....relatively recent determination that the actual age is somewhere around 4.57 billion years...........
There is not one shred of scientific actual observation or measurement that the earth is that old or any other age. This billions or years idea is an INTERPRETATION of certain actual observations. The 6000 or whatever years is an interpretation of the Bible. Both are based on unprovable assumptions. The red shift, for example is a true measured observation. Its CAUSE is pure interpretation. Nobody KNOWS for sure that it is the doppler principle applied to light. Recent discoveries tend to give evidence that this doppler interpretation is in fact impossible. This later evidence does not negate the fact of the red shift, only its interpretation. In order to measure time, we all know, requires a reliable clock. There is simply no way to PROVE that the clocks we use, such as radioactivity, have ALWAYS been running at a constant rate. This constant tick rate is an assumption which underlies all inquiry into the past. All we can say is: Assuming that this clock constant, we can say it has ticked so many times. We also cannot pin down exactly when it began to tick. Assumption --> the scientific term for belief or faith. Your other observations are of course correct because they deal with what we can observe and measure today, in the here and now. It does nor involve conjecture and assumptions. It always amazes me how often faith words are used in otherwise informative scientific articles.
....However, do we really expect science to explain everything?......
Modern science doesn't explain anything. People attempt to do explaining by interpreting the observations scientists make. From the article:
"Cosmologists BELIEVE that the universe started out in an ordered, low-entropy state after the big bang, and is gradually becoming more of a mess. But just why it started out so well ordered, when it is much more likely for particles and energy to be created in a greater state of disarray, is something of a puzzle."
It is indeed observed that the universe was well ordered and is now running down. The God explanation doesn't contradict that. The Genesis account can be interpreted as an entropy reduction over time. The scriptures also contrast the eternal nature of God with the decaying and passing away of the created order. The heavens and the earth are said to pass away like an old garment that is rolled up and put away.
In science and in our everyday experience, we KNOW that no order ever comes about now by the application of energy alone. It always also requires the application processes that ONLY arise in a mind. As long as humans have kept records of their doings here, mindless chance has never been observed to produce any kind of order. If the reduction of entropy has never been observed without the activity of mind, why should mindless chance EVER have contributed to any of the order we see? The laws by which the universe operates themselves had to be in place, acting upon the matter and energy. If human laws are only produced in human minds, is it so unreasonable to put forth the idea that the laws of nature also first arose in a mind, one far greater than we can even imagine.
Your so called "Christian" friends are wrong in consigning you to hell. We are all there already and it will only get worse. There is no way out of this human predicament unless the designer of the universe provides a way. He did exactly this, by laying aside His deity and becoming fully human. He did this in the person of Jesus Christ, the God man. He who is timeless, eternal, entered our domain and conquered our final enemy -- death. He promises escape from this present and future hell to anyone who BELIEVES in Jesus. This escape is NOT in some far off future, after death, but right now, today, if you want to, IF you believe and put your trust in the Messiah, Jesus. Of all the founders of the earth's great religions, only Jesus CLAIMED to and did in fact overcome death and lives today. Anyone who believes this in their heart, escapes hell at that instant. More importantly though, not merely escaping hell, but comes into an everlasting father-son relationship with the creator of the universe.
......A court can either hold two parties to a contract, or it can declare a contract void.......
True, but contracts usually have a clause to the effect that if any part is invalidated, the rest is still applicable. In most contracts there may be a particular issue over which the parties thereto are at odds or which has been made against the law. The court may, but usually doesn't throw out the whole contract, but only the offending sections. In this case it would be the DRM. The court may also direct the parties to come to a new agreement on the disputed or illegal clauses. The bottom line in this dispute is simple: money. The labels get the lion's share of each song sold by ITMS and would lose a lot more than Apple. I doubt whether they would forego all that cash over the DRM issue. In the end, the consumer, Apple and the labels would win with the elimination of burdensome DRM.
....The most I can hope for is that the court will make it illegal.....
If a clause in a contract is made invalid by a new LAW, only that clause is affected. There is no court even involved unless one party drags the other into court. In that case the court will uphold the remainder of the existing contract unless both parties agree to a new one. Besides, this squabble is in Europe where the rules may be different. Still, if Apple, in response to such a law, simply unilaterally continues selling the music without DRM, the music companies are not likely to get an injunction against it. By the time the lawyers finally get it fought out, the music companies would learn that they are actually making as much or more money from Apple than when their DRM mandate was still in effect.
....If a contract is invalidated in court, it means no one has any more rights from it.......
There is no reason for the whole contract to be invalidated if the DRM clause is thrown out by new laws. Most contracts have sever-ability clauses in them for just that possibility. All it would mean is that Apple would continue business as usual, without DRM. The music companies would continue to get their money and likely even more than now. By the time the lawyers fought this all out the music folks would realize that not having DRM was an advantage to their bottom line and send their lawyers home.
.....The two outcomes of this are probably win-win for consumers.....
There is a third one: The whiny politicians should ignore the media lobby and outlaw all DRM. Of course they get a boatload of money from media outfits, way more than Mr. Jobs is willing to send their way. If DRM were outlawed, the DRM contracts with Apple and others would be nullified.
Really? I have ben running itunes on a number of Macs for years (OSX only) and NEVER has the program crashed on any one of them. I can't say that for MS Office however. Windows DLL hell is much less than it used to be, but still not completely gone.
....Once it is unlocked, folks will find the lowest price source very quickly......
Exactly! That's why Apple will have more ipod sales. The ITMS will be the cheapest download service, since Apple can forego even the small profit they may make now. They could even make a loss on the ITMS and make up for it with ipod sales. It would still be a lot of work for other music player makers to come up with a seamless, easy to use system, such as the itunes/ITMS and ipod trio. Giving free music from ITMS to ipod buyers would be one way to give incentives to buy more ipods.
...... that would only be hurt by a lack of DRM lock-in........
It amazes me how so many smart/.ers can fail to read in the article that 97% of the music on ipods doesn't come from the ITMS and has no DRM. In the case of my ipod is is more like 99%. If that is a fact, and it is, then Apple would not lose anything, but rather gain. Without DRM present and future ipod owners would still have the best music player on the market and they could get music not only from the ITMS but from many other legal download sources. Since Apple makes their money from ipods, not the ITMS, Apple could sell the music at cost and undercut any download store that wants to make money on music. A certificate for say 50 or so free songs unencumbered by DRM from the ITMS included with each ipod registered would likely be a good marketing and advertising ploy. When DRM finally dies, everybody, including the record companies will be better off. The only losers will be the charlatans who make and sell these harebrained DRM schemes and have convinced the clueless music executives that this DRM crap is needed.
....The more interesting question is what would happen to the iPod marketshare if.........
Not much at all. According to the article, 97% of music on ipods is non-DRM already. The fact is that without DRM the hordes of present and future ipod owners would have a wider choice of where to get music would benefit Apple more than the loss of some downloads from their ITMS. No DRM would mean more, not fewer ipods sold. More of the DRM haters on/. might even buy an ipod rather than a zune or who knows what.
.......Therefore, if European governments want change, they should pressure music companies to change the terms of these contracts.....
These governments could also simply outlaw all DRM. Such laws would negate the clause in Apple's contract with the music companies and Apple would just sell the music as they do now, except without the DRM. After a while, the music companies would find out (surprise) that they were getting more money from more ITMS and other on-line sales, but that "piracy" did not increase measurably.
....So when will we be able to run MacOSX on non-apple hardware then?.....
That is such a stupid sentiment. Apple is the ONLY PC maker who produces their own OS and they should let Dell, Hp and all their other competitors have it? Be real. Let Dell, HP and the rest ALSO make and support their own OS and sell it to you if you don't like MS and don't like Apple hardware. Nobody is preventing them from writing their own OS and putting it on their computers. You can also get Linux for "free". What are you complaining about?
.....The day the recording industry can explain this.......
Start buying! Simple! That price is what the traffic will bear. When VHS movies first came out, the cost the better half of a $100 bill. They would still sell for that if the studios could get away with it. Any time there is even a little competition, the buyer is always the one who decides the price of something. If gasoline cost $50/gallon there would be very few cars on the road, but many bicycles. The price of anything will always settle around the figure that most people are willing to pay. The only way around this iron clad economic reality is to have a monopoly or solid cartel.
......Without Apple, the studios still have CD sales.......
And the millions of ipod owners will rip those CDs onto their present and future iPods. According to the article, 97% of the music on all ipods got there from sources OTHER than the ITMS. Loss of that 3% would not even amount to a small pile of beans to Apple. If all things stayed proportional, they'd still sell 97% of the number of ipods they do now. However, two billion of anything is a big number, about 10% of all music sales. That is over three times the the loss of money for the labels than what Apple would sustain over the loss of the ITMS world wide not only in Europe. Ipods would still sell like hotcakes without the ITMS and the iphone or whatever they'll ultimately call it will only add to the sales. The ITMS is only frosting on the cake for Apple, but a substantial slice for the labels. The ITMS content of my ipods is less than 1%.
Those and other biometrics sound good in theory, but don't work too well in practice because a) they are expensive and b) if compromised, really leave the victim up a creek and the system is totally broken if this compromise happens even once in the possible pool of users. A password can be easily changed, but how do you change someone's fingerprints or retina or whatever biometric you might employ?
Requiring a physical card means that every access device also must have a reader and its software. This is not too expensive to do for a few hundred thousand ATMs, but gets quite costly when there are millions. Even a relatively small number, multiplied by millions or more gets to be a big total. Like some senator once remarked, a million here, a million there, and pretty soon it adds up to some real money./Begin facetious mode --> Maybe we can help evolution a little by snuffing or sterilizing phishers, spammers and similar misreceants. If the gene pool were cleansed of these, perhaps we could safely leave our keys in the ignition, eventually. -- end facetious/
That's like hiding the key to the house. Anybody can find it eventually and burgle the place. Anyone who gets the card also has the key. That is why DRM doesn't work, never has and never will. Anybody can get the key. If the key is in *any* way accessible to an unauthorized person, then it WILL get used. Putting the key in a less accessible place may slow the thief down, but not prevent loss. With an independent key, such as a PIN, the card alone will not be enough to rob the account.
....Typically we have up to two-factor authentication and it's made up of something you have, and something you know.........
The first can be lost or stolen and the second can be forgotten or garbled. Nobody has yet invented a magic potion that cures stupidity. Anytime a system is really secure, it will be harder to use. That precludes its use by a large number of people who are lazy, stupid or both.
Even if airplanes were as cheap or cheaper than cars, there wouldn't be many more than now, because compared to cars, planes are harder to use.
......I would suggest that they supply every user with a personal electronic access key.......
Very likely the requirements for your job would be to come up with a solution would be limited by: 1) It must not cost more and 2) It must not be less convenient for the customers.
Such keys cost money to buy and must be kept track of by the bank. That may be a small cost per customer, but multiply any small number by millions and you get a big number.
If the user takes a trip leaves their key at home or somehow just loses it, then they and the bank have both a problem that costs money and aggravation. Carrying around another key is also an added burden.
All security is based on either something you KNOW or something you HAVE. This is nothing new and your idea is as old as keys and locks. You are out of a job as BofA's security expert.
.....most password based systems are infact faulty.......
All security is based on either something you KNOW like a password, or something you HAVE, some sort of physical object. Physical objects cost money and get lost or stolen. Things you know can be forgotten or garbled. Biometrics belong to the things you have category and are usually not easily lost. However, unambiguously distinguishing the unique biometrics of one and only one human being out of all people on the planet is presently not economically feasible. If there are EVER two or more people whose biometrics cannot be distinguished, the entire system is broken, since biometrics cannot be changed. Most practical biometric systems have been fooled. Presently, for all their shortcomings, passwords are the best PRACTICAL means for economically authorizing the access of users. Anyone who can do better would get VERY rich.
......Any security measure that relies on people not being dumb will fail.......
Is that why the cars of people who leave the keys to their car in the ignition are more likely to get their cars stolen? Of course, nobody has ever invented a medicine against stupidity. The problem is that more security usually means less convenience and it always costs more. Even smart people don't want to work a bank vault combination every time they want to get into their dwelling. Making such studies is a waste of time and money. Everyone knows, or should know by now that it is not necessarily stupidity, but the desire for ease and convenience working against security. After all, one big reason we use banks rather than our mattresses for keeping money in, is because it is much easier to access needed portions of our money. A mean, snarling Doberman guarding the mattress would likely provide enough security unless the prospective thieves knew that there was a huge amount of money stashed therein. Until the Internet was invented, Microsoft paid no attention to security. The fact that there are millions of MS computer out there proves that at least until recently, security was not much of a selling point.
.....I do something that typically requires local expertise.....
If you live in a small community, word will spread if you are willing and able to solve the many problems people have with their computers. It will make you many friends and perhaps a few dollars. Keeping older computers out of landfills by making them still useful to their owners is a good deed for the environment as well.
Re:Software Engineering is such a young discipline
on
Why Software is Hard
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· Score: 1
...Maybe you're confusing software in theory with the actual software.....
Software requires hardware, but specific software doesn't necessarily require specific hardware. Hardware itself can be simulated with software. My PPC Mac can run Windows and its apps, which is written for an entirely different kind of processor. There are a huge number of hardware devices that can store and transmit the identical software. Software, as such, has no mass, is invsisble and can travel at the speed of light. We try to make hardware as much the same as possible. Yet a standard HD we make can carry Windows, OSX, Linux and who knows what. One digital bit alone is indistinguishable from another. It is their arrangement into pattern that constitutes software or information. The letters of an alphabet carry information by their sequences.
This holds true also in biological systems. All the atoms in your body are individually the same. The DNA molecules as such, of your DNA, are exactly the same as mine. It is the codes carried by their ARRANGEMENT that determines our physical construction. The thoughts, emotions in your brain are distinct from the brain itself. Mind and brain are distinct, but mind requires brain and the rest of your body-hardware to interact with the physical world.
Very much in practice, software, information is non-physical although it has and requires physical expression. It is this non-physical nature of software and information which makes it necessary to use different design methodologies than for physical stuff. This is also why there is a different body of law dealing with INTELLECTUAL property, as distinct from physical. Nothing theoretical, but practical everyday life.
Re:It needs more professionalism
on
Why Software is Hard
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· Score: 2, Insightful
..... Software is still an extremely new field. I'm not sure if things will get more reliable in my lifetime, but I'm sure that eventually we'll get stuff figured out, just like we have for bridges.......
It is true that software and computers are relatively new compared to bridges. However, because software is immaterial, it is fundamentally different. There are NO fundamental immutable laws of physics that govern software production. Software is a pure product of mind only. That is the primary reason why software engineering isn't really engineering in bridge or machine building sense. Making good software, especially the kind that interacts with people is a art form rather than engineering a bridge.
Re:Software Engineering is such a young discipline
on
Why Software is Hard
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· Score: 1
....People love to ask why we can't build software like we build bridges....
There are accurate, PREDICTIVE mathematical equations and methodologies for building bridges and other objects. These procedures are ultimately based on the laws of physics over which humans have no control. Software is an immaterial product of mind for which there are no precise formulas that can validate a give design code or procedure, especially if it is at all complicated. The only known way to validate software is educated trial and error called testing. Bridges are not built and then tested to see how heavy a load they can bear. The engineers have calculated that and other bridge characteristics ahead of time and KNOW for sure that their bridge will withstand a certain load. Sometimes of course they still make mistakes. Making good software is more of an art, like music or poetry, especially if the software must interact in any way with the minds and thinking of people. For example, unlike the weight bearing capability of a bridge or the stopping distance of a car, there is nothing intrinsically right or wrong in human interface design. There is no way to describe beauty and functionality of a program in objective mathematical terms. Software is classified as and protected as "Intellectual Property" and is fundamentally different than things made from matter. Software as such is not subject to the laws of physics. Unlike matter, it can be transmitted at the speed of light and copied multiple times. It stands to reason then that software cannot be and is not made by the same rules and processes as bridges and other engineered physical things. Making good software isn't necessarily "hard" but very much different from building bridges. It is hard in the same sense that writing a Beethoven symphony or painting a Mona Lisa is hard.
Slashdot Mirror
....relatively recent determination that the actual age is somewhere around 4.57 billion years...........
There is not one shred of scientific actual observation or measurement that the earth is that old or any other age. This billions or years idea is an INTERPRETATION of certain actual observations. The 6000 or whatever years is an interpretation of the Bible. Both are based on unprovable assumptions. The red shift, for example is a true measured observation. Its CAUSE is pure interpretation. Nobody KNOWS for sure that it is the doppler principle applied to light. Recent discoveries tend to give evidence that this doppler interpretation is in fact impossible. This later evidence does not negate the fact of the red shift, only its interpretation. In order to measure time, we all know, requires a reliable clock. There is simply no way to PROVE that the clocks we use, such as radioactivity, have ALWAYS been running at a constant rate. This constant tick rate is an assumption which underlies all inquiry into the past. All we can say is: Assuming that this clock constant, we can say it has ticked so many times. We also cannot pin down exactly when it began to tick. Assumption --> the scientific term for belief or faith. Your other observations are of course correct because they deal with what we can observe and measure today, in the here and now. It does nor involve conjecture and assumptions. It always amazes me how often faith words are used in otherwise informative scientific articles.
....However, do we really expect science to explain everything?......
Modern science doesn't explain anything. People attempt to do explaining by interpreting the observations scientists make. From the article:
"Cosmologists BELIEVE that the universe started out in an ordered, low-entropy state after the big bang, and is gradually becoming more of a mess. But just why it started out so well ordered, when it is much more likely for particles and energy to be created in a greater state of disarray, is something of a puzzle."
It is indeed observed that the universe was well ordered and is now running down. The God explanation doesn't contradict that. The Genesis account can be interpreted as an entropy reduction over time. The scriptures also contrast the eternal nature of God with the decaying and passing away of the created order. The heavens and the earth are said to pass away like an old garment that is rolled up and put away.
In science and in our everyday experience, we KNOW that no order ever comes about now by the application of energy alone. It always also requires the application processes that ONLY arise in a mind. As long as humans have kept records of their doings here, mindless chance has never been observed to produce any kind of order. If the reduction of entropy has never been observed without the activity of mind, why should mindless chance EVER have contributed to any of the order we see? The laws by which the universe operates themselves had to be in place, acting upon the matter and energy. If human laws are only produced in human minds, is it so unreasonable to put forth the idea that the laws of nature also first arose in a mind, one far greater than we can even imagine.
Your so called "Christian" friends are wrong in consigning you to hell. We are all there already and it will only get worse. There is no way out of this human predicament unless the designer of the universe provides a way. He did exactly this, by laying aside His deity and becoming fully human. He did this in the person of Jesus Christ, the God man. He who is timeless, eternal, entered our domain and conquered our final enemy -- death. He promises escape from this present and future hell to anyone who BELIEVES in Jesus. This escape is NOT in some far off future, after death, but right now, today, if you want to, IF you believe and put your trust in the Messiah, Jesus. Of all the founders of the earth's great religions, only Jesus CLAIMED to and did in fact overcome death and lives today. Anyone who believes this in their heart, escapes hell at that instant. More importantly though, not merely escaping hell, but comes into an everlasting father-son relationship with the creator of the universe.
......A court can either hold two parties to a contract, or it can declare a contract void.......
True, but contracts usually have a clause to the effect that if any part is invalidated, the rest is still applicable. In most contracts there may be a particular issue over which the parties thereto are at odds or which has been made against the law. The court may, but usually doesn't throw out the whole contract, but only the offending sections. In this case it would be the DRM. The court may also direct the parties to come to a new agreement on the disputed or illegal clauses. The bottom line in this dispute is simple: money. The labels get the lion's share of each song sold by ITMS and would lose a lot more than Apple. I doubt whether they would forego all that cash over the DRM issue. In the end, the consumer, Apple and the labels would win with the elimination of burdensome DRM.
....The most I can hope for is that the court will make it illegal .....
If a clause in a contract is made invalid by a new LAW, only that clause is affected. There is no court even involved unless one party drags the other into court. In that case the court will uphold the remainder of the existing contract unless both parties agree to a new one. Besides, this squabble is in Europe where the rules may be different. Still, if Apple, in response to such a law, simply unilaterally continues selling the music without DRM, the music companies are not likely to get an injunction against it. By the time the lawyers finally get it fought out, the music companies would learn that they are actually making as much or more money from Apple than when their DRM mandate was still in effect.
....They will never raise the CD price to 34$.....
Neither will the phone companies raise the price of a 3 minute coast to coast phone call to $30+, the 1950s price equivalent in todays money.
....If a contract is invalidated in court, it means no one has any more rights from it.......
There is no reason for the whole contract to be invalidated if the DRM clause is thrown out by new laws. Most contracts have sever-ability clauses in them for just that possibility. All it would mean is that Apple would continue business as usual, without DRM. The music companies would continue to get their money and likely even more than now. By the time the lawyers fought this all out the music folks would realize that not having DRM was an advantage to their bottom line and send their lawyers home.
.....The two outcomes of this are probably win-win for consumers.....
There is a third one: The whiny politicians should ignore the media lobby and outlaw all DRM. Of course they get a boatload of money from media outfits, way more than Mr. Jobs is willing to send their way. If DRM were outlawed, the DRM contracts with Apple and others would be nullified.
..... It's also very crashy......
Really? I have ben running itunes on a number of Macs for years (OSX only) and NEVER has the program crashed on any one of them. I can't say that for MS Office however. Windows DLL hell is much less than it used to be, but still not completely gone.
....Once it is unlocked, folks will find the lowest price source very quickly......
Exactly! That's why Apple will have more ipod sales. The ITMS will be the cheapest download service, since Apple can forego even the small profit they may make now. They could even make a loss on the ITMS and make up for it with ipod sales. It would still be a lot of work for other music player makers to come up with a seamless, easy to use system, such as the itunes/ITMS and ipod trio. Giving free music from ITMS to ipod buyers would be one way to give incentives to buy more ipods.
...... that would only be hurt by a lack of DRM lock-in........
/.ers can fail to read in the article that 97% of the music on ipods doesn't come from the ITMS and has no DRM. In the case of my ipod is is more like 99%. If that is a fact, and it is, then Apple would not lose anything, but rather gain. Without DRM present and future ipod owners would still have the best music player on the market and they could get music not only from the ITMS but from many other legal download sources. Since Apple makes their money from ipods, not the ITMS, Apple could sell the music at cost and undercut any download store that wants to make money on music. A certificate for say 50 or so free songs unencumbered by DRM from the ITMS included with each ipod registered would likely be a good marketing and advertising ploy. When DRM finally dies, everybody, including the record companies will be better off. The only losers will be the charlatans who make and sell these harebrained DRM schemes and have convinced the clueless music executives that this DRM crap is needed.
It amazes me how so many smart
....The more interesting question is what would happen to the iPod marketshare if.........
/. might even buy an ipod rather than a zune or who knows what.
Not much at all. According to the article, 97% of music on ipods is non-DRM already. The fact is that without DRM the hordes of present and future ipod owners would have a wider choice of where to get music would benefit Apple more than the loss of some downloads from their ITMS. No DRM would mean more, not fewer ipods sold. More of the DRM haters on
.......Therefore, if European governments want change, they should pressure music companies to change the terms of these contracts.....
These governments could also simply outlaw all DRM. Such laws would negate the clause in Apple's contract with the music companies and Apple would just sell the music as they do now, except without the DRM. After a while, the music companies would find out (surprise) that they were getting more money from more ITMS and other on-line sales, but that "piracy" did not increase measurably.
....So when will we be able to run MacOSX on non-apple hardware then?.....
That is such a stupid sentiment. Apple is the ONLY PC maker who produces their own OS and they should let Dell, Hp and all their other competitors have it? Be real. Let Dell, HP and the rest ALSO make and support their own OS and sell it to you if you don't like MS and don't like Apple hardware. Nobody is preventing them from writing their own OS and putting it on their computers. You can also get Linux for "free". What are you complaining about?
.....The day the recording industry can explain this.......
Start buying! Simple! That price is what the traffic will bear. When VHS movies first came out, the cost the better half of a $100 bill. They would still sell for that if the studios could get away with it. Any time there is even a little competition, the buyer is always the one who decides the price of something. If gasoline cost $50/gallon there would be very few cars on the road, but many bicycles. The price of anything will always settle around the figure that most people are willing to pay. The only way around this iron clad economic reality is to have a monopoly or solid cartel.
......Without Apple, the studios still have CD sales .......
And the millions of ipod owners will rip those CDs onto their present and future iPods. According to the article, 97% of the music on all ipods got there from sources OTHER than the ITMS. Loss of that 3% would not even amount to a small pile of beans to Apple. If all things stayed proportional, they'd still sell 97% of the number of ipods they do now. However, two billion of anything is a big number, about 10% of all music sales. That is over three times the the loss of money for the labels than what Apple would sustain over the loss of the ITMS world wide not only in Europe. Ipods would still sell like hotcakes without the ITMS and the iphone or whatever they'll ultimately call it will only add to the sales. The ITMS is only frosting on the cake for Apple, but a substantial slice for the labels. The ITMS content of my ipods is less than 1%.
.....Fingerprints......
/Begin facetious mode --> Maybe we can help evolution a little by snuffing or sterilizing phishers, spammers and similar misreceants. If the gene pool were cleansed of these, perhaps we could safely leave our keys in the ignition, eventually. -- end facetious/
Those and other biometrics sound good in theory, but don't work too well in practice because a) they are expensive and b) if compromised, really leave the victim up a creek and the system is totally broken if this compromise happens even once in the possible pool of users. A password can be easily changed, but how do you change someone's fingerprints or retina or whatever biometric you might employ?
Requiring a physical card means that every access device also must have a reader and its software. This is not too expensive to do for a few hundred thousand ATMs, but gets quite costly when there are millions. Even a relatively small number, multiplied by millions or more gets to be a big total. Like some senator once remarked, a million here, a million there, and pretty soon it adds up to some real money.
.....That should have the key built into it......
That's like hiding the key to the house. Anybody can find it eventually and burgle the place. Anyone who gets the card also has the key. That is why DRM doesn't work, never has and never will. Anybody can get the key. If the key is in *any* way accessible to an unauthorized person, then it WILL get used. Putting the key in a less accessible place may slow the thief down, but not prevent loss. With an independent key, such as a PIN, the card alone will not be enough to rob the account.
....Typically we have up to two-factor authentication and it's made up of something you have, and something you know.........
The first can be lost or stolen and the second can be forgotten or garbled. Nobody has yet invented a magic potion that cures stupidity. Anytime a system is really secure, it will be harder to use. That precludes its use by a large number of people who are lazy, stupid or both.
Even if airplanes were as cheap or cheaper than cars, there wouldn't be many more than now, because compared to cars, planes are harder to use.
......I would suggest that they supply every user with a personal electronic access key.......
Very likely the requirements for your job would be to come up with a solution would be limited by: 1) It must not cost more and 2) It must not be less convenient for the customers.
Such keys cost money to buy and must be kept track of by the bank. That may be a small cost per customer, but multiply any small number by millions and you get a big number.
If the user takes a trip leaves their key at home or somehow just loses it, then they and the bank have both a problem that costs money and aggravation. Carrying around another key is also an added burden.
All security is based on either something you KNOW or something you HAVE. This is nothing new and your idea is as old as keys and locks. You are out of a job as BofA's security expert.
.....most password based systems are infact faulty.......
All security is based on either something you KNOW like a password, or something you HAVE, some sort of physical object. Physical objects cost money and get lost or stolen. Things you know can be forgotten or garbled. Biometrics belong to the things you have category and are usually not easily lost. However, unambiguously distinguishing the unique biometrics of one and only one human being out of all people on the planet is presently not economically feasible. If there are EVER two or more people whose biometrics cannot be distinguished, the entire system is broken, since biometrics cannot be changed. Most practical biometric systems have been fooled. Presently, for all their shortcomings, passwords are the best PRACTICAL means for economically authorizing the access of users. Anyone who can do better would get VERY rich.
......Any security measure that relies on people not being dumb will fail.......
Is that why the cars of people who leave the keys to their car in the ignition are more likely to get their cars stolen? Of course, nobody has ever invented a medicine against stupidity. The problem is that more security usually means less convenience and it always costs more. Even smart people don't want to work a bank vault combination every time they want to get into their dwelling. Making such studies is a waste of time and money. Everyone knows, or should know by now that it is not necessarily stupidity, but the desire for ease and convenience working against security. After all, one big reason we use banks rather than our mattresses for keeping money in, is because it is much easier to access needed portions of our money. A mean, snarling Doberman guarding the mattress would likely provide enough security unless the prospective thieves knew that there was a huge amount of money stashed therein. Until the Internet was invented, Microsoft paid no attention to security. The fact that there are millions of MS computer out there proves that at least until recently, security was not much of a selling point.
.....I do something that typically requires local expertise.....
If you live in a small community, word will spread if you are willing and able to solve the many problems people have with their computers. It will make you many friends and perhaps a few dollars. Keeping older computers out of landfills by making them still useful to their owners is a good deed for the environment as well.
...Maybe you're confusing software in theory with the actual software.....
Software requires hardware, but specific software doesn't necessarily require specific hardware. Hardware itself can be simulated with software. My PPC Mac can run Windows and its apps, which is written for an entirely different kind of processor. There are a huge number of hardware devices that can store and transmit the identical software. Software, as such, has no mass, is invsisble and can travel at the speed of light. We try to make hardware as much the same as possible. Yet a standard HD we make can carry Windows, OSX, Linux and who knows what. One digital bit alone is indistinguishable from another. It is their arrangement into pattern that constitutes software or information. The letters of an alphabet carry information by their sequences.
This holds true also in biological systems. All the atoms in your body are individually the same. The DNA molecules as such, of your DNA, are exactly the same as mine. It is the codes carried by their ARRANGEMENT that determines our physical construction. The thoughts, emotions in your brain are distinct from the brain itself. Mind and brain are distinct, but mind requires brain and the rest of your body-hardware to interact with the physical world.
Very much in practice, software, information is non-physical although it has and requires physical expression. It is this non-physical nature of software and information which makes it necessary to use different design methodologies than for physical stuff. This is also why there is a different body of law dealing with INTELLECTUAL property, as distinct from physical. Nothing theoretical, but practical everyday life.
..... Software is still an extremely new field. I'm not sure if things will get more reliable in my lifetime, but I'm sure that eventually we'll get stuff figured out, just like we have for bridges.......
It is true that software and computers are relatively new compared to bridges. However, because software is immaterial, it is fundamentally different. There are NO fundamental immutable laws of physics that govern software production. Software is a pure product of mind only. That is the primary reason why software engineering isn't really engineering in bridge or machine building sense. Making good software, especially the kind that interacts with people is a art form rather than engineering a bridge.
....People love to ask why we can't build software like we build bridges....
There are accurate, PREDICTIVE mathematical equations and methodologies for building bridges and other objects. These procedures are ultimately based on the laws of physics over which humans have no control. Software is an immaterial product of mind for which there are no precise formulas that can validate a give design code or procedure, especially if it is at all complicated. The only known way to validate software is educated trial and error called testing. Bridges are not built and then tested to see how heavy a load they can bear. The engineers have calculated that and other bridge characteristics ahead of time and KNOW for sure that their bridge will withstand a certain load. Sometimes of course they still make mistakes. Making good software is more of an art, like music or poetry, especially if the software must interact in any way with the minds and thinking of people. For example, unlike the weight bearing capability of a bridge or the stopping distance of a car, there is nothing intrinsically right or wrong in human interface design. There is no way to describe beauty and functionality of a program in objective mathematical terms. Software is classified as and protected as "Intellectual Property" and is fundamentally different than things made from matter. Software as such is not subject to the laws of physics. Unlike matter, it can be transmitted at the speed of light and copied multiple times. It stands to reason then that software cannot be and is not made by the same rules and processes as bridges and other engineered physical things. Making good software isn't necessarily "hard" but very much different from building bridges. It is hard in the same sense that writing a Beethoven symphony or painting a Mona Lisa is hard.