. The user pays for this card anytime they want a new one, it is not given or "loaned" to the user. When you buy a receiver, you're essentially also buying the smart card also. When your card is somehow damaged, DirecTV charges anywhere from $39 to $89 for a new one. In fact, many subscribers that had their legit H cards hit this past weekend are being forced to pay $89 for a new HU card directly from DirecTV, and DirecTV will refund $50 when they receive the damaged H card. Of course, looking at some recent court cases such as DeCSS and DCMA, I wouldn't at all be surprised to see the courts side with the corporation yet again.
Also forgot to mention that the H cards that were "damaged" this past week may still be salvagable via a hardware setup similar to emulation called a bootloader. The bootloader can basically redirect any packets that are trying to look for this "write once" area on the card that has been closed, essentially building a bridge over the hole that has been blown on the card.
First off, several months ago the gurus in the DirecTV "hacking" community predicted the exact events that happened this past, and anyone paying attention changed over to a technology that hasn't been defeated yet, called Emulation. Emulation is basically allows the H card and receiver to process correctly while insulation the H card from any write packets that DirecTV sends. The EMU setup consists of a board that is the same width as the H card that slides into the card slot on the receiver. This board has a serial connection that then connects to the serial port of a PC. This PC is running a small DOS program. The H card is then inserted into the smart-card programmer, which is connected to the 2nd serial port on the PC. Emulation has survived all attacks that DirecTV has launched against "hacked" cards for the past few months, and likely will stay up as long as DirecTV continues the data stream for the H card.
Secondly, the new HU card has recently been hacked to allow for the "3M" scripts that open all channels. DirecTV launched their first attack against hacked HU cards this past week as well, but the community actually learned quite a bit about the HU card from this attack. This HU hack is only available through "dealers" for several hundred dollars, but I'd expect the necessary scripts to become freeware over the next few months. DirecTV will have their hands full once an emulation script is created for the HU.
Lastly, DirecTV also hit many, many paying subscribers running legit cards with their attack on Sunday. You can be certain that this attack cost them quite a few dollars in terms of cards needing to be replaced as well as the loss of subscribers that they have managed to piss off once again.
The only way for SS to redeem himself here is to make a film like he has never made before, devoid of merchandising and marketing hype, as well as the unnecessary eye candy that he and his masses of sheep (most of the movie watching world) love so much.
Do Amistad, Schindler's List, and Saving Private Ryan fall into this category? IMO those were 3 very good films that had little to no merchandising, undue marketing hype, or unnecessary eye candy.
And yes, you`re likely to have the edge physically if you are black. Or aren`t you allowed to say that anymore?
No, you haven't been allowed to say that in at least 12 years, as Jimmy The Greek found out when he was fired by CBS in 1988 for saying that blacks were better athletes because of genetics.
Perhaps DotComGuy should've used half a brain and forced his "sponsors" to contribute monthly to an escrow account that he couldn't touch until his 365th day in the house. Most workers that I know of don't work all year and receive a lump sum at the end of the year. Professional athletes sign contracts that state an annual salary, yet they are paid several times during the year. Military personnel, who receive free room and board in most cases (very similar to DotComGuy's setup), are not paid in a yearly lump sum. Business arrangements can change in a year, especially in fast-moving industries like the Tech and DotCom industries, as evidenced by looking at NASDAQ for the past year. Had DotComGuy been at least halfway entertaining and not let himself fall apart physically, he might have been marketable and been able to cash-in through other avenues. As is stands, he'll probably get a few days worth of coverage and vanish into the ether.
Oh Grand Prix Legends is THE best racing sim ever. And it's old now.
The list was "most influential" and while GPL certainly is one of the best racing sims ever, it has had almost ZERO influence on the genre simply because it is too difficult of a sim for the mass-market. Papyrus is just now getting around to using some of the foundation of GPL in another sim (N4), so GPL has had very little influence on other products even from the company that created it. Perhaps when a few of the high-end vaporware sims hit the market this year (World Sports Cars for example) then we'll see some other sims with a physics model close to what GPL offers.
I didn't mean to imply that "Hannibal" had written the articles at RWT, I was just giving him props for coming across those articles in his research on the Alpha and passing them along to his readers. At any rate, props are due to both of you.
Similar story with the same links is posted on the Ars Technica frontpage today, except Hannibal of Ars is the one that did the research and came up with these articles at Realworldtech.com. At least "Dean Kent" managed to read a few of the links a bit before submitting this info as his own. Perhaps next time you can submit a link to the rightful author's page rather than bypassing it and claiming his hard work as your own.
Just today I was in Best Buy looking endlessly for any classic Clint Eastwood Western on VHS for a gift and came up empty. I even commented to someone how small and empty the once vast Best Buy VHS section was compared to the DVD section, where, of course, I was able to find three different movies that fit my criteria.
So, let's have a device that, as well as being an MP3 player/cell phone/watch/palm/etc., also has the added advantage of being able to blow someone's head off.
Actually this isn't so far-fetched. According to this article, cellphone/gun combos are showing up in Europe. The firing mechanism is controlled by the keypad.
Along with the 4.0 announcement was a demo of Samsung's upcoming Palm-based smartphone. It's supposed to be a bit smaller than the already announced Kyocera QCP-6035 (aka pdQ2) and contains a color display and dial buttons on the LCD screen. Should be available Q2 2001 for around $500. This should give the MS Stinger phone a serious run for its money.
1800mhz is not an available frequency for use in the US by commercial mobile communications companies. So you're correct, nothing new here, as AT&T will be using GSM 1900. They do, however, have the potential to roll-out a GSM network with a larger coverage area, whereas current GSM service in the US is a hodge-podge of several different companies operating in different regions.
You're correct. Voicestream bought both Omnipoint and Aerial earlier this year, giving them the largest GSM footprint in the US. All 3 had been offering GSM service for several years now in their own independent territories.
Actually Voicestream uses the 1900mhz frequency, as state here.
Meanwhile, Cingular's network looks to me like it's an absolute mess. Cingular is actually a combination of Ameritech, SW Bell, Pac Bell, Nevada Bell, Cellular One, and SNet. Pac Bell and Nevada Bell are GSM 1900 carriers, while Ameritech is TDMA and SW Bell is CDMA and TDMA! AFAIK, there is no equipment that works on both CDMA and TDMA networks, let alone any GSM handsets that work on anything besides GSM networks. Sure, they may claim to have some sort of "national network", but unless I'm absolutely missing something, there's no way that a Cingular customer can use their handset everywhere on the Cingular network.
This is true. I've been on my current $30/300min SPCS plan for over 2 years and I recently tried to sign up for a 1-year service agreement to take advantage of their offer of free Wireless Web for doing so. I was informed that this couldn't be done on my account because I have first incoming minute free and they don't offer that service on their current plans. I even asked her to make sure that this couldn't be done since I was agreeing to not change providers for a year and I was told that it couldn't be done.
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Actually, believe it or not, Symantec still does not have an update to detect this worm while most of their competitors have had protection since last August. Once again, Symantec is last. Our company killed incoming email several hours ago awaiting an update from Symantec.
Uh, isn't that pretty much the definition of "invasion of privacy"? Would it not be an invasion of your privacy if the local TV news were to bust into your bathroom and broadcast you taking a crap? After all, they're just taking what really goes on and putting it out there for the world to see :)
Very interesting theory. I did know that Hughes is a defense contractor, but never really thought to connect the two together. If your theory were true, it certainly would explain some of the very careless and lax actions they've taken in the past when combating piracy.
Nice to see that such an intelligent comment gets a +1 Bonus.
Anyways, where in my summary did I mention that *I* was using any of the systems that I described? Not one single place. As someone that does have some knowledge about this topic, I obviously was able to shed some light on the other side of the story. But then again that would just get in the way of the DirecTV engineers and the holier-than-thou people here that are high-fiving each other and patting each other's backs from the FUD that DTV is spreading. If one were to replace "DirecTV" with "Microsoft" in this story, I can guarantee that attitudes would be different.
And for your info, I was one of the subscribers that had 2 cards knocked out, spent 3 days with busy signals and on hold before I could talk to a CSR, and am now watching OTA broadcasts until my new cards arrive, which I'll be paying at least $78 for. And if I want a refund on any portion of my bill while my service is out, I get to go through the whole process again in order to talk to someone in accounting. While I'm all for companies combatting piracy, it certainly shouldn't happen at the expense of someone who is paying $55 month for the service. And no, I do not blame the pirates. That would be like blaming the pirates for the upcoming "anti-piracy" registration features that MS is including in Whistler. If my local cable company did't suck eggs and if it wasn't too difficult to get on the roof in the dead of winter to remount the dish to be used with Echostar, you can bet I'd fall into the category of disgruntled customer that cancelled. This certainly wasn't the first time I've lost legit subscriptions due to DTV's inability to specifically target their ECM's.
With a hacked card, you get unlimited viewing of pay-per-view movies (which cost $3.95 each), unlimited viewing of the sports packages such as NFL Sunday Ticket (which costs $169 per season), unlimited access to the premium channels such as HBO, and unlimited access to the porn channels ($5-8 per movie). A standard subscriber package that includes every channel except for any pay-per-view or sports packages can cost upwards of $80/month. A hacked card that can stay active for several months easily pays for itself. And having the ability to choose from multiple timezones for network programming (NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX) is very convenient for solving schedule conflicts and is not available through legit subscriptions thanks to the ridiculous laws surrounding distant locals.
The intelligent members of the community did catch this new code in the stream very early on and had been warning the community for months that the only safe way to survive an ECM was to go to emulation.
The card might say that on it, but I'd certainly be interested to see if this claim would stand up in court. The user pays for this card anytime they want a new one, it is not given or "loaned" to the user. When you buy a receiver, you're essentially also buying the smart card also. When your card is somehow damaged, DirecTV charges anywhere from $39 to $89 for a new one. In fact, many subscribers that had their legit H cards hit this past weekend are being forced to pay $89 for a new HU card directly from DirecTV, and DirecTV will refund $50 when they receive the damaged H card. Of course, looking at some recent court cases such as DeCSS and DCMA, I wouldn't at all be surprised to see the courts side with the corporation yet again.
Also forgot to mention that the H cards that were "damaged" this past week may still be salvagable via a hardware setup similar to emulation called a bootloader. The bootloader can basically redirect any packets that are trying to look for this "write once" area on the card that has been closed, essentially building a bridge over the hole that has been blown on the card.
Secondly, the new HU card has recently been hacked to allow for the "3M" scripts that open all channels. DirecTV launched their first attack against hacked HU cards this past week as well, but the community actually learned quite a bit about the HU card from this attack. This HU hack is only available through "dealers" for several hundred dollars, but I'd expect the necessary scripts to become freeware over the next few months. DirecTV will have their hands full once an emulation script is created for the HU.
Lastly, DirecTV also hit many, many paying subscribers running legit cards with their attack on Sunday. You can be certain that this attack cost them quite a few dollars in terms of cards needing to be replaced as well as the loss of subscribers that they have managed to piss off once again.
The only way for SS to redeem himself here is to make a film like he has never made before, devoid of merchandising and marketing hype, as well as the unnecessary eye candy that he and his masses of sheep (most of the movie watching world) love so much.
Do Amistad, Schindler's List, and Saving Private Ryan fall into this category? IMO those were 3 very good films that had little to no merchandising, undue marketing hype, or unnecessary eye candy.
One MILLION dollars!
No, you haven't been allowed to say that in at least 12 years, as Jimmy The Greek found out when he was fired by CBS in 1988 for saying that blacks were better athletes because of genetics.
I've always heard it pronounced as "la" (Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do)-"tay".
Perhaps DotComGuy should've used half a brain and forced his "sponsors" to contribute monthly to an escrow account that he couldn't touch until his 365th day in the house. Most workers that I know of don't work all year and receive a lump sum at the end of the year. Professional athletes sign contracts that state an annual salary, yet they are paid several times during the year. Military personnel, who receive free room and board in most cases (very similar to DotComGuy's setup), are not paid in a yearly lump sum. Business arrangements can change in a year, especially in fast-moving industries like the Tech and DotCom industries, as evidenced by looking at NASDAQ for the past year. Had DotComGuy been at least halfway entertaining and not let himself fall apart physically, he might have been marketable and been able to cash-in through other avenues. As is stands, he'll probably get a few days worth of coverage and vanish into the ether.
The list was "most influential" and while GPL certainly is one of the best racing sims ever, it has had almost ZERO influence on the genre simply because it is too difficult of a sim for the mass-market. Papyrus is just now getting around to using some of the foundation of GPL in another sim (N4), so GPL has had very little influence on other products even from the company that created it. Perhaps when a few of the high-end vaporware sims hit the market this year (World Sports Cars for example) then we'll see some other sims with a physics model close to what GPL offers.
I didn't mean to imply that "Hannibal" had written the articles at RWT, I was just giving him props for coming across those articles in his research on the Alpha and passing them along to his readers. At any rate, props are due to both of you.
Geez I'm dumb...sorry Dean Kent. I'll take my flame-thrower elsewhere.
Similar story with the same links is posted on the Ars Technica frontpage today, except Hannibal of Ars is the one that did the research and came up with these articles at Realworldtech.com. At least "Dean Kent" managed to read a few of the links a bit before submitting this info as his own. Perhaps next time you can submit a link to the rightful author's page rather than bypassing it and claiming his hard work as your own.
Just today I was in Best Buy looking endlessly for any classic Clint Eastwood Western on VHS for a gift and came up empty. I even commented to someone how small and empty the once vast Best Buy VHS section was compared to the DVD section, where, of course, I was able to find three different movies that fit my criteria.
Actually this isn't so far-fetched. According to this article, cellphone/gun combos are showing up in Europe. The firing mechanism is controlled by the keypad.
Along with the 4.0 announcement was a demo of Samsung's upcoming Palm-based smartphone. It's supposed to be a bit smaller than the already announced Kyocera QCP-6035 (aka pdQ2) and contains a color display and dial buttons on the LCD screen. Should be available Q2 2001 for around $500. This should give the MS Stinger phone a serious run for its money.
1800mhz is not an available frequency for use in the US by commercial mobile communications companies. So you're correct, nothing new here, as AT&T will be using GSM 1900. They do, however, have the potential to roll-out a GSM network with a larger coverage area, whereas current GSM service in the US is a hodge-podge of several different companies operating in different regions.
You're correct. Voicestream bought both Omnipoint and Aerial earlier this year, giving them the largest GSM footprint in the US. All 3 had been offering GSM service for several years now in their own independent territories.
Meanwhile, Cingular's network looks to me like it's an absolute mess. Cingular is actually a combination of Ameritech, SW Bell, Pac Bell, Nevada Bell, Cellular One, and SNet. Pac Bell and Nevada Bell are GSM 1900 carriers, while Ameritech is TDMA and SW Bell is CDMA and TDMA! AFAIK, there is no equipment that works on both CDMA and TDMA networks, let alone any GSM handsets that work on anything besides GSM networks. Sure, they may claim to have some sort of "national network", but unless I'm absolutely missing something, there's no way that a Cingular customer can use their handset everywhere on the Cingular network.
This is true. I've been on my current $30/300min SPCS plan for over 2 years and I recently tried to sign up for a 1-year service agreement to take advantage of their offer of free Wireless Web for doing so. I was informed that this couldn't be done on my account because I have first incoming minute free and they don't offer that service on their current plans. I even asked her to make sure that this couldn't be done since I was agreeing to not change providers for a year and I was told that it couldn't be done.