If DRM prevents us from accessing the internet, screw the internet.
Going back to store-and-forward networks like UUCP over PPP seems trivial enough. We'll simply set up PPP links through the POTS (dial on demand where fulltime connectivity is not available or prohibitively expensive), and have UUCP handle the transfer of mail and *other* content. There's really no need for DRMed ISPs, DRMed CPUs etc..
As long as we can shuffle bytes through the POTS, or local wireless loops, we're set to go.
I really recommend the Shuttle xPC form factor - small, quiet, cheap.;')
Any mini-ITX, nano-ITX etc... platform will do as well. But that's not the point. A few of us will always be able to put together their own computing environment; but what about Joe Sixpack and all those so called "pirates" in schoolyards? They are Sony's primary target, not the few capable hackers who wouldn't give a darn shit about DRM anyway. If Sony and their ilk were able to curb copying by just a few percent points in that large user base, they will already make a HUGE additional profit. That's the reason such attempts at DRM will always come up, every now and then.
I wonder what are the appropriate fallback positisions
What happens when you try to squeeze sand too hard? It slips through your fingers. So just like the little grains of sand, countless developers will still write software, either circumventing all those frivolous patents, or infringing them (wether by device or unintentionally is irrelevant). FOSS is here to stay too.
The safe haven are the countless (encrypted!) harddrives all around the world. If a few countries mutated into police states for a while, so be it. The whole world won't. Just like in Fahrenheit 451, people will hide FOSS in a safe place, until the dark ages come to an end.
Microsoft has bosted ease of use and a good office suite and as a result we get KDE, Gnome nad open office.
Agreed! It's just tood bad that KDE, Gnome and OO are getting so much bloated, that they won't (decently) run on small solid state devices or low-end, power saving slow or embedded CPUs. Of course there's xfce, fluxbox etc..., but it's sad that userfriendliness still attracts bloatedness so much.
if you use the word "terrorist" often enough, you can get away with anything.
But only until terrorists register their trade mark and start litigations: "You didn't acknowledge our trade mark! Terrorist(tm)(R) is a registered trade mark by The Terrorist Group." Extensive coverage at Growlaw at 11.
Actually then-hugely-profitable organized piracy would also fund politicians, the police and other pressure groups through covert channels... Al Capone all over again?
I hope we will not have to block *.de on our SMTP relays and TCP/IP firewalls like we had with *.cn and *.ne.
You probably mean the RIPE address blocks assigned to Germany. All german ISPs offer.com/.net/.org and all other global TLDs as well to their customers.
When was the last time you have seen a public CCTV in a German street or public place?
Hah! What about the toll collect system on the hiways? There are already plans to extend this to monitor ALL cars in addition to trucks; and not only for toll collecting purposes but also for the so called anti-terror laws.
And what about all those surveilliance cams in the public transportation system (trains, stations,...). Are they used just to thwart vandalism?
A port scan isn't an attack or a theft of services.
If a port scan is an attack or not depends on the legislation of at least two countries (which could be the same): The country of the scanned and the country of the scanner.
Logically, a port scan shouldn't be considered an attack, since all it does is discovering services that a machine offers to the outside (wether on purpose or unintentionally is irrelevant here). But laws are not always logical, right?
We should also keep video security footage archived indefinately to allow us to track the movements of suspects before they were suspects.
Not indefinitely. That's exactly the rub here. Keeping records for short periods of time is probably okay (8 weeks or so), allowing for criminal investigations to trace people and gather evidence within a reasonable time frame.
Everything longer than that would be opening pandora's box to all kinds of state monitoring, profiling, and all that fascist crap that so many politicians are so fond of.
A German friend had exactly this problem: some guys bought online services from a company and charged his credit card for it (id theft). The only trail leading to the fraudster is his dynamic IP address stored on the credit card processor. The police has no chance to track the IP down to the subscriber if his ISP doesn't store the logs for a reasonable period of time (typically 8 weeks or so).
So, basically, protecting privacy is a great idea. But not storing such data for at least a small period of time is not really wise.
Why SHOULD they make a version for Mac or Linux? All the Mac cultists will use Safari 'cause Steve says to, and judging by most of the comments here, most Linux users will give a knee-jerk "Why use anything other than Firefox?".
By the same token, Windows users would say: "Why use anything other than IE?"
IMHO there's not MAC or Linux version, because they can't implement the IE rendering feature there. They probably use some DLLs from Windows for this, which are naturally not available on the MAC or Linux.
I end up with layouts that are cross platform compatible, bandwidth efficient, easy to maintain, and don't look ugly.
How do you ensure MSIE compatibility without testing your [X]HTML/CSS on an MSIE rendering engine?
BTW: Is that new IE renderer also available on Linux, or just on Windows?
Quick poll: does anyone besides me still use mozilla mail, or has everyone moved to Thunderbird or web-based email?
I'm using Mutt to access my IMAP server, with esmtp for sending mails through Postfix. Switched from GNU Emacs RMAIL. Thunderbird is nice, but a bit too slow on the machines I'm reading mail on.
I am a fair-use advocate, but I don't see the legitimate purpose to trackerless torrents that cannot be fulfilled by trackered torrents.
**AA are not the only enemies of free filesharing. That's a very US-centric view of the 'net. What about propagating samizdat literature und news within dictatorships? A trackerless torrent could help save some lifes. Even if it saves only one life, would be well worth it!
Yes, it's an escalation. So has been the Los Alamos project. But... guess what? It is bound to happen anyway. If we don't build those weapons, other nations will, and we'll be playing Coyote, chasing Roadrunner sooner than later.
The main threats come either from dictatorships (think N. Korea) or terrorism.
For now. Who knows how our relations with China, Russia or even the EU are going to be in 10, 20 or 50 years from now? Fighting over a little oil in Iraq has already tremendously strained our international relations. Imagine the situation when resources are much scarcer than they are now in a few years!
Developing space weapons takes time too. Wouldn't it be better to be safe rather than sorry, when the next big conflict erupts?
Neither kind of enemy can be deterred with nuclear weapons.
Right. But at least dictators could be prevented from launching missiles at us or at our allies. It wouldn't prevent terrorists carrying germs in a suitcase from launching deadly attacks though...
They are probably trying to revive SDI (i.e. place energy/kinetic antimissile weapons in space), but they may have plans for space-to-ground weapons that are not WMD.
Why should they revive a project that's alife and kicking? Check out the Missile Defense Agency's agenda; and that's just the (public) tip of the iceberg.
If it were only SDI: there are a lot of passive interception techniques that can be used in space. Many of these techniques are not classified as weapons, so we can't talk about militarization of space here. Deploying active weapons like "killer satellites" in Space would require special permission from the President though. That's probably what's going on here.
Personally I put the people who refuse to even consider a closed source application for purely ideological reasons (as indicated in the slashdot blurb) into the same little box as those corporate IT managers who refuse to consider opensource applications 'just because'.
Ideologial reasons? In military and confidential commercial R&D environments, using closed-source apps is meanwhile a big no-no!
In such environments, it is mandatory to get the sources of commercial products (under NDA), perform a thorough security audit through security staff and independant security consultants, compile the verified stuff, and only then use it.
Of course, and sadly, most people and companies don't care that much for the confidentiality and integrity of their data and rely quite heavily on random software vendors.
Why the hell do you think you don't have enough upstream bandwidth to support an ad-hoc, real time distributed distribution system?
That's really upsetting! With ADSL, there should be a string of bytes to instruct the DSLAM to revert the direction of one port, so that you can have more upstream than downstream bandwidth for a while; and another command to change direction again.
This is not standardized (on purpose?), but it would be great to gather a list of command strings for the most popular telco gear out there.
Tigers(C) (Panthera tigris(R)) are mammals of the Felidae(TM) family, one of four "big cats"(R)(C) that belong to the Panthera(R) genus. Tigers(R) are "predatory carnivores"(TM)
Slashdot Mirror
If DRM prevents us from accessing the internet, screw the internet.
Going back to store-and-forward networks like UUCP over PPP seems trivial enough. We'll simply set up PPP links through the POTS (dial on demand where fulltime connectivity is not available or prohibitively expensive), and have UUCP handle the transfer of mail and *other* content. There's really no need for DRMed ISPs, DRMed CPUs etc..
As long as we can shuffle bytes through the POTS, or local wireless loops, we're set to go.
We *are* the Internet.
I really recommend the Shuttle xPC form factor - small, quiet, cheap. ;')
Any mini-ITX, nano-ITX etc... platform will do as well. But that's not the point. A few of us will always be able to put together their own computing environment; but what about Joe Sixpack and all those so called "pirates" in schoolyards? They are Sony's primary target, not the few capable hackers who wouldn't give a darn shit about DRM anyway. If Sony and their ilk were able to curb copying by just a few percent points in that large user base, they will already make a HUGE additional profit. That's the reason such attempts at DRM will always come up, every now and then.
I wonder what are the appropriate fallback positisions
What happens when you try to squeeze sand too hard? It slips through your fingers. So just like the little grains of sand, countless developers will still write software, either circumventing all those frivolous patents, or infringing them (wether by device or unintentionally is irrelevant). FOSS is here to stay too.
The safe haven are the countless (encrypted!) harddrives all around the world. If a few countries mutated into police states for a while, so be it. The whole world won't. Just like in Fahrenheit 451, people will hide FOSS in a safe place, until the dark ages come to an end.
Microsoft has bosted ease of use and a good office suite and as a result we get KDE, Gnome nad open office.
Agreed! It's just tood bad that KDE, Gnome and OO are getting so much bloated, that they won't (decently) run on small solid state devices or low-end, power saving slow or embedded CPUs. Of course there's xfce, fluxbox etc..., but it's sad that userfriendliness still attracts bloatedness so much.
Sorry for the typo: s/Growlaw/Groklaw/.
if you use the word "terrorist" often enough, you can get away with anything.
But only until terrorists register their trade mark and start litigations: "You didn't acknowledge our trade mark! Terrorist(tm)(R) is a registered trade mark by The Terrorist Group." Extensive coverage at Growlaw at 11.
Piracy funds terrorism because it is illegal,
Actually then-hugely-profitable organized piracy would also fund politicians, the police and other pressure groups through covert channels... Al Capone all over again?
I hope we will not have to block *.de on our SMTP relays and TCP/IP firewalls like we had with *.cn and *.ne.
You probably mean the RIPE address blocks assigned to Germany. All german ISPs offer .com/.net/.org and all other global TLDs as well to their customers.
When was the last time you have seen a public CCTV in a German street or public place?
Hah! What about the toll collect system on the hiways? There are already plans to extend this to monitor ALL cars in addition to trucks; and not only for toll collecting purposes but also for the so called anti-terror laws.
And what about all those surveilliance cams in the public transportation system (trains, stations, ...). Are they used just to thwart vandalism?
A port scan isn't an attack or a theft of services.
If a port scan is an attack or not depends on the legislation of at least two countries (which could be the same): The country of the scanned and the country of the scanner.
Logically, a port scan shouldn't be considered an attack, since all it does is discovering services that a machine offers to the outside (wether on purpose or unintentionally is irrelevant here). But laws are not always logical, right?
We should also keep video security footage archived indefinately to allow us to track the movements of suspects before they were suspects.
Not indefinitely. That's exactly the rub here. Keeping records for short periods of time is probably okay (8 weeks or so), allowing for criminal investigations to trace people and gather evidence within a reasonable time frame.
Everything longer than that would be opening pandora's box to all kinds of state monitoring, profiling, and all that fascist crap that so many politicians are so fond of.
A German friend had exactly this problem: some guys bought online services from a company and charged his credit card for it (id theft). The only trail leading to the fraudster is his dynamic IP address stored on the credit card processor. The police has no chance to track the IP down to the subscriber if his ISP doesn't store the logs for a reasonable period of time (typically 8 weeks or so).
So, basically, protecting privacy is a great idea. But not storing such data for at least a small period of time is not really wise.
That's what the URG(ent) flag of IP packets is for. 911 operators can send help through the link, provided they set the URG flags to 1.
Why SHOULD they make a version for Mac or Linux? All the Mac cultists will use Safari 'cause Steve says to, and judging by most of the comments here, most Linux users will give a knee-jerk "Why use anything other than Firefox?".
By the same token, Windows users would say: "Why use anything other than IE?"
IMHO there's not MAC or Linux version, because they can't implement the IE rendering feature there. They probably use some DLLs from Windows for this, which are naturally not available on the MAC or Linux.
I end up with layouts that are cross platform compatible, bandwidth efficient, easy to maintain, and don't look ugly.
How do you ensure MSIE compatibility without testing your [X]HTML/CSS on an MSIE rendering engine?
BTW: Is that new IE renderer also available on Linux, or just on Windows?
Quick poll: does anyone besides me still use mozilla mail, or has everyone moved to Thunderbird or web-based email?
I'm using Mutt to access my IMAP server, with esmtp for sending mails through Postfix. Switched from GNU Emacs RMAIL. Thunderbird is nice, but a bit too slow on the machines I'm reading mail on.
Patenting a system which influences the physical world ... is permitted.
So would be every program with GUI, since it influences humans by the way it interacts with us.
Never underestimate the ingenuity of IP lawyers when it comes to things like these... Beware of snake oil.
I am a fair-use advocate, but I don't see the legitimate purpose to trackerless torrents that cannot be fulfilled by trackered torrents.
**AA are not the only enemies of free filesharing. That's a very US-centric view of the 'net. What about propagating samizdat literature und news within dictatorships? A trackerless torrent could help save some lifes. Even if it saves only one life, would be well worth it!
See you in Guantanamo, "Bram".
Didn't you get the joke, mods?
Yes, it's an escalation. So has been the Los Alamos project. But... guess what? It is bound to happen anyway. If we don't build those weapons, other nations will, and we'll be playing Coyote, chasing Roadrunner sooner than later.
You never know when Al Qaeda is going to build a rocket.
That would be merely Dr. Evil's^W^WBin Laden's escape rocket. Why the heck would we want to intercept that one?
The main threats come either from dictatorships (think N. Korea) or terrorism.
For now. Who knows how our relations with China, Russia or even the EU are going to be in 10, 20 or 50 years from now? Fighting over a little oil in Iraq has already tremendously strained our international relations. Imagine the situation when resources are much scarcer than they are now in a few years!
Developing space weapons takes time too. Wouldn't it be better to be safe rather than sorry, when the next big conflict erupts?
Neither kind of enemy can be deterred with nuclear weapons.
Right. But at least dictators could be prevented from launching missiles at us or at our allies. It wouldn't prevent terrorists carrying germs in a suitcase from launching deadly attacks though...
They are probably trying to revive SDI (i.e. place energy/kinetic antimissile weapons in space), but they may have plans for space-to-ground weapons that are not WMD.
Why should they revive a project that's alife and kicking? Check out the Missile Defense Agency's agenda; and that's just the (public) tip of the iceberg.
If it were only SDI: there are a lot of passive interception techniques that can be used in space. Many of these techniques are not classified as weapons, so we can't talk about militarization of space here. Deploying active weapons like "killer satellites" in Space would require special permission from the President though. That's probably what's going on here.
Personally I put the people who refuse to even consider a closed source application for purely ideological reasons (as indicated in the slashdot blurb) into the same little box as those corporate IT managers who refuse to consider opensource applications 'just because'.
Ideologial reasons? In military and confidential commercial R&D environments, using closed-source apps is meanwhile a big no-no!
In such environments, it is mandatory to get the sources of commercial products (under NDA), perform a thorough security audit through security staff and independant security consultants, compile the verified stuff, and only then use it.
Of course, and sadly, most people and companies don't care that much for the confidentiality and integrity of their data and rely quite heavily on random software vendors.
Why the hell do you think you don't have enough upstream bandwidth to support an ad-hoc, real time distributed distribution system?
That's really upsetting! With ADSL, there should be a string of bytes to instruct the DSLAM to revert the direction of one port, so that you can have more upstream than downstream bandwidth for a while; and another command to change direction again.
This is not standardized (on purpose?), but it would be great to gather a list of command strings for the most popular telco gear out there.
Yeah: imagine a dictionary full of (C)s and (R)s:
Tigers(C) (Panthera tigris(R)) are mammals of the Felidae(TM) family, one of four "big cats"(R)(C) that belong to the Panthera(R) genus. Tigers(R) are "predatory carnivores"(TM)
Admiral: Darth Vader, we've finally discovered spammer's secret base.
Darth Vader. Excellent, admiral. Where is that?
Admiral: It's called "south Florida" on a useless little planet named "Earth".
Darth Vader: Very good! Is our new and improved star destroyer ready?