About the only time you will find scabs in a book and be excited about it. Mostly you'd say "Ok, I'm only going to buy NEW from now on".
Anthrax in envelopes you didn't expect is one thing, although not easily avoided you can minimize the risks in such situations; but picture terrorists selling things with anthrax in them on sites such as ebay and amazon.com.
They might not be able to target the people they want, but they could reach 1'000's of people and completely ruin the business of selling used things online.
Suddenly anyone could be a target of a terroristattack...
Either we get it without paying using (P2P)filesharing, or we pay for it directly to them... sooner or later someone will realize that they'll make a lot more if they get the money directly from us, not to mention that they could include ads for their other stuff (series, t-shirts etc).
It'll happen within the next 3 years that one of the high profile companies will release something this way; it might not be a complete series, but it'll be something (maybe a spinoff independent miniseries/movie).
The big difference I see with terrestial broadcast shows and movies however is that, given a large enough antenna I could receive these shows when broadcast from another country.
That depends on the signal, how it/the content is encoded and where that antenna is located; a huge antenna won't do you much good if the signal is being broadcast from the other side of the earth.
Downloading the shows publically aired is just a way of repeating the signal.
Which you of course can't do legally; and even if you could you have to consider that the amount of money they're paying for broadcasting something depends among other things on how many possible viewers there are, so if everyone started repeating their signals they wouldn't be able to afford to broadcast any quality shows.
You shouldnt have to pay 5 per episode, thats ridiculous.
I'd rather have the option to pay $5 per episode, than to not have the option to legally get these episodes.
First we might have to pay $5, but then there'll be other sources competing with lower prices... and sooner or later the prices might drop to $3 (esp. if they don't have to pay for all the bandwidth); and a cpl of years later we might be paying $29.99 for a complete 20-something episodes season.
BUT - I would pay a small additional monthly fee to my ISP to allow access to the BitTorrent/p2p ports so I can download all the episodes I want when they come out.
I sure hope you mean that that "a small additional monthly fee" for "all the episodes I want" is per series; otherwise it's just impossible to distribute that money fairly. Not that I think such a deal would be possible, it'd be too complicated for the ISPs to deal with, and smaller ISPs wouldn't have the manpower to deal with it.
This really does seem like the best way for the artists to get a guaranteed royalty payment without it intefering with anything.
No, far from it, the best for them today would be to sell DVDs/VCDs; allowing people to subscribe to their series. One DVD/VCD per week/month arriving in your mailbox.
That would be best as it avoids most technical problems related to allowing people to download the material, and it allows them to use established forms of accepting money.
You already pay extra to get the movie channels on your cable/sat box, so how much more difficult could it be for them?
Technically, not hard at all, but actually doing it would be hell... a lot of suits involved, a lot of standards-related fighting, a lot of money invested in this or that way of doing things, a lot of lawyers writing a lot of documents... it'd take forever to get it going...
give it some time. Two factors that will lead to that. 1) long term sucess of such services as iTunes, and 2) Higher precentage of people with fast internet connections. While both of these are moving towards a reality, i doubt that you will see any movie service in the next year or so. Computers are just not the best way of playing a movie. And while I am sure that there are some people who here who have their monitor hooked up to some big tv or something like that, most dont. Things like movies on demand where you can order them and play them whenever you want on your cable box are whats going to happen in the near future.
350 MB is enough for very good quality episodes of your favorite "1 hour" series, like Stargate, Star trek, Andromeda and so on; and 350 MB is easily downloaded even using basic ADSL.
I'd rather view the all new episodes on my computer (well, I do have my computer hooked up to my tv) when they are released, than not being able to watch it at all (until it's released on DVD).
I'd gladly pay 5 USD per episode if I get it the day it's released, and combined with a BT-ish way of downloading it won't kill their servers (too much, just a little;-).
Your post is just way too, IMHO, US-centric; and even if we ignore that nothing says that the "Founding Fathers" were correct when they came up with what they thought to be fair regarding copyright. Even if they were correct they were so at a time when it wasn't easy to copy and distribute material; it's impossible for them to create a system that deals with people being able to download DVD-quality movies in under 15 minutes... not to mention that they probably would have laughed if you'd told them about multi-million/billion movies being made.
They are taking advice from experts. The legislators even aware of the public's intrests because no one involved mentioned them.
They are also part of the public, and to represent the public they have to know what they public wants... they can't just sit around and wait for wellpaid suits to tell them what the public wants.
The system is broken, not just because the public doesn't act, but because the ones that are meant to listen to the public doesn't care.
Are you aware that for the last several decades all (US) copyright laws have been written by the publishing industry and passed by congress essentially unrevised?
In a democracy the people rule, but "the people" doesn't mean that we've got a small army running around trying to force everyone to take part of the democratic process regarding things they don't even care about.
That has resulted in us today having people that complain about others having what they think is too much power; but most people complaining don't even try to do anything about it.
Copyright law has gone far astray from its original function and purpose.
Maybe it today isn't what it originally was intended to be, but personally I don't know what it really should be. On one hand copyright is about making sure people dare to release their work without it being stolen by just about anyone, but more importantly copyright is about limiting the control of what you have created... making sure that you lose control of your own work, to the benefit of the people. I just don't know what can be considered fair when it comes to taking away what a person owns...
I do know one thing though, no one intended copyright to allow the public to get free access the newest (sometimes not even released) movies, music etc; so there's no doubt it being wrong that people using P2P/filesharing to share the work that they authors, creators etc haven't even started making any money from.
The Irritating thing is that large businesses can get away with anticompetitive behavior and then, at the last minute get off scott free. why don't the file sharing or P2P crowd have the same Deal?
Because we're too busy talking about evil companies and poor us using filesharing, when we should think about 'companies', us and the true people using the filesharing-software to commit crimes, like downloading commercial software, movies etc.
I've never been willing to trust a hard drive to last while running.
Neither did I, until I just had to get to the store asap... I'd been runing for about 15 minutes before realizing that, "hey, I'm actually listening to a harddisk-based MP3-player without any problems whatsoever".
That's when I finally got rid of the "I've got to take it easy or it'll break"-thoughts.
Ok, so let's get back to the size; now that I've been using my iPod more or less daily since the 20 gig ones were released, would I replace it with a smaller one?
Yes, and no!
I'm always carrying with me too much stuff, so a smaller iPod would really be nice, but I've currently got more than 10 GB of music...
I won't... can't... repleace my iPod with a smaller one, not until the day they can hold all my music (and maybe 2-3 GB worth of backups); actually, I'm considering buying a new 40 GB iPod simply because as it is now every now and then I can't carry with me all the data I need.
5 years from now the only system in use could be [thisNewSystem], leaving you looking not just like a betamax weenie, but like a betamax weenie without any tapes...
Take a good close look at the computer you're sitting at. Same problem. Who cares? Those who are going to buy the current technology are going to buy it and enjoy it, those who are afraid it will be supersceded by something else, like yourself, won't either buy it or enjoy it.
Well, that depends on what you're trying to do... most of the perlprogramming I do I could more than easily do on a 5+ year old computer... Considering that I usually just SSH into the server where the script's going to live, I could even use my 10yo powerbook (14Mhz).. or an even older computer.
Radiowise I could use a 10, 20, 30, 40... (you get the idea) year old one.
Just because it's digital it doesn't mean that we should accept it to be useless about the same time as we've finally made the last payment.
Seriously, nothing significant will happen before trial, so why do we give them the publicity they're craving?
Sure, it might feel like "we" are fighting them, but what's the result of that fighting? Do we just spread the word that people can get sued for using Linux, or do we convince people that it's safe to use Linux?
And how come we don't hear people saying that "we" should move to *BSD while this is going on, showing SCO that we rather not use Linux than pay them?
Ok, so it isn't always easy, or even possible, to move away from Linux, but why do most people seem to think that there's just "free" Linux or "pay to SCO" Linux?
Everyone supports XM, nobody supports Sirius. Just get XM and don't look like a betamax weenie.:-)
5 years from now the only system in use could be [thisNewSystem], leaving you looking not just like a betamax weenie, but like a betamax weenie without any tapes...
Late 90's I was trying to buy a small(ish) portable DAB-radio (Digital Audio Broadcasting; not by satelite), but there just were none available on the market (and the "desktop"-models were too expensive to be worth it, IMHO).
Then I got myself one of those, at the time, brand new 20 GB iPods, and I never thought about (digital) radio again.
Currently I'm carrying around just under a week worth of music, comedy and, soon enough, even some books... listening to the music you like without paying a monthly fee (for music you can't even keep) sure beats radio.
Oh, I also do some time-shifting of netradio, so if I grow tired of those 10(ish) GB of music I've already got, there's always new content available to me.
Put the horse back in the barn, twisting my words around oh so slightly and adding some kind of quasi-religious remark, involving an obsolete theory, doesn't really suit someone claiming to want help those with ADD, "or another learning disability", learn. It's more like cheap parlour tricks of the hey-we're-so-intellectuals, or those who've read 'The Complete Idiots Guide To Rethorics'.
Or maybe I'm just not capable of discussing these things at your level (feel free to pick the explanation which you, dear reader, prefer), in either case I don't think that people on/. are any more interested than me in this discussion... Feel free to contact me by e-mail, if you want to, though.
Personally I find this to be a kind of advertising that I'd welcome, if they all looked like these it be more art than ads...
When buying sodas in the future about a third of the can could be a character from the lastest videogame or movie; art enough to not bother anyone, art enough for fans to enjoy, and art enough for people not familiar with the character to maybe become interested and want to learn more (compared with "normal" ads, where they force the message on us).
Hopefully it'll result in cheaper cans, maybe almost free, when new characters (games/movies) are released...
Good Ideas Don't Kill People People Kill Good Ideas. </paraphrasing>
We make the world we're living in, and if no one bothers to take a step in the right direction no one will...
30 years from now we might be living in a world that looks like some kind of sci-fi nightmare, and the we-told-you-so-people will be too busy saying "we told you so" to realize that if they'd actually done something, instead of just prophesizing about that inevitable future nightmare, our kids would be living in a much more free world.
Now we're just talking about a silly "I want a better price"-thing, but don't get into the habit of just saying that something won't work, instead come with positive comments like "I know how we can improve that..."; or at least say something like "for that to work, it must follow these rules/avoid these problems".
Sorry to burst your little bubble of optimism, but as it stands right now, we've give the henhouse to the fox. Between the credit card companies, the supermarket price-break/loyalty programs, most of our data is out there, with our names on it. We've gotten used to it - so when someone comes along with a great idea, I cynically assume that it will be co-opted by corporate America in an attempt to further collect reams of marketing data.
You seem to assume that anonymity is a given, I assume things are going to get worse.
Which is not to say that your idea is wrong or bad, I guess. Someone out there will willingly snap it up and be perfectly happy.
It's just an "agree to disagree"-situation, where I favor looking at what's technically possible, while you look at what's possible if the "bad buys" are the ones making such a device.
Sure it's going to get worse, and that's why a new, like this, approach is a must; otherwise your new data must always go into these databases sold/shared between companies. No company is going to make a serious marketingthingie out of not selling/sharing your data, unless there's some new way of dealing with said data.
"Now we've stopped selling your address to snailmailspammers" will just hurt a company, while a "Trust us to trust you, [device]-based data usage"-sticker at the door of a company work to the companys advantage.
I'm just going to finish this by saying that I favor looking at the "what's possible technically"-side of it based on me thinking that for such a device to even come close to being a success it needs to be trusted by its users. Unless open source (and, if possible, open hardware) I don't think it'd catch on... So IMHO we're talking about a possible trusted thing vs something that won't exist simply because it wasn't trusted.
Then again, I've been talking about a device, but looking at what todays cellphones can do you most of the time you wouldn't need much more than a wee bit of software (and the bluetooththingie at companies) to do this any day. In this form it's much like you're getting ads sent by bluetooth to your cellphone when walking by something (old idea), but where your anonymity/preferences are "protected" by your cellphone accepting all ads, while only showing you the ones of interest. (Bayesian spamfilter...)
Maybe you're right, maybe I'm just dreaming about a better future even that's not possible, but that doesn't mean that I'll give up dreaming...
PS <troll> I wasn't talking about "corporate America", I was talking about how such a device would work if designed in a free country...</troll>;-)
It will also be fully capable of alerting (kindest thanks for the word, it's a good one) people and instrumentalities other than myself.
Someone could (h|cr)ack into your computer as we speak, unless you use different publicly available computers (libraries, cybercafes etc) every time you access the Net/web that's a hell of a lot more dangerous than this little device,
Not to mention that such a multi-function device as a persons personal computer will contain a lot more opportunities for flaws than such a lil thing.
AND... when talking about back doors etc you mustn't forget that we're talking about something which mostly will benefit companies... you can't expect McDonalds hiring (h|cr)ackers just to figure out that you currently are in the market for a new car. The device itself doesn't have to contain any information about who you are, so even if they do get all the information all they'd be getting is what someone walking by their store was looking to buy... and unless they get into more or less every unit passing by that won't do them much good in the long run.
Nonsense, Verisign certifies that Microsoft can be trusted.:^P
Not that we can trust Microsoft itself, just their IIS-servers... hmmm... I can't figure out what's worse, trusting M$ or trusting IIS (or trusting Verisign)...
Most of us here have the good sense to realize that such a thing will be badly implemented because we live in a free country where commercial interests are the driving force behind most of the products we get on the market. Paid placement, tie-ins, cross-promotions, etc. will enable merchants to gather more and more information about us, which a large number of us feel that they are not entitled to, regardless of intent.
"The good sense"??? Would that be "the good sense" as in the good sense of knowing that since something didn't work yesterday it won't work ever in the future? "Sorry, a cryptoalgo was found to be flawed last year, which proves to that us that _all_ future cryptoalgos will be flawed"???
Before talking about "us here" you should realize that "us here" contains a lot of people doing things that no one had even though of a cpl of years ago, or that people thought was impossible or didn't have a clue on how to do... Just read some of the news posted here... Pausing light, building rockets for going into space (trying at least, will get there sooner or later), P2P-networks focusing on anonymity... perl turning 16... no one knew 16 years ago what perl would look like today.
In the most basic form of what I was talking about the client wouldn't do anything but download a list of that stores products, and all the information they'd get (without you providing more simply because you're a nice guy) would be that you got the information, when you got it and if they fingerprint the hardware/client what hardware/client you're using. Any information identifying the client could be randomized/rotated, so they can't even tell if you've been there before.
>> Your cellphone knows about what you've been looking >> at online, then when you're walking by stores it checks >> their websites (using bluetooth, and their bluetooth-AP) >> to see if there's anything there that you might be >> interested in.
> Your cellphone maybe, but for sure as hell not mine.
> In fact, I refuse to own one of the infernal things for > multiple reasons, amongst which is the very thing you > seem to desire.
> I'm quite happy with a world wide web. A world wide > noose, however, is another matter altogether.
People used to be afraid of cars too...
Hey, if you don't want to use cellphones, then don't, but what makes you think that a device finding and alerting you about good deals is evil?
As part of a cellphone this device would actually give out less information about you than the normal cellphone activity, and you have to be pretty paranoid (at least when living in a "free" country) to have a problem with that information being available to the phonecompany.
Sure, badly implemented this thing could give out more information than you want it to, but you can't say that something that doesn't even exist yet has a designflaw.
Oh, BTW, what I'm talking about can already be done with cellphones, it's just that then hardware/software you don't control would do the "thinking"... That would be a step in the wrong direction, giving your self more options/freedom is a good thing though.
Don't have any links available right now (sorry, a wee bit busy preparing dinner atm), but I know that that has already been discussed here on/.; I think it was in combination with a newsitem talking about such a system already in operation in a store somewhere in the world.
That's why you need to be more involved in what data they have about you, and currently there are no gadgets good enough to do that, although the cellphone's got potential to become one.
Direct contact between a gadget of yours and the company that needs the information... a portable database that keeps track of who's got what information about you, and what information they are allowed to get from you.
All that's basically needed is the cellphone, an open XML-based standard and a way to sign the data; not joint ventures and expensive fees for getting access to/publish the data... the local store is getting your up2date data just as easily as huge corporations, and being able to set different trustlevels your local store could get more information more easily about you than untrusted companies (like Microsoft).
Your cellphone knows about what you've been looking at online, then when you're walking by stores it checks their websites (using bluetooth, and their bluetooth-AP) to see if there's anything there that you might be interested in.
The cellphone doesn't hand out the information to let the server do the thinking, so there are no securityrisks (of that kind) and you can always slap a bayesian filter on the whole thing to make sure that it learns what you're looking at online but aren't interested in IRL (let it be the "always" cheaper computerparts or electric plastic sheep)...
Slashdot Mirror
Anthrax in envelopes you didn't expect is one thing, although not easily avoided you can minimize the risks in such situations; but picture terrorists selling things with anthrax in them on sites such as ebay and amazon.com.
They might not be able to target the people they want, but they could reach 1'000's of people and completely ruin the business of selling used things online.
Suddenly anyone could be a target of a terroristattack...
Either we get it without paying using (P2P)filesharing, or we pay for it directly to them... sooner or later someone will realize that they'll make a lot more if they get the money directly from us, not to mention that they could include ads for their other stuff (series, t-shirts etc).
It'll happen within the next 3 years that one of the high profile companies will release something this way; it might not be a complete series, but it'll be something (maybe a spinoff independent miniseries/movie).
That depends on the signal, how it/the content is encoded and where that antenna is located; a huge antenna won't do you much good if the signal is being broadcast from the other side of the earth.
Which you of course can't do legally; and even if you could you have to consider that the amount of money they're paying for broadcasting something depends among other things on how many possible viewers there are, so if everyone started repeating their signals they wouldn't be able to afford to broadcast any quality shows.
I'd rather have the option to pay $5 per episode, than to not have the option to legally get these episodes.
First we might have to pay $5, but then there'll be other sources competing with lower prices... and sooner or later the prices might drop to $3 (esp. if they don't have to pay for all the bandwidth); and a cpl of years later we might be paying $29.99 for a complete 20-something episodes season.
I sure hope you mean that that "a small additional monthly fee" for "all the episodes I want" is per series; otherwise it's just impossible to distribute that money fairly.
Not that I think such a deal would be possible, it'd be too complicated for the ISPs to deal with, and smaller ISPs wouldn't have the manpower to deal with it.
No, far from it, the best for them today would be to sell DVDs/VCDs; allowing people to subscribe to their series. One DVD/VCD per week/month arriving in your mailbox.
That would be best as it avoids most technical problems related to allowing people to download the material, and it allows them to use established forms of accepting money.
Technically, not hard at all, but actually doing it would be hell... a lot of suits involved, a lot of standards-related fighting, a lot of money invested in this or that way of doing things, a lot of lawyers writing a lot of documents... it'd take forever to get it going...
350 MB is enough for very good quality episodes of your favorite "1 hour" series, like Stargate, Star trek, Andromeda and so on; and 350 MB is easily downloaded even using basic ADSL.
I'd rather view the all new episodes on my computer (well, I do have my computer hooked up to my tv) when they are released, than not being able to watch it at all (until it's released on DVD).
I'd gladly pay 5 USD per episode if I get it the day it's released, and combined with a BT-ish way of downloading it won't kill their servers (too much, just a little
Even if they were correct they were so at a time when it wasn't easy to copy and distribute material; it's impossible for them to create a system that deals with people being able to download DVD-quality movies in under 15 minutes... not to mention that they probably would have laughed if you'd told them about multi-million/billion movies being made.
They are also part of the public, and to represent the public they have to know what they public wants... they can't just sit around and wait for wellpaid suits to tell them what the public wants.
The system is broken, not just because the public doesn't act, but because the ones that are meant to listen to the public doesn't care.
In a democracy the people rule, but "the people" doesn't mean that we've got a small army running around trying to force everyone to take part of the democratic process regarding things they don't even care about.
That has resulted in us today having people that complain about others having what they think is too much power; but most people complaining don't even try to do anything about it.
Maybe it today isn't what it originally was intended to be, but personally I don't know what it really should be. On one hand copyright is about making sure people dare to release their work without it being stolen by just about anyone, but more importantly copyright is about limiting the control of what you have created... making sure that you lose control of your own work, to the benefit of the people.
I just don't know what can be considered fair when it comes to taking away what a person owns...
I do know one thing though, no one intended copyright to allow the public to get free access the newest (sometimes not even released) movies, music etc; so there's no doubt it being wrong that people using P2P/filesharing to share the work that they authors, creators etc haven't even started making any money from.
Because we're too busy talking about evil companies and poor us using filesharing, when we should think about 'companies', us and the true people using the filesharing-software to commit crimes, like downloading commercial software, movies etc.
Neither did I, until I just had to get to the store asap... I'd been runing for about 15 minutes before realizing that, "hey, I'm actually listening to a harddisk-based MP3-player without any problems whatsoever".
That's when I finally got rid of the "I've got to take it easy or it'll break"-thoughts.
Ok, so let's get back to the size; now that I've been using my iPod more or less daily since the 20 gig ones were released, would I replace it with a smaller one?
Yes, and no!
I'm always carrying with me too much stuff, so a smaller iPod would really be nice, but I've currently got more than 10 GB of music...
I won't... can't... repleace my iPod with a smaller one, not until the day they can hold all my music (and maybe 2-3 GB worth of backups); actually, I'm considering buying a new 40 GB iPod simply because as it is now every now and then I can't carry with me all the data I need.
Well, that depends on what you're trying to do... most of the perlprogramming I do I could more than easily do on a 5+ year old computer... Considering that I usually just SSH into the server where the script's going to live, I could even use my 10yo powerbook (14Mhz).. or an even older computer.
Radiowise I could use a 10, 20, 30, 40... (you get the idea) year old one.
Just because it's digital it doesn't mean that we should accept it to be useless about the same time as we've finally made the last payment.
Seriously, nothing significant will happen before trial, so why do we give them the publicity they're craving?
Sure, it might feel like "we" are fighting them, but what's the result of that fighting? Do we just spread the word that people can get sued for using Linux, or do we convince people that it's safe to use Linux?
And how come we don't hear people saying that "we" should move to *BSD while this is going on, showing SCO that we rather not use Linux than pay them?
Ok, so it isn't always easy, or even possible, to move away from Linux, but why do most people seem to think that there's just "free" Linux or "pay to SCO" Linux?
5 years from now the only system in use could be [thisNewSystem], leaving you looking not just like a betamax weenie, but like a betamax weenie without any tapes...
Late 90's I was trying to buy a small(ish) portable DAB-radio (Digital Audio Broadcasting; not by satelite), but there just were none available on the market (and the "desktop"-models were too expensive to be worth it, IMHO).
Then I got myself one of those, at the time, brand new 20 GB iPods, and I never thought about (digital) radio again.
Currently I'm carrying around just under a week worth of music, comedy and, soon enough, even some books... listening to the music you like without paying a monthly fee (for music you can't even keep) sure beats radio.
Oh, I also do some time-shifting of netradio, so if I grow tired of those 10(ish) GB of music I've already got, there's always new content available to me.
Put the horse back in the barn, twisting my words around oh so slightly and adding some kind of quasi-religious remark, involving an obsolete theory, doesn't really suit someone claiming to want help those with ADD, "or another learning disability", learn. It's more like cheap parlour tricks of the hey-we're-so-intellectuals, or those who've read 'The Complete Idiots Guide To Rethorics'.
/. are any more interested than me in this discussion... Feel free to contact me by e-mail, if you want to, though.
Or maybe I'm just not capable of discussing these things at your level (feel free to pick the explanation which you, dear reader, prefer), in either case I don't think that people on
Personally I find this to be a kind of advertising that I'd welcome, if they all looked like these it be more art than ads...
When buying sodas in the future about a third of the can could be a character from the lastest videogame or movie; art enough to not bother anyone, art enough for fans to enjoy, and art enough for people not familiar with the character to maybe become interested and want to learn more (compared with "normal" ads, where they force the message on us).
Hopefully it'll result in cheaper cans, maybe almost free, when new characters (games/movies) are released...
Good Ideas Don't Kill People
People Kill Good Ideas.
</paraphrasing>
We make the world we're living in, and if no one bothers to take a step in the right direction no one will...
30 years from now we might be living in a world that looks like some kind of sci-fi nightmare, and the we-told-you-so-people will be too busy saying "we told you so" to realize that if they'd actually done something, instead of just prophesizing about that inevitable future nightmare, our kids would be living in a much more free world.
Now we're just talking about a silly "I want a better price"-thing, but don't get into the habit of just saying that something won't work, instead come with positive comments like "I know how we can improve that..."; or at least say something like "for that to work, it must follow these rules/avoid these problems".
*puts on his thinfoil hat and goes googling for the evidence, hoping the goverment hasn't remove it all yet*
To all reading this: Please just take it as a joke, and/or ignore it.
It's just an "agree to disagree"-situation, where I favor looking at what's technically possible, while you look at what's possible if the "bad buys" are the ones making such a device.
Sure it's going to get worse, and that's why a new, like this, approach is a must; otherwise your new data must always go into these databases sold/shared between companies.
No company is going to make a serious marketingthingie out of not selling/sharing your data, unless there's some new way of dealing with said data.
"Now we've stopped selling your address to snailmailspammers" will just hurt a company, while a "Trust us to trust you, [device]-based data usage"-sticker at the door of a company work to the companys advantage.
I'm just going to finish this by saying that I favor looking at the "what's possible technically"-side of it based on me thinking that for such a device to even come close to being a success it needs to be trusted by its users.
Unless open source (and, if possible, open hardware) I don't think it'd catch on... So IMHO we're talking about a possible trusted thing vs something that won't exist simply because it wasn't trusted.
Then again, I've been talking about a device, but looking at what todays cellphones can do you most of the time you wouldn't need much more than a wee bit of software (and the bluetooththingie at companies) to do this any day.
In this form it's much like you're getting ads sent by bluetooth to your cellphone when walking by something (old idea), but where your anonymity/preferences are "protected" by your cellphone accepting all ads, while only showing you the ones of interest. (Bayesian spamfilter...)
Maybe you're right, maybe I'm just dreaming about a better future even that's not possible, but that doesn't mean that I'll give up dreaming...
PS <troll> I wasn't talking about "corporate America", I was talking about how such a device would work if designed in a free country...</troll>
Someone could (h|cr)ack into your computer as we speak, unless you use different publicly available computers (libraries, cybercafes etc) every time you access the Net/web that's a hell of a lot more dangerous than this little device,
Not to mention that such a multi-function device as a persons personal computer will contain a lot more opportunities for flaws than such a lil thing.
AND... when talking about back doors etc you mustn't forget that we're talking about something which mostly will benefit companies... you can't expect McDonalds hiring (h|cr)ackers just to figure out that you currently are in the market for a new car.
The device itself doesn't have to contain any information about who you are, so even if they do get all the information all they'd be getting is what someone walking by their store was looking to buy... and unless they get into more or less every unit passing by that won't do them much good in the long run.
Not that we can trust Microsoft itself, just their IIS-servers... hmmm... I can't figure out what's worse, trusting M$ or trusting IIS (or trusting Verisign)...
"The good sense"??? Would that be "the good sense" as in the good sense of knowing that since something didn't work yesterday it won't work ever in the future? "Sorry, a cryptoalgo was found to be flawed last year, which proves to that us that _all_ future cryptoalgos will be flawed"???
Before talking about "us here" you should realize that "us here" contains a lot of people doing things that no one had even though of a cpl of years ago, or that people thought was impossible or didn't have a clue on how to do... Just read some of the news posted here... Pausing light, building rockets for going into space (trying at least, will get there sooner or later), P2P-networks focusing on anonymity... perl turning 16... no one knew 16 years ago what perl would look like today.
In the most basic form of what I was talking about the client wouldn't do anything but download a list of that stores products, and all the information they'd get (without you providing more simply because you're a nice guy) would be that you got the information, when you got it and if they fingerprint the hardware/client what hardware/client you're using.
Any information identifying the client could be randomized/rotated, so they can't even tell if you've been there before.
>> Your cellphone knows about what you've been looking
>> at online, then when you're walking by stores it checks
>> their websites (using bluetooth, and their bluetooth-AP)
>> to see if there's anything there that you might be
>> interested in.
> Your cellphone maybe, but for sure as hell not mine.
> In fact, I refuse to own one of the infernal things for
> multiple reasons, amongst which is the very thing you
> seem to desire.
> I'm quite happy with a world wide web. A world wide
> noose, however, is another matter altogether.
People used to be afraid of cars too...
Hey, if you don't want to use cellphones, then don't, but what makes you think that a device finding and alerting you about good deals is evil?
As part of a cellphone this device would actually give out less information about you than the normal cellphone activity, and you have to be pretty paranoid (at least when living in a "free" country) to have a problem with that information being available to the phonecompany.
Sure, badly implemented this thing could give out more information than you want it to, but you can't say that something that doesn't even exist yet has a designflaw.
Oh, BTW, what I'm talking about can already be done with cellphones, it's just that then hardware/software you don't control would do the "thinking"... That would be a step in the wrong direction, giving your self more options/freedom is a good thing though.
Don't have any links available right now (sorry, a wee bit busy preparing dinner atm), but I know that that has already been discussed here on /.; I think it was in combination with a newsitem talking about such a system already in operation in a store somewhere in the world.
That's why you need to be more involved in what data they have about you, and currently there are no gadgets good enough to do that, although the cellphone's got potential to become one.
Direct contact between a gadget of yours and the company that needs the information... a portable database that keeps track of who's got what information about you, and what information they are allowed to get from you.
All that's basically needed is the cellphone, an open XML-based standard and a way to sign the data; not joint ventures and expensive fees for getting access to/publish the data... the local store is getting your up2date data just as easily as huge corporations, and being able to set different trustlevels your local store could get more information more easily about you than untrusted companies (like Microsoft).
That's exactly what you want...
Your cellphone knows about what you've been looking at online, then when you're walking by stores it checks their websites (using bluetooth, and their bluetooth-AP) to see if there's anything there that you might be interested in.
The cellphone doesn't hand out the information to let the server do the thinking, so there are no securityrisks (of that kind) and you can always slap a bayesian filter on the whole thing to make sure that it learns what you're looking at online but aren't interested in IRL (let it be the "always" cheaper computerparts or electric plastic sheep)...