There's an ad that's been running lately. Comcast says they're willing to sell internet access, phone service, and digital TV for $33 apiece, per month. I am pretty good at math, so I quickly figured out that they're really selling a service for $99 per month, and the $33/month figure borders on fraudulent advertising (there is no service that they're actually willing to sell me for $33/month). It doesn't sound a like a good deal when I look at it that way: $99/month is way too expensive.
But let's say someone just gets their IP service. The conflict of interest is that if someone has that, then they automatically have access to services equivalent to Comcast's other services (phone and TV). A personal computer's OS can mux/demux packets to the relevant applications just fine. But if lots of people actually do that, then Comcast runs into two problems:
Their business model fails, because few are willing to pay the extra $66/month (phone+TV) for something superfluous. Their own IP service essentially competes with the other parts of their business.
It's massively less efficient in the case of TV. When you and your neighbor receive the same TV show in the "conventional" way, the video is just transmitted once over Comcast's wires. When you and your neighbor receive a show by http or bittorrent, the video is transmitted twice over Comcast's wires. It doesn't scale.
The second problem is very fixable. We need a multicast protocol for receiving huge video files, it needs to get popular so that most people will use it, and people need to get back into the habit of time-shifting like they did 8-9 years ago when stuff like Tivo was popular. "On demand" kills scalability. Oh wait -- "on demand" happens to be one of Comcast's products. That's both inefficient, and also a reason for Comcast to oppose technological development in TV delivery.
Comcast's desire to inhibit customers using their IP service for video, is a direct result of all this.
I think it may be appropriate for government to acknowledge this conflict of interest, and split the company. (Especially since Comcast's wire monopoly is something that is created by government, and continued through local government franchises. It doesn't make sense to bitch about socialism or ask for laissez faire in this case, because the the government is already heavily involved.) Let one company be a government-sanctioned (because of the wires) network provider. Let another company be a file server that multicasts TV shows to subscribers.
It looks like it's time for a definition of "server." Is it something that accepts incoming connections (the classical definition), or something that uploads "lots" (what's a lot?) of data, or what? When I send an email, is my machine being a server (since I'm making content available to other people)? If I listen on port 25 and receive 10 emails per day, am I a server? If I upload 10 gigabytes to someone else's ftp site, am I a server? If I don't receive incoming connections, but always have a connection open to someone else's jabber server (making it easy to anyone to contact my machine on demand), am I a server?
I think this goes to show, that Scientology is the most sophisticated religion of all. Quit saying it's not a real religion, people. It's merely "over your head" and ahead of its time. Someday, your backwards religion will evolve into something just as good, and Cruise will say, "Glad you could make it to the 21st century." But you still won't be the cool religion, because they'll be using 22nd century "technology" by then. Hail Xenu.
Who is operating each machine? I need their email addresses. I want to send them some programs, and my "hack" is that the programs will come with instructions to the operator: please execute this attachment.
My understanding is that for Windows, I just need to have the filename end with.exe. For MacOS, I need it to end with.dmg. For Linux, I need to train the user how to use chmod.
This isn't the 1960s. The people who worked on the Apollo program are all retired. Somewhere, in a submarine, a guy just said, "LOLZ, think I cut cable!" and his commander replied, "pwned! LOLZ! I'll come take a look at it after I finish this MySpace video."
My culture, unlike all others, is perfect and contains nothing mock-worthy. But I no longer have time to discuss this on Slashdot, as I need to go to Wal-Mart to get some beer and ammunition for this weekend's gator hunt.
Re:I thought those things were already broken
on
Yahoo CAPTCHA Hacked
·
· Score: 1
Anyone know what this is called.. ?
It's called "getting humans to perform tedious mundane tasks for their computer overlords."
It doesn't make sense to talk about the "free market" in this context, because the very premise is that the government is controlling it through overtime pay regulations. And the workers sued IBM for not paying what they wanted, instead of just walking. If selecting a higher-paying job is what they wanted to do, they would have already switched, instead of trying to get the government to increase the amount on their IBM paycheck.
This isn't an anti-proletariat bitch or anything, just an acknowledgment that we're not talking about a free market situation. Society as a whole has decided that many aspects of the labor market will be highly regulated, i.e. planned by a central authority.
"Green" may be a fad, but energy efficiency probably isn't (unless fusion researchers come up with something really awesome). What is "neat" about energy use, is that most people tend to pay (roughly) in proportion to what they use. Use less energy, save money. Roughly. When people save money, they're not just feeling good about themselves: they're feeling good. They're not improving the world for future generations: they're improving it for themselves, in the here and now. Efficiency can be selfishly motivated, without having to leave it to altruism.
Don't throw words like "true" around. Not because it isn't accurate, but because it isn't useful. Even selfish people can be used to ultimately serve the treehugger agenda. Treehuggers should rejoice over that.
Nothing was more ridiculous than watching NBC turn off their studio lights during their halftime show of a football game, claiming "NBC is going green"
The only thing ridiculous about that, is that they told anyone. If they saved money, they could still silently benefit from the "greenness". So go ahead, make fun of the posturing, but not the activity itself.
You can come up with any number of numerological associations for any event. Seriously. Try it some time. Pick any event, and you can come up with a dozen, if you try.
Interesting that of all the numbers you could have mentioned, you just happened to pick dozen: the number of eggs that are most often sold together. This suggests you are a chicken farmer. Your uid is another clue: 853723. 8+5+3+7+2+3=28. 28 % 12 = 4, which happens to be your comment's score at the time I type this. 853723 %12 = 7. You bring your eggs to market every week.
Look at all I have learned about you. And you think numerology doesn't work.
Basic copy protection will significantly reduce the sales lost from having no copy protection at all.
But how? Just just said...
On the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix DVD, the 2nd disc contains a DRM'd WMV of the movie, and there's a code printed on an insert in the box that can be used to license it. It's a step away from having a full DVD rip on the 2nd disc, but when a lot of the "piracy" that's happening is so that people can play their movies on their portable devices or media center PC's (and other Fair Use/Fair Dealings "violations"), it will help reduce the problem.
But only a subset of players can use those files. Without WMV codecs, you have to use the (now defacto, thanks to the CSS crack) standard format (the DVD itself) as your source.
But the overwhelming majority of users don't know how to circumvent it. They don't even know how to circumvent DVD's CSS system, despite it being broken a decade ago. Basic copy protection will significantly reduce the sales lost from having no copy protection at all.
And there's the problem. If someone doesn't have the expertise to crack the DRM on a DVD, then the only way they'll be able to play the movie they bought, is to use someone else's (someone who does have the expertise to defeat CSS) copy. At that point, why bother buying the DVD? People might not know how to download and install a DVD player/ripper, but they'll know how to download a cracked media file.
For DRM to be successful (i.e. cause more sales than it prevents), it needs to be easier for a user to crack/play it, than it is for them to download a cracked media file.
It's a deterrent, alright. It's a deterrent to purchasing.
The basic problem is that most people feel entirely helpless when confronting the Federal Government. And why shouldn't people feel that way? The Feds haven't listened to Joe Ordinary in quite a number of years.
That's because Joe Ordinary continues to vote for strong federal government that he knows will ignore his desires. Joe still has the power, he just always chooses to not use it. The only statement Joe has made, is "keep doing what you've been doing." Joe might not get what he wants, but he always gets what he says (in the voting booth) that he wants. If he changes his mind some day, it'll be really easy. All he has to do, is vote for the candidate that says, "I will work to repeal ______." He can also vote for constitutional amendments that do that same thing. He doesn't.
I'm tempted to say, "Fuck Joe Ordinary," and on election day, I'm confident that he'll agree with me. I bet the next president and 99% of Congress will be Democrats and Republicans. Why? Because that's who Joe will vote for. Prove me wrong, Joe. Until then: Fuck You, Joe, you whining fascist coward.
why is it that Diebold can make ATM machines that don't seem to get hacked
ATM machines are inherently more reliable, due to redundancy. Suppose the "machine" fails: you still have the "M" in "ATM". Suppose the "M" fails: you still have "machine." As technology advances, things will be even better: we'll have automatic ATM machines, in which the automation is redundant. Some serious dreamers/futurists are even putting forth the idea of automated teller ATM machines. When using these machines, it is speculated that you'll have two chances to enter your PIN number before it eats your card.
A laptop can be used to carry contraband. Pirated software. Nuclear secrets. What makes it different from opening a suitcase?
What makes it different, is that it's virtually impossible to search. A hidden compartment inside a suitcase is pretty risky for a smuggler. But if I format a drive with a well-known filesystem (e.g. FAT) and then store contraband inside the "free space," or just put it inside an innocuous-looking/usr/bin/foo, and encrypt it, you can't even tell that it's there. Anyone smuggling nuclear secrets (not sure why we'd worry about someone bringing that in rather than out -- looks like we have to inspect people who are exiting the country too), assuming they take some rather trivial (relative to the payoff) precautions, is going to get by. Inspection is only going to catch the incredibly, incredibly lazy.
To stop really it, you'd have to assume you understand everyone's filesystem, and write zeros to all their-seemingly unallocated storage (so now you've prevented the smuggling, even if you have failed to detect it). Then you have to inspect all allocated storage to verify that it is what it appears to be. Anything you don't understand, you have to zero-out. You just spent several weeks of a very-highly-qualified computer inspector's time. And you did it for every single storage device. It's impossible. It makes a lot more sense to just ban all digital storage.
It sounds that like that's the actual situation. You don't have to give them your data, but then you can be faced with not being allowed to enter with it. So you either sacrifice the laptop, or maybe even the whole trip.
I think the question is: is it right? Should immigration grunts be allowed to deny entry for any arbitrary reason (i.e. I don't like the look on your face, or I don't like that you won't decrypt your data), and should they be able to seize any arbitrary item, even when they don't have reason to suspect that it may be harmful? I ass/u/me Congress has passed some sort of law that certain items are "controlled" and may not be brought in. Computers and storage probably wouldn't be on such a list.
If one argues that they should be allowed to do that, then it raises a problem: it's not generally feasible. Physical items are hard to hide if you go through a reasonably-easy-to-set-up filter. Data is easy to hide. If someone has "illegal information," and really wants to hide it, then no inspector has a reasonable chance of finding it -- even knowing that there is something to be decrypted, unless they seriously check it out. I'm talking about potentially weeks of analysis. It's simply not practical to audit all information coming into the country. It would take weeks of dedicated and active "quarantine" costing thousands of dollars, and even then, you don't know if your analysis is complete. Are the taxpayers going to pay that? Or are we going to charge some huge $1000 per megabyte duty on all storage devices, to pay for the people who are going to check to see if anything is encrypted?
Slashdot Mirror
It'll still come preloaded on almost all non-Apple x86 boxes. Like it or hate it, Microsoft still gets the money and the marketshare statistics.
I'm just glad it's not Bruce Shneier!
Your definition sounds very classical, and alas for Comcast, wouldn't apply to bittorrent.
There's an ad that's been running lately. Comcast says they're willing to sell internet access, phone service, and digital TV for $33 apiece, per month. I am pretty good at math, so I quickly figured out that they're really selling a service for $99 per month, and the $33/month figure borders on fraudulent advertising (there is no service that they're actually willing to sell me for $33/month). It doesn't sound a like a good deal when I look at it that way: $99/month is way too expensive.
But let's say someone just gets their IP service. The conflict of interest is that if someone has that, then they automatically have access to services equivalent to Comcast's other services (phone and TV). A personal computer's OS can mux/demux packets to the relevant applications just fine. But if lots of people actually do that, then Comcast runs into two problems:
- Their business model fails, because few are willing to pay the extra $66/month (phone+TV) for something superfluous. Their own IP service essentially competes with the other parts of their business.
- It's massively less efficient in the case of TV. When you and your neighbor receive the same TV show in the "conventional" way, the video is just transmitted once over Comcast's wires. When you and your neighbor receive a show by http or bittorrent, the video is transmitted twice over Comcast's wires. It doesn't scale.
The second problem is very fixable. We need a multicast protocol for receiving huge video files, it needs to get popular so that most people will use it, and people need to get back into the habit of time-shifting like they did 8-9 years ago when stuff like Tivo was popular. "On demand" kills scalability. Oh wait -- "on demand" happens to be one of Comcast's products. That's both inefficient, and also a reason for Comcast to oppose technological development in TV delivery.Comcast's desire to inhibit customers using their IP service for video, is a direct result of all this.
I think it may be appropriate for government to acknowledge this conflict of interest, and split the company. (Especially since Comcast's wire monopoly is something that is created by government, and continued through local government franchises. It doesn't make sense to bitch about socialism or ask for laissez faire in this case, because the the government is already heavily involved.) Let one company be a government-sanctioned (because of the wires) network provider. Let another company be a file server that multicasts TV shows to subscribers.
It looks like it's time for a definition of "server." Is it something that accepts incoming connections (the classical definition), or something that uploads "lots" (what's a lot?) of data, or what? When I send an email, is my machine being a server (since I'm making content available to other people)? If I listen on port 25 and receive 10 emails per day, am I a server? If I upload 10 gigabytes to someone else's ftp site, am I a server? If I don't receive incoming connections, but always have a connection open to someone else's jabber server (making it easy to anyone to contact my machine on demand), am I a server?
I think this goes to show, that Scientology is the most sophisticated religion of all. Quit saying it's not a real religion, people. It's merely "over your head" and ahead of its time. Someday, your backwards religion will evolve into something just as good, and Cruise will say, "Glad you could make it to the 21st century." But you still won't be the cool religion, because they'll be using 22nd century "technology" by then. Hail Xenu.
Who is operating each machine? I need their email addresses. I want to send them some programs, and my "hack" is that the programs will come with instructions to the operator: please execute this attachment.
My understanding is that for Windows, I just need to have the filename end with .exe. For MacOS, I need it to end with .dmg. For Linux, I need to train the user how to use chmod.
That's what's wrong with the PATRIOT Act: it failed to repeal the excessive powers used against drug dealers.
This isn't the 1960s. The people who worked on the Apollo program are all retired. Somewhere, in a submarine, a guy just said, "LOLZ, think I cut cable!" and his commander replied, "pwned! LOLZ! I'll come take a look at it after I finish this MySpace video."
My culture, unlike all others, is perfect and contains nothing mock-worthy. But I no longer have time to discuss this on Slashdot, as I need to go to Wal-Mart to get some beer and ammunition for this weekend's gator hunt.
Cultures should by immune to mockery?
It doesn't make sense to talk about the "free market" in this context, because the very premise is that the government is controlling it through overtime pay regulations. And the workers sued IBM for not paying what they wanted, instead of just walking. If selecting a higher-paying job is what they wanted to do, they would have already switched, instead of trying to get the government to increase the amount on their IBM paycheck.
This isn't an anti-proletariat bitch or anything, just an acknowledgment that we're not talking about a free market situation. Society as a whole has decided that many aspects of the labor market will be highly regulated, i.e. planned by a central authority.
"Green" may be a fad, but energy efficiency probably isn't (unless fusion researchers come up with something really awesome). What is "neat" about energy use, is that most people tend to pay (roughly) in proportion to what they use. Use less energy, save money. Roughly. When people save money, they're not just feeling good about themselves: they're feeling good. They're not improving the world for future generations: they're improving it for themselves, in the here and now. Efficiency can be selfishly motivated, without having to leave it to altruism.
Don't throw words like "true" around. Not because it isn't accurate, but because it isn't useful. Even selfish people can be used to ultimately serve the treehugger agenda. Treehuggers should rejoice over that.
The only thing ridiculous about that, is that they told anyone. If they saved money, they could still silently benefit from the "greenness". So go ahead, make fun of the posturing, but not the activity itself.I usually address loose connections by using cable ties and lockable connectors, rather than with software.
Huh? By 2080, the problem had already been dealt with. They permanently fixed it by using the sign bit.
Interesting that of all the numbers you could have mentioned, you just happened to pick dozen: the number of eggs that are most often sold together. This suggests you are a chicken farmer. Your uid is another clue: 853723. 8+5+3+7+2+3=28. 28 % 12 = 4, which happens to be your comment's score at the time I type this. 853723 %12 = 7. You bring your eggs to market every week.
Look at all I have learned about you. And you think numerology doesn't work.
But only a subset of players can use those files. Without WMV codecs, you have to use the (now defacto, thanks to the CSS crack) standard format (the DVD itself) as your source.
And there's the problem. If someone doesn't have the expertise to crack the DRM on a DVD, then the only way they'll be able to play the movie they bought, is to use someone else's (someone who does have the expertise to defeat CSS) copy. At that point, why bother buying the DVD? People might not know how to download and install a DVD player/ripper, but they'll know how to download a cracked media file.
For DRM to be successful (i.e. cause more sales than it prevents), it needs to be easier for a user to crack/play it, than it is for them to download a cracked media file.
It's a deterrent, alright. It's a deterrent to purchasing.
That's because Joe Ordinary continues to vote for strong federal government that he knows will ignore his desires. Joe still has the power, he just always chooses to not use it. The only statement Joe has made, is "keep doing what you've been doing." Joe might not get what he wants, but he always gets what he says (in the voting booth) that he wants. If he changes his mind some day, it'll be really easy. All he has to do, is vote for the candidate that says, "I will work to repeal ______." He can also vote for constitutional amendments that do that same thing. He doesn't.
I'm tempted to say, "Fuck Joe Ordinary," and on election day, I'm confident that he'll agree with me. I bet the next president and 99% of Congress will be Democrats and Republicans. Why? Because that's who Joe will vote for. Prove me wrong, Joe. Until then: Fuck You, Joe, you whining fascist coward.
Presumably that's what he meant by "targeted attack."
Congress, in passing DMCA, legitimized DRM. Sometimes the answer is, "I don't know the key. Ask Columbia Pictures."
What makes it different, is that it's virtually impossible to search. A hidden compartment inside a suitcase is pretty risky for a smuggler. But if I format a drive with a well-known filesystem (e.g. FAT) and then store contraband inside the "free space," or just put it inside an innocuous-looking /usr/bin/foo, and encrypt it, you can't even tell that it's there. Anyone smuggling nuclear secrets (not sure why we'd worry about someone bringing that in rather than out -- looks like we have to inspect people who are exiting the country too), assuming they take some rather trivial (relative to the payoff) precautions, is going to get by. Inspection is only going to catch the incredibly, incredibly lazy.
To stop really it, you'd have to assume you understand everyone's filesystem, and write zeros to all their-seemingly unallocated storage (so now you've prevented the smuggling, even if you have failed to detect it). Then you have to inspect all allocated storage to verify that it is what it appears to be. Anything you don't understand, you have to zero-out. You just spent several weeks of a very-highly-qualified computer inspector's time. And you did it for every single storage device. It's impossible. It makes a lot more sense to just ban all digital storage.
It sounds that like that's the actual situation. You don't have to give them your data, but then you can be faced with not being allowed to enter with it. So you either sacrifice the laptop, or maybe even the whole trip.
I think the question is: is it right? Should immigration grunts be allowed to deny entry for any arbitrary reason (i.e. I don't like the look on your face, or I don't like that you won't decrypt your data), and should they be able to seize any arbitrary item, even when they don't have reason to suspect that it may be harmful? I ass/u/me Congress has passed some sort of law that certain items are "controlled" and may not be brought in. Computers and storage probably wouldn't be on such a list.
If one argues that they should be allowed to do that, then it raises a problem: it's not generally feasible. Physical items are hard to hide if you go through a reasonably-easy-to-set-up filter. Data is easy to hide. If someone has "illegal information," and really wants to hide it, then no inspector has a reasonable chance of finding it -- even knowing that there is something to be decrypted, unless they seriously check it out. I'm talking about potentially weeks of analysis. It's simply not practical to audit all information coming into the country. It would take weeks of dedicated and active "quarantine" costing thousands of dollars, and even then, you don't know if your analysis is complete. Are the taxpayers going to pay that? Or are we going to charge some huge $1000 per megabyte duty on all storage devices, to pay for the people who are going to check to see if anything is encrypted?