I work in a pre-field lab environment, where we make sure all our equipment going onto our network isn't going to blow anything up.
All of my machines are standard with OpenSSH now, and I know that all the new machines coming in are required to have SSH in place of Telnet... and OpenSSH is the defacto standard, although we will accept a commercial implimentation if the vendor provides it.
Anything Sprint PCS provided, though, is OpenSSH. Telnet as been officially "banned" from all new equipment, even if people are breaking this rule (much to my chagrin) on occasion.
Any given piece of P2P software would collapse *right now* yes... but after the huge upheaval of 'evolution' occured, the casual user would start trickling back in slowly as more and more realize that the service is more robust than it's competition.
I'm not saying it's inconcievable we will see the end of a P2P networks, or that current P2P networks are invulnerable (far from it), but that I don't believe P2P networks will be going away, regardless of any actions taken to squash it.
Any given P2P software will have it's ups and downs as the evolution process takes place and a viable model for a bullet-proof (or as bullet proof as practically feasible) P2P software set emerges.
I liken any actions taken by RIAA (or other entities) to destroy the P2P idea as similar to DirecTV phasing out the H card. Will it stop *some* of the pirates? Yes. But in the end, the only thing it's going to do is to hasten the decline of the Hu as a "more secure" platform. Rumors of the P4 switch out even from Hu are going to FURTHER hasten the decline of the P4.
But again, the flip side of this is, DSS can't sit back and do nothing, they must move forward, thereby pushing the DSS pirates forward.
Must the RIAA move foward with trying to crush P2P? Maybe, maybe not... that's a topic for another discussion. However, as I digress into other things, trying to get back on track; the P2P software out there now will evolve into newer, more robust software that eventually will yeild a greater effort:reward scenario for anyone to try to collapse. It will get to the point that it's more effort to collapse a given network than the resulting reward will yield. It's not question of if, but when.
While the P2P networks may be similar to flesh and blood animals, the biggest difference is that evolution in P2P networking software occurs on timescales a biological system could not hope to match.
Given a threat to its existance, a P2P network can adapt in a matter of hours at best, weeks or months at worst. To change the behavior, defenses, etc... of a biological animal would take thousands of years at best. The flip side is that new threats are developed almost as fast. But the bottom line is, eventually the signal:noise ratio on a P2P system can be tuned enough to allow a signal to get through, no matter what problems might plague it.
Worst case scenario is that you have a voting system that allows *very* different users to vote on certain file share hosts, the ones with the most votes are generally going to be a valid source of the files... while this will present a higher profile target for the major corporations, if you have 10,000 of these high vote people, it's going to be financially problematic.
Even if you have one or two, (or 50) cases of ballot box stuffing when it comes to high vote hosts, an authorized admin of some sort could flag that particular host as being bogus.
There are many, many spin offs of this concept that would make it next to impossible for any single entity to compromise the P2P network into non-existance. It may be cumbersom, but it would work.
First off, if you are thinking of going with DirecPC... don't. Speaking as a *VERY* former customer of DirecPC/TV, I can tell you that: 1) The customer service is bottom of the line, horrible, we-won't-help-you-because-you-have-no-alternative style. 2) Their new pricing plans are a joke. 200 hours for 50 bucks a month. 200 hours? get real. 3) This is a biggie - They have what is called a FAP. Fair Access Policy. This means that if you download large quantities of data, your bandwidth is throttled to less than dial-up modem speeds. I went 'round and 'round with them for months over this travesty. After some light testing, after you download ~ 90 - 180MB at full speed, it throttles you back for an indeterminate amount of time. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the point of having a high bandwidth connection to download large quantities of data really fast? This totally negates any reasonable use you might use this for. 4) The DirecPC software is WINDOWS only. They have stated, time and again, they have no plans on developing for another platform. 5) Latency is horrid. This is to be expected, and I do not fault them for this, due to the limits of technology, but none the less, the latency is way to much to be playing time senstive games (Quake, etc...) 6) The ISA/PCI 'sattelite modems' get HOT... REAL hot. They will increase your case temperature dramatically. They are indeed Ethernet cards with a coax interface. They even show up in your network config in windows as a network card. 7) Your return path is via modem... so best upload speeds are 33.6kb/set. Not server material in any way, shape or form. Forget ratio MP3 sites:) On the plus side, you get a dedicated IP. If you are downloading small files in small squirts, the speed is nice, but not worth the price. Did I mention that customer service is abysmal? I have cancled my DireccPC account and am using a noisy noisy, slow dial-up connection. But I feel better about myself that I am not supporting that company... between the FAP and thier new pricing plans, they are amoung the worst deal you could possibly get. Even if you had unlimited usage (Like I had, as I signed up before they changed the pricing plans), the FAP limits your usage anyway, making it functionally useless. One thing that I do miss is the news push service. W/O being online, I was able to get the newsgroups I wanted automatically, and connect to a news server on my local LAN. That was very handy, without a doubt. But that is the only thing I miss.
Ok, I admit I am the typical spineless, apathetic individual who reads these things with interest, but never does anything about it.
I thought I had been keeping up with what was happening with DeCSS (Mmmm... my unused copy of the source is staying safe with me) but apparently I have missed something dire.
WTF happened between the court case here and this kid getting arrested? Has he not complied with what they wanted done (stop distributing the source or trade secrets, right?)... if so, why are they arresting him?
This is just absolutly ludicrous. While I believe myself to be informed on this topic and support this kid 100%, I know most of my readers on my websites are less than technical and probably haven't even heard of this.
I would like to make them aware of the situation and what can be done. My problem is I appear to be out of date, and all the info I've looked up/read conforms with what I *THOUHT* I knew about the case.
Can someone sum up the chain of events that lead up to this, in as concise and compact a form as possible that I can link to for my users. I would try to put this together, but would be afraid of missing something important. Once a site like this is together for the general potato(e) public, lots of sites that have non-technical readers could link to it, for a quick overview on what's happened, why it needs to stop and what we can do.
I hope this makes sense. I am willing to help in any way I can.
Slashdot Mirror
I work in a pre-field lab environment, where we make sure all our equipment going onto our network isn't going to blow anything up.
All of my machines are standard with OpenSSH now, and I know that all the new machines coming in are required to have SSH in place of Telnet... and OpenSSH is the defacto standard, although we will accept a commercial implimentation if the vendor provides it.
Anything Sprint PCS provided, though, is OpenSSH. Telnet as been officially "banned" from all new equipment, even if people are breaking this rule (much to my chagrin) on occasion.
What I wanna know is... How the hell did AMD Fritz lose Game 4 with 3 pawns, a knight and the king against a pawn and king from Intel Fritz?
Duh... my faith in AMD is waning!
Any given piece of P2P software would collapse *right now* yes... but after the huge upheaval of 'evolution' occured, the casual user would start trickling back in slowly as more and more realize that the service is more robust than it's competition.
I'm not saying it's inconcievable we will see the end of a P2P networks, or that current P2P networks are invulnerable (far from it), but that I don't believe P2P networks will be going away, regardless of any actions taken to squash it.
Any given P2P software will have it's ups and downs as the evolution process takes place and a viable model for a bullet-proof (or as bullet proof as practically feasible) P2P software set emerges.
I liken any actions taken by RIAA (or other entities) to destroy the P2P idea as similar to DirecTV phasing out the H card. Will it stop *some* of the pirates? Yes. But in the end, the only thing it's going to do is to hasten the decline of the Hu as a "more secure" platform. Rumors of the P4 switch out even from Hu are going to FURTHER hasten the decline of the P4.
But again, the flip side of this is, DSS can't sit back and do nothing, they must move forward, thereby pushing the DSS pirates forward.
Must the RIAA move foward with trying to crush P2P? Maybe, maybe not... that's a topic for another discussion. However, as I digress into other things, trying to get back on track; the P2P software out there now will evolve into newer, more robust software that eventually will yeild a greater effort:reward scenario for anyone to try to collapse. It will get to the point that it's more effort to collapse a given network than the resulting reward will yield. It's not question of if, but when.
While the P2P networks may be similar to flesh and blood animals, the biggest difference is that evolution in P2P networking software occurs on timescales a biological system could not hope to match.
Given a threat to its existance, a P2P network can adapt in a matter of hours at best, weeks or months at worst. To change the behavior, defenses, etc... of a biological animal would take thousands of years at best. The flip side is that new threats are developed almost as fast. But the bottom line is, eventually the signal:noise ratio on a P2P system can be tuned enough to allow a signal to get through, no matter what problems might plague it.
Worst case scenario is that you have a voting system that allows *very* different users to vote on certain file share hosts, the ones with the most votes are generally going to be a valid source of the files... while this will present a higher profile target for the major corporations, if you have 10,000 of these high vote people, it's going to be financially problematic.
Even if you have one or two, (or 50) cases of ballot box stuffing when it comes to high vote hosts, an authorized admin of some sort could flag that particular host as being bogus.
There are many, many spin offs of this concept that would make it next to impossible for any single entity to compromise the P2P network into non-existance. It may be cumbersom, but it would work.
3G will not really have any benefit for the average consumer who just wishes to talk on the phone.
The main thrust of 3G is twofold:
1. Increase voice capacity within existing spectrum.
2. Increase data rate for users making data calls
Beyond that, 3G means virtually nothing to the average person who just wants to chat.
First off, if you are thinking of going with DirecPC ... don't. Speaking as a *VERY* former customer of DirecPC/TV, I can tell you that: 1) The customer service is bottom of the line, horrible, we-won't-help-you-because-you-have-no-alternative style. 2) Their new pricing plans are a joke. 200 hours for 50 bucks a month. 200 hours? get real. 3) This is a biggie - They have what is called a FAP. Fair Access Policy. This means that if you download large quantities of data, your bandwidth is throttled to less than dial-up modem speeds. I went 'round and 'round with them for months over this travesty. After some light testing, after you download ~ 90 - 180MB at full speed, it throttles you back for an indeterminate amount of time. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the point of having a high bandwidth connection to download large quantities of data really fast? This totally negates any reasonable use you might use this for. 4) The DirecPC software is WINDOWS only. They have stated, time and again, they have no plans on developing for another platform. 5) Latency is horrid. This is to be expected, and I do not fault them for this, due to the limits of technology, but none the less, the latency is way to much to be playing time senstive games (Quake, etc...) 6) The ISA/PCI 'sattelite modems' get HOT ... REAL hot. They will increase your case temperature dramatically. They are indeed Ethernet cards with a coax interface. They even show up in your network config in windows as a network card. 7) Your return path is via modem... so best upload speeds are 33.6kb/set. Not server material in any way, shape or form. Forget ratio MP3 sites :) On the plus side, you get a dedicated IP. If you are downloading small files in small squirts, the speed is nice, but not worth the price. Did I mention that customer service is abysmal? I have cancled my DireccPC account and am using a noisy noisy, slow dial-up connection. But I feel better about myself that I am not supporting that company... between the FAP and thier new pricing plans, they are amoung the worst deal you could possibly get. Even if you had unlimited usage (Like I had, as I signed up before they changed the pricing plans), the FAP limits your usage anyway, making it functionally useless. One thing that I do miss is the news push service. W/O being online, I was able to get the newsgroups I wanted automatically, and connect to a news server on my local LAN. That was very handy, without a doubt. But that is the only thing I miss.
Ok, I admit I am the typical spineless, apathetic individual who reads these things with interest, but never does anything about it.
... if so, why are they arresting him?
I thought I had been keeping up with what was happening with DeCSS (Mmmm... my unused copy of the source is staying safe with me) but apparently I have missed something dire.
WTF happened between the court case here and this kid getting arrested? Has he not complied with what they wanted done (stop distributing the source or trade secrets, right?)
This is just absolutly ludicrous. While I believe myself to be informed on this topic and support this kid 100%, I know most of my readers on my websites are less than technical and probably haven't even heard of this.
I would like to make them aware of the situation and what can be done. My problem is I appear to be out of date, and all the info I've looked up/read conforms with what I *THOUHT* I knew about the case.
Can someone sum up the chain of events that lead up to this, in as concise and compact a form as possible that I can link to for my users. I would try to put this together, but would be afraid of missing something important. Once a site like this is together for the general potato(e) public, lots of sites that have non-technical readers could link to it, for a quick overview on what's happened, why it needs to stop and what we can do.
I hope this makes sense. I am willing to help in any way I can.
Thanks,
-NW
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