Just some ideas.
To improve performance of encrypted hard disk, somekind of standard encrypting/unencrypting hardware should be included on the hard disk itself or in the notebook. Hardware implements a hardware algorithm.
Encryption should not depend on the hardware, encryption/decription hardware is just an hardware accelerator for the encryption software. It can be implemented completely by software.
In case of hardware failure encrypted data can be recovered and decrypted on any other computer, independently of the hardware accelerator. Only keys and right algorithm are required for decripting the data.
For secure access to the Notebook, instead of using a fingerprint reading device, why not use a small integrated camera and face recognition software.
What techniques are available and how easily can they be fooled?
If the face recognition is smart enough, the computer can lock itself automatically when the user walks away and unlock itself when he/she turns back.
Can security be improved combining face recognition with optional/mandatory keyboard passwords or smartcards?
For example, when starting the computer or dehibernating it, password/smartcad+face recognition is required. While working with the computer to lock/unlock it when user walk for a moment away, just face recognition is required.
One caveat of smartcards, user can leave it always inserted in computer. What about some kind of badge the user always carries with him, which connects to the computer by radio or infrared: Bluetooth, RFID, Infrared.
Could a mobile phone/PDA be used for this functionality? No need to carry additional devices.
In case of lost or forgotten mobile phone, phone provider could provide a replacement ( if system implemented right)
To avoid data lock if encryption keys are lost, use a second trusted party for key storage and recovery, regeneration of smartcards, etc. In worst case scenario, delivery of hard disk to trusted company/service, through trusted delivery system, to have it backed up and/or reinstalled in new HD or notebook.
Would it be nice that hardware provider like HP, DELL, etc provided such a combination of hardware and service to companies and profesionals? Wonder is Google would be interested in such a service.
If solution implemented through mobile phones, maybe some other companies could find it interesting.
By the way, is this idea already patented?;-)
Working in a big company.
Our computers have windows installed by IT department.
Typical project with no time to loose.
Download commercial software badly needed.
Oh! You mus download last patches for that and that.
Go to MS download area.
One moment, to download this software your computer must be verified.
Run WGA..
Bingo! Your Window copy is not genuine!!
Enough time and nerves lost with stupid thing, forget it!
Hhhhmmmm.... Where did I leave that LINUX CD.....?
Therefore a small percentage of people will have problems, even if their Windows copy is legal. A small percentage of people from the total of Windows users only in the US is a lot of people! Let see, I am working with my absolute legal and paid software and the manufacturer one day says "Oh, sorry you can not use your computer, your software is not genuine"
"China is limited to incremental innovation both by culture and politics. Rote education and a political system with information and thought control don't create an environment for breaktrhough discoveries and inventions" ("One billion customers", James Mc Gregor)
You buy a CD/DVD for your personal use with your onw data and you pay right on the spot a fine without commiting a crime, judgement and no possible defense.
In my point of view such tax is illegal
PLA= People Liberation Army or should it reallly read POA=People Opresion Army.
OK, that was a bad joke and perhaps not fair.
I do agree, nobody is interested in a China meltdown. It will be bad for world economy and (much worst) quite possibly a disaster with dire consequences for the chinese people.
Given the size of the problem, I doubt external help could be enough. We will try as hard as we can anyway.
I wonder what could happen if the CPC will try use the PLO to crunch again protester like in 1989. At that time there were deep dissensions in the PLA. The PLA disgraced itself in that event. I do not think they will be willing to repeat it.
I always wondered myself what the soldiers in that tank where thinking when that young man stood in front of them. I would give anything to see an interview from them. Does anyone has information about those guys?
Giving that the PLO is the only organization in China, besides the CPC, with some power, political weight and some respect from the population, could the PLO, if the crisis arrives, overthrown the CPC? What political solution could emerge in China afterwards?
It seems dangerous times are coming.... not necessarily interesting.
If instead to try to control peoples thought and flow of information the resources used for censoring the society were directed to something more useful...
What a waste of resources. What a negative impact does it have in the progress of chinese economy and society.
Chinas economy has developed quite a lot in the last 20 yeasr, but still... What coud have China achieved worlwide today without this wasteful political and ecomonic system.
WHERE could China today be if the CPC did not get to power more than 40 year ago? At the very least a LOT (in the 3 digits millions) of deaths and suffering coud have been averted.
A real pity and all due to a bunch of oligarcs who are more than able to massacre their own people in order to kling to power.
Perhaps when this plutocracy and its cronies get filthy rich enough they will find something more amusing to them than opressing their own countrymen. Going to the Casinos in las Vegas or Montecarlo, mode shopping in Paris or New York?
Until then, my best wishes to the chinese people.
China once isolated itself from the world with the consequences known by everybody specially to the chinese.
It is worth to jeopardize the future of the country for the sake of censorship?
Is the chinese oligarchy more interested in maintaining its grip on power or in developing their own country for the sake of its future and of its own people?
Such situations in the past have shown not very good results for China down the road... Even for ruling oligarchy of the moment...
A government not accountable enough, not transparent enough, not democratic enough... is no government at all.
Govern?
Let me disagree with that.
For a long time there was no govern in China, just an elite that reaped the profits of the mayority of the population be it emperor (local or foreing), bureucrats or the communist (so called) party. The government is not there to govern the country or provide for the people ist ther to tax them to the death
As a consequence the country as run amok, especially on the population issue. Whithout an accountable govern the country has not developed, 90% of the population live of the country side.
They are prisioners of the agriculture trap. You are a farmer, you need workforce and security for your old age (no social security outside a family) so you have many sons (the daughter you may sell/marry to other farmers). Your sons are also farmers they need workforce and security in old age therefore they more sons, etc until the arable land is exhausted, completely.
No industrialization, no other job opportunities for the majority of the people except an elite. The economy is not diversified. The productivity is always under the needs of the society
If the country can still in some way function is due to the human nature and resourcefulness of the normal chinese people rather than to anything else. But they have now a huge, more 1000 Million huge, problem.
I really do not know how are they going to solve this problem. I hope they will get eventually an accountable government.
In the last 60 year they have the most irresponsible, tyrannical and desastrous government in his history. The (so called) People Republic of China. And this government, if government can it so be called, is the cause of this disaster.
I really feel pity for China.
The chinese government has a total lack of legitimacy. What gives these guys the right to govern? The wonderful promises of the so called communist paradise was just a way to entice the people to support an authoritarian government which brought one of the greatest disasters upon China in his history. It is even sader to know that many people really believed on that dream. Many were killed and the majority betrayed. Only those on the nomenclature reaped the benefits at the cost of an inmense sufering of their very own countrymen.
Could you imagine what China could be today if it has started to develop 40, 60 or 70 years ago? I you are amazed at the development of Japan, South Korea or Taiwan, just imagine what could China achieve with an efficient system of government with an efficient economy. Could you imagine how many doctors, mathematicians, engineers could had arised from the mass of people who lost their lives in that disaster. And lost your live does not necessarily means to physically die! Was an Einstein there, or a Newton or an Arkimedes or an Euklides? Was there ordinary people who only wanted to live their lieve with some hope? How many lives were lost? What a terrible waste.
Once china was a superpower so far above other nations on earth that it was meaningless to make any comparison. With a system of government far better than those in Europe at the time. And from the technological point of view...We spaniards discovered ( stumble with) America using ships that trying to compare them against the chinese ships of time would be like comparing a raft with an ocean liner.
If you think that they are on the good path now think twice. There no rule of the law, law as we understand it. The system is prone to corruption, ineficiencies and inmense waste of resources. Economic, natural or personal (I mean people lives) resources. No check and balances system to correct the wrong decisions made by the government or in the economy. No accountability to take out of power those that made the wrong decisions. The ordinary citizen is defenseles against the ones in power. The risk of an implosion is very real. If the situation arises the capital invested on China could get out of the country equally fast or faster as it dit get in making thins worse. China is not the only country with a big an well educated population in the area. Just look a little bit to the south and to west. The biggest democracy of the world is there. A country with a culture and population that matchs China's.
No, I would not put today all my investment eggs for asia in China.
Politically the society is under a terrible presure. Just look at the demostrations in China against Japan. These demostrations were allowed by the government for its own political purposes but in my opinion its intensity revealed an intense frustation within the society . These demonstrations were an escape valve for many, they could at last demostrate for something and have an impact on the media or been seen at all in the media. It didn't matter the objective of the demostration. They could demostrate! There is a volcano under these society and it might explode if the wrong circumstances arise: a economic or political crisis could trigger it. I think the guys in the government got really scared although they allowed or induced this protest in the beginning and expected to benefit from it. Now they should be aware of the volcano under their own very feet.
With respect to technological advance. In order to be on the forefront of technology you need free exchanges of ideas. Of any ideas! Rememeber when in Europa the great doctors of the church considered that the earth was the center of the universe? Any other ideas was prosecuted because it did not suit the guys in power. It could put their power structures in questions. We had our dark age in Europe. It was long and dark. It took time and effort to get out of it. Some shadows do still linger here though
If they gag their own people they may have the best students and universities on earth,
The problem with GPS is availability, strength of the signal and position resolution. Beside with GPS you may have problems if, due to some crisis, signal precision may be reduced, or worst. I have no idea if a solar flare could have an influence on GPS availability...
In ETCS, a new standard in Europe for train control system, balises are used to help locate the trains on the track and transmit information from track to train. A balise is an electronic device installed on the track. It is activated by the train when it drives direct over it. It does not require a power supply, power is supplied by the train radio emission. The device is quite sturdy and built as simple as possible to make it extremely reliable. It looks like a floor mat. The information to be transmitted can be stored on the balise, in which case it does not need any external connection, or supplied remotely..
There are several levels in ETCS. In ETCS Level 2 and 3 all balises can be autonomous, that is, all information to be transmitted is stored in the balise, no external connections are needed The train is connected to a RBC (Radio Block Center) through a GSM-R (GSM for railways.) radio network. The RBC supervises the train and computes the movement commands to be delivered to the train. On the RBC there is a map of the track which the position of each balise on each track. When a train drives passes over a balise, it receives among other possible information's, the balise identification which is transmitted to the RBC. This balise identification locates the train precisely on the route map. Between balises the train uses its internal odometry system to determine the distance covered. Odometry errors are corrected each time a new balise is detected.
In ETCS Level 2 all signals on the track can be replaced by cab signaling. Less hardware is needed to be installed on the tracks. In Level 3 track circuits are no longer needed, the only hardware required on the track are balises and the GSM-R radio network ( and the rails of course ). The GSM-R radio network is not only used for train control, is the communication network for all voice and data transmission of the railway operation. Therefore its installation and operation cost are shared. The infrastructure used for GSM-R: towers and communication networks, can also be used to install a GSM network to provide standard mobile communication to passengers..
Some studies have been made to combine GPS and ETCS balises. So far as I know they are limited to low density, low traffic and open areas. I my opinion with GPS there will always be coverage problems and in the case of a subway quite unusable. Interruptions on the GSM-R coverage, due to coverage holes or temporal failures do not affect train operation under ETCS.
With balises you have a system which is always under control of the railway operator and independent of geographical, geopolitical issues or deployment delays.
For move information over ETCS www.ertms.com or Google it up.
The problem is that software is becoming an utility like gas or electricity, but the business model of the software companies business model is based in selling you the whole thing over again every 1 or 2 years ( a little more bloated each time; ok, sometimes there might be a nice new functionality... just enough to justify the price tag... Functionality delivery management I call it;-).
What about a subscription system model for software? You pay as you go, you may but slots of time, you may pay depending on the functionalities you use, you may even buy computing power from their BIG rendering or ray tracing computer farm.
(mmmhhh.. buying processing power from other appliations users while their computers seats idle doing nothing more useful that what a heating system does more cheaply?)
If you are a person that just uses the basic functions you get the cheap price. If you need to use the more complex functionalities you pay more. If you are a student or someone that just want/needs to learn you pay less. If you do not use anything you pay nothing. Even if the software is discontinued, it should be still profitable to maintain the subscripton service running. If the company if bought/devoured by another, why kill a profit stream from those users who do not want to change to or own newer/brighter/bloater software product.
But the prices should go down quite a bit. If the prices is right people will not take the bother to look for a crack. Especially if you provide additional services and a reasonable stream of improvements and updates. If the prices are right anybod will be able to learn to use the program without problem of conscience. Problem is that managers today are trying like crazy to squeeze as much money from their product base to try to please the markets. "Hey, if we make pay all the people who use pirated copies of our software we will have more $$$ for our next quarter results!" They either do not get it that their software is sold because of all the people who were able to learn thanks to a cracked copy, or they think that their product has become such an standard that they can now crack down pirated copies and make everybody pay..., a lot of $$$. I do not think that is going to work, the legal users is in the end the one who get pissed off, the others will find a crack somehow. You risk lousing more of your paying customers in the end, and the good faith of all of them.
mmmhhh... Just an idea, what about a market driven open software development system? Weve got this ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC software but we do really need more developing power. Set up an affordable subscription based system, reward the people who helps to advance the software according to their contribution, proportionally. Software will be open source. If you wan to improve it by yourself alone, be my guest! If you are able to set up a better subscription shop, you are very much welcome!
With all the hungry software developpers on the wide world nowadays, maybe you could get enough of them to make a open software application as refined as a comercial one in a reasonable period of time.
Any takers? Yo do not need to go to India! But watch out for the hindues(indians?;-), they are good anyway!
Slashdot Mirror
India?
Just some ideas. To improve performance of encrypted hard disk, somekind of standard encrypting/unencrypting hardware should be included on the hard disk itself or in the notebook. Hardware implements a hardware algorithm. Encryption should not depend on the hardware, encryption/decription hardware is just an hardware accelerator for the encryption software. It can be implemented completely by software. In case of hardware failure encrypted data can be recovered and decrypted on any other computer, independently of the hardware accelerator. Only keys and right algorithm are required for decripting the data. For secure access to the Notebook, instead of using a fingerprint reading device, why not use a small integrated camera and face recognition software. What techniques are available and how easily can they be fooled? If the face recognition is smart enough, the computer can lock itself automatically when the user walks away and unlock itself when he/she turns back. Can security be improved combining face recognition with optional/mandatory keyboard passwords or smartcards? For example, when starting the computer or dehibernating it, password/smartcad+face recognition is required. While working with the computer to lock/unlock it when user walk for a moment away, just face recognition is required. One caveat of smartcards, user can leave it always inserted in computer. What about some kind of badge the user always carries with him, which connects to the computer by radio or infrared: Bluetooth, RFID, Infrared. Could a mobile phone/PDA be used for this functionality? No need to carry additional devices. In case of lost or forgotten mobile phone, phone provider could provide a replacement ( if system implemented right) To avoid data lock if encryption keys are lost, use a second trusted party for key storage and recovery, regeneration of smartcards, etc. In worst case scenario, delivery of hard disk to trusted company/service, through trusted delivery system, to have it backed up and/or reinstalled in new HD or notebook. Would it be nice that hardware provider like HP, DELL, etc provided such a combination of hardware and service to companies and profesionals? Wonder is Google would be interested in such a service. If solution implemented through mobile phones, maybe some other companies could find it interesting. By the way, is this idea already patented? ;-)
Working in a big company.
Our computers have windows installed by IT department.
Typical project with no time to loose.
Download commercial software badly needed.
Oh! You mus download last patches for that and that.
Go to MS download area.
One moment, to download this software your computer must be verified.
Run WGA..
Bingo! Your Window copy is not genuine!!
Enough time and nerves lost with stupid thing, forget it!
Hhhhmmmm.... Where did I leave that LINUX CD.....?
Therefore a small percentage of people will have problems, even if their Windows copy is legal. A small percentage of people from the total of Windows users only in the US is a lot of people! Let see, I am working with my absolute legal and paid software and the manufacturer one day says "Oh, sorry you can not use your computer, your software is not genuine"
I see a class action coming....
Who had this bright idea in MS, I wonder?
For a long term view and multigenerational thinking people they have not been very lucky in the last 300 years.
"China is limited to incremental innovation both by culture and politics. Rote education and a political system with information and thought control don't create an environment for breaktrhough discoveries and inventions" ("One billion customers", James Mc Gregor)
Another great leap forward?
I recall the brave little fellow too.
You buy a CD/DVD for your personal use with your onw data and you pay right on the spot a fine without commiting a crime, judgement and no possible defense. In my point of view such tax is illegal
... that pay them to install their crap on YOUR machine.
They submitted something, it was voted and it was rejected.
They dit not get away with what they wanted and complained that something was not fair.
I think they are just not used to a democratic process.
Nothing new here, move on.
Are you chinese? They way you write and the way you state your arguments make me wonder. An admirer of antique China.
PLA= People Liberation Army or should it reallly read POA=People Opresion Army.
OK, that was a bad joke and perhaps not fair.
I do agree, nobody is interested in a China meltdown. It will be bad for world economy and (much worst) quite possibly a disaster with dire consequences for the chinese people.
Given the size of the problem, I doubt external help could be enough. We will try as hard as we can anyway.
I wonder what could happen if the CPC will try use the PLO to crunch again protester like in 1989. At that time there were deep dissensions in the PLA. The PLA disgraced itself in that event. I do not think they will be willing to repeat it.
I always wondered myself what the soldiers in that tank where thinking when that young man stood in front of them. I would give anything to see an interview from them. Does anyone has information about those guys?
Giving that the PLO is the only organization in China, besides the CPC, with some power, political weight and some respect from the population, could the PLO, if the crisis arrives, overthrown the CPC? What political solution could emerge in China afterwards?
It seems dangerous times are coming.... not necessarily interesting.
If instead to try to control peoples thought and flow of information the resources used for censoring the society were directed to something more useful...
What a waste of resources. What a negative impact does it have in the progress of chinese economy and society.
Chinas economy has developed quite a lot in the last 20 yeasr, but still... What coud have China achieved worlwide today without this wasteful political and ecomonic system.
WHERE could China today be if the CPC did not get to power more than 40 year ago? At the very least a LOT (in the 3 digits millions) of deaths and suffering coud have been averted.
A real pity and all due to a bunch of oligarcs who are more than able to massacre their own people in order to kling to power.
Perhaps when this plutocracy and its cronies get filthy rich enough they will find something more amusing to them than opressing their own countrymen. Going to the Casinos in las Vegas or Montecarlo, mode shopping in Paris or New York?
Until then, my best wishes to the chinese people.
China once isolated itself from the world with the consequences known by everybody specially to the chinese.
It is worth to jeopardize the future of the country for the sake of censorship?
Is the chinese oligarchy more interested in maintaining its grip on power or in developing their own country for the sake of its future and of its own people?
Such situations in the past have shown not very good results for China down the road... Even for ruling oligarchy of the moment...
A government not accountable enough, not transparent enough, not democratic enough... is no government at all.
Govern?
Let me disagree with that.
For a long time there was no govern in China, just an elite that reaped the profits of the mayority of the population be it emperor (local or foreing), bureucrats or the communist (so called) party. The government is not there to govern the country or provide for the people ist ther to tax them to the death
As a consequence the country as run amok, especially on the population issue. Whithout an accountable govern the country has not developed, 90% of the population live of the country side. They are prisioners of the agriculture trap. You are a farmer, you need workforce and security for your old age (no social security outside a family) so you have many sons (the daughter you may sell/marry to other farmers). Your sons are also farmers they need workforce and security in old age therefore they more sons, etc until the arable land is exhausted, completely.
No industrialization, no other job opportunities for the majority of the people except an elite. The economy is not diversified. The productivity is always under the needs of the society
If the country can still in some way function is due to the human nature and resourcefulness of the normal chinese people rather than to anything else. But they have now a huge, more 1000 Million huge, problem. I really do not know how are they going to solve this problem. I hope they will get eventually an accountable government.
In the last 60 year they have the most irresponsible, tyrannical and desastrous government in his history. The (so called) People Republic of China. And this government, if government can it so be called, is the cause of this disaster.
Thats a good idea...
I really feel pity for China. The chinese government has a total lack of legitimacy. What gives these guys the right to govern? The wonderful promises of the so called communist paradise was just a way to entice the people to support an authoritarian government which brought one of the greatest disasters upon China in his history. It is even sader to know that many people really believed on that dream. Many were killed and the majority betrayed. Only those on the nomenclature reaped the benefits at the cost of an inmense sufering of their very own countrymen. Could you imagine what China could be today if it has started to develop 40, 60 or 70 years ago? I you are amazed at the development of Japan, South Korea or Taiwan, just imagine what could China achieve with an efficient system of government with an efficient economy. Could you imagine how many doctors, mathematicians, engineers could had arised from the mass of people who lost their lives in that disaster. And lost your live does not necessarily means to physically die! Was an Einstein there, or a Newton or an Arkimedes or an Euklides? Was there ordinary people who only wanted to live their lieve with some hope? How many lives were lost? What a terrible waste. Once china was a superpower so far above other nations on earth that it was meaningless to make any comparison. With a system of government far better than those in Europe at the time. And from the technological point of view...We spaniards discovered ( stumble with) America using ships that trying to compare them against the chinese ships of time would be like comparing a raft with an ocean liner. If you think that they are on the good path now think twice. There no rule of the law, law as we understand it. The system is prone to corruption, ineficiencies and inmense waste of resources. Economic, natural or personal (I mean people lives) resources. No check and balances system to correct the wrong decisions made by the government or in the economy. No accountability to take out of power those that made the wrong decisions. The ordinary citizen is defenseles against the ones in power. The risk of an implosion is very real. If the situation arises the capital invested on China could get out of the country equally fast or faster as it dit get in making thins worse. China is not the only country with a big an well educated population in the area. Just look a little bit to the south and to west. The biggest democracy of the world is there. A country with a culture and population that matchs China's. No, I would not put today all my investment eggs for asia in China. Politically the society is under a terrible presure. Just look at the demostrations in China against Japan. These demostrations were allowed by the government for its own political purposes but in my opinion its intensity revealed an intense frustation within the society . These demonstrations were an escape valve for many, they could at last demostrate for something and have an impact on the media or been seen at all in the media. It didn't matter the objective of the demostration. They could demostrate! There is a volcano under these society and it might explode if the wrong circumstances arise: a economic or political crisis could trigger it. I think the guys in the government got really scared although they allowed or induced this protest in the beginning and expected to benefit from it. Now they should be aware of the volcano under their own very feet. With respect to technological advance. In order to be on the forefront of technology you need free exchanges of ideas. Of any ideas! Rememeber when in Europa the great doctors of the church considered that the earth was the center of the universe? Any other ideas was prosecuted because it did not suit the guys in power. It could put their power structures in questions. We had our dark age in Europe. It was long and dark. It took time and effort to get out of it. Some shadows do still linger here though If they gag their own people they may have the best students and universities on earth,
Has anyone noticed the similarity between the names .NET and Sky.NET?
Be afraid, very afraid....
The problem with GPS is availability, strength of the signal and position resolution. Beside with GPS you may have problems if, due to some crisis, signal precision may be reduced, or worst. I have no idea if a solar flare could have an influence on GPS availability...
In ETCS, a new standard in Europe for train control system, balises are used to help locate the trains on the track and transmit information from track to train. A balise is an electronic device installed on the track. It is activated by the train when it drives direct over it. It does not require a power supply, power is supplied by the train radio emission. The device is quite sturdy and built as simple as possible to make it extremely reliable. It looks like a floor mat. The information to be transmitted can be stored on the balise, in which case it does not need any external connection, or supplied remotely..
There are several levels in ETCS. In ETCS Level 2 and 3 all balises can be autonomous, that is, all information to be transmitted is stored in the balise, no external connections are needed The train is connected to a RBC (Radio Block Center) through a GSM-R (GSM for railways.) radio network. The RBC supervises the train and computes the movement commands to be delivered to the train. On the RBC there is a map of the track which the position of each balise on each track. When a train drives passes over a balise, it receives among other possible information's, the balise identification which is transmitted to the RBC. This balise identification locates the train precisely on the route map. Between balises the train uses its internal odometry system to determine the distance covered. Odometry errors are corrected each time a new balise is detected.
In ETCS Level 2 all signals on the track can be replaced by cab signaling. Less hardware is needed to be installed on the tracks. In Level 3 track circuits are no longer needed, the only hardware required on the track are balises and the GSM-R radio network ( and the rails of course ).
The GSM-R radio network is not only used for train control, is the communication network for all voice and data transmission of the railway operation. Therefore its installation and operation cost are shared. The infrastructure used for GSM-R: towers and communication networks, can also be used to install a GSM network to provide standard mobile communication to passengers..
Some studies have been made to combine GPS and ETCS balises. So far as I know they are limited to low density, low traffic and open areas. I my opinion with GPS there will always be coverage problems and in the case of a subway quite unusable. Interruptions on the GSM-R coverage, due to coverage holes or temporal failures do not affect train operation under ETCS.
With balises you have a system which is always under control of the railway operator and independent of geographical, geopolitical issues or deployment delays.
For move information over ETCS www.ertms.com or Google it up.
And yes, I work for an ETCS project.
The problem is that software is becoming an utility like gas or electricity, but the business model of the software companies business model is based in selling you the whole thing over again every 1 or 2 years ( a little more bloated each time; ok, sometimes there might be a nice new functionality... just enough to justify the price tag... Functionality delivery management I call it ;-).
What about a subscription system model for software? You pay as you go, you may but slots of time, you may pay depending on the functionalities you use, you may even buy computing power from their BIG rendering or ray tracing computer farm.
(mmmhhh.. buying processing power from other appliations users while their computers seats idle doing nothing more useful that what a heating system does more cheaply?)
If you are a person that just uses the basic functions you get the cheap price. If you need to use the more complex functionalities you pay more. If you are a student or someone that just want/needs to learn you pay less. If you do not use anything you pay nothing. Even if the software is discontinued, it should be still profitable to maintain the subscripton service running. If the company if bought/devoured by another, why kill a profit stream from those users who do not want to change to or own newer/brighter/bloater software product.
But the prices should go down quite a bit. If the prices is right people will not take the bother to look for a crack. Especially if you provide additional services and a reasonable stream of improvements and updates. If the prices are right anybod will be able to learn to use the program without problem of conscience. Problem is that managers today are trying like crazy to squeeze as much money from their product base to try to please the markets. "Hey, if we make pay all the people who use pirated copies of our software we will have more $$$ for our next quarter results!" They either do not get it that their software is sold because of all the people who were able to learn thanks to a cracked copy, or they think that their product has become such an standard that they can now crack down pirated copies and make everybody pay..., a lot of $$$. I do not think that is going to work, the legal users is in the end the one who get pissed off, the others will find a crack somehow. You risk lousing more of your paying customers in the end, and the good faith of all of them.
mmmhhh... Just an idea, what about a market driven open software development system? Weve got this ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC software but we do really need more developing power. Set up an affordable subscription based system, reward the people who helps to advance the software according to their contribution, proportionally. Software will be open source. If you wan to improve it by yourself alone, be my guest! If you are able to set up a better subscription shop, you are very much welcome!
With all the hungry software developpers on the wide world nowadays, maybe you could get enough of them to make a open software application as refined as a comercial one in a reasonable period of time.
Any takers? Yo do not need to go to India! But watch out for the hindues(indians? ;-), they are good anyway!