But I have no sympathy whatsoever for technical users who should know better that continue to use Internet Explorer to visit websites that are in no way trustworthy.
I've been using PC's and 'Billware' since the 1980s -- the days of DOS. Now pretty much exclusively on Windows, I just lock IE down and use that -- just disable ActiveX and scripting and your PC cannot be 0wned that way provided the affected routines are coded correctly by the folks at Microsoft. To keep the rest of the malware out, I use a software firewall and am currently behind a hardware one as well. My guess is that by the hardware firewall simply dropping all unsolicited incoming connections except to 'well known internet ports' for HTTP, SMTP, POP3, NNTP, and FTP servers coded to defend against buffer overflows and illegal command execution would go a long way toward quashing malware. Using trusted antivirus programs and treating your email like text like I do would go a long way toward preventing system compromise.
Oh well, let the naysayers say 'Get A Mac' as the solution to the malware problem but aren't there documented cases where Macs were compromised? C'mon, Windows is just the whipping boy for this issue.
I was a net newbie once....
I learned (in time) how to take care of my PC when surfing the Internet.
If it seems like he has too much free time, give him more resposibility. If he struggles with it, can him or lighten his workload.
It is this manegerial attitude (the 'can him' part) that gave birth to the deadly phenomenon of 'going postal' in the first place!
When people become 'tools with pulses' and 'a persistent drag on the corporate bottom line' what else can you expect?
If 'bosses' and 'workers' TRULY treated each other with respect and understanding, there would be no need for things like:
Minimum wage laws, occupational safety laws, laws against all forms of harassment and discrimination, unions, etc.
Thanks to 'the love of money', the worldwide workplace is a convoluted imbroglio of rules, regulations, and the resulting lawsuits that occur when they aren't followed.
24 of the 36 songs in 'classic' Bubblegum Crisis (9 of them I consider to be 'time capsule' material--they should be preserved for future generations to listen to and enjoy).
Gunbuster
Iczer I (energetic and well done but recorded on 'low end' equipment)
Cowboy Bebop
Sailor Moon (music from the original Japanese version is consistently excellent!)
Symphonic Suite Yamamoto (the only(?) Starblazers OST done in stereo and extremely well done--70s anime music at its best!)
Akira (the piece Requiem is 'one for the ages')
Project A-ko (I)
Gall Force (I): Eternal Story
Genocyber ('repetitive' but well done)
Battleskipper (I almost passed up this Takeo Miratsu technomusic masterpiece!)
Princess Mononoke
InuYasha (thanks to one of the movie DVDs, I learned the composer is so pressed for time, he composes and orchestrates music 'to fit' on the spot! Even legends like John Williams and the late Jerry Goldsmith had outside help to make their works 'look good')
I probably could go on and on about this but my point is that all anime music is not just 'technocrap'. Some of it can stand on its own as serious music that is equal or better than the equivalent soundtracks from big Hollywood movies.
In a nutshell, concerning NASA, the only stats that matter:
Two destroyed Space Suttles, 14 dead astronauts
versus
One destroyed space capsule, 3 dead astronauts (woulda been 6 if Apollo 13 truly got 'lost in space')
Simple is better (though not reliable without complicated redundant backups).
I'm not trying to be a troll by 'reopening' old wounds, I'm just trying to cut to the very heart of the matter.
The only other alternative is to keep sending out 'cute little bots' -- a far cry from the Viking/Voyager I and II missions from the 1970s -- that is how these kinds of missions *should* be done!
The other day, I bought a $40.00 PC chess game, a 25 console game collection for $5.00, and a financial sim game for $3.00 [prices rounded up a penny or so....:) ]
All three game packages were interesting to me and were worth the money I paid for them. I *almost* didn't buy the chess game but was glad I did when I read the instructions which contained a complete list of its features.
Anyway, my point is the old adage that merchants price their goods as high as "what the market will bear" must be possible in order for them to recoup their production costs and make as much a profit as possible. This is why we have '50 cent pieces of plastic' selling in computer stores for around $200.00 just because one particular computer operating system is optically encoded on them.;) Look at the situation from this particular vendors position: They spent *MILLIONS* of dollars to develop this operating system and have priced it at such a level to recover their costs (labor and materials) and make a healthy profit which they share with their investors (the stockholders). Don't like it? Use that alternate operating system initially crafted by that Finnish guy back in 1991.;)
To get back to the bootlegs issue, yes I've bought a few (no I won't identify them). This was due at first to ignorance but then to the glaring fact that no legitimate commercial pressing of the item existed at the time I got the bootleg. In some cases, commercial releases was made available and I bought them without hesitation. In one special case I admired the bootleged work so much I sought out and bought a legit release of it which was twice as expensive in order to reward the artist who made the work in some small way. In another case, I deliberately passed up a 'good' deal on eBay that interested me because it was quite obvious the items were bootlegs (except one of them). Had they all been legitimate, the price would have well above what I could have paid for them.
The media cartels cry 'Piracy! Piracy! Piracy!' all they want since the days of 'original flavor' Napster and nobody listens to them until they sue children and dead people so I quite understand their business model is at risk. The only way I see they can stop 'piracy' is to stop mass encoding and distribution of the works they own. But that is a conundrum: to do that would essentially put them out of business -- not if they made their works 'uncopyable'.
For example, the movie studios could go back to the practice of renting theatres and projecting their movies using loyal(?) employees as projectionists and ushers wearing night-vision goggles looking through the audience for 'camrippers' to bust and prosecute. This would be the only way to see movies as it was before the advent of the (in)famous VCR. If done today, there would be no more DVD movie releases(!) This model is 'sorta' used by one particular studio who regularly re-releases their handful of world-famous movies on DVD every 5-7 years (with more and more 'bonus features' to them) after having them deliberatly pulled from the market at the expiration of their 'sales window'. This practice keeps their movies in high demand with the consumers at large. Indeed, an 'out of print' copy of these movies can easily fetch two or more times the original retail price of the movie themselves!
Instead of 'waging war' against potential customers, the content industries can simply turn their current business model based on 'artificial scarcity' that can involve 14 million copies or more of the same work available for sale (I own one copy of a particular work that actually sold that many copies), into one of real scarcity akin to a limited show run on Broadway in New York City or your city's equivalent live entertainment forum.
Then the media industry and consumers would have to deal with ticket scalpers who buy up blocks of prime
Another plus if the government followed through on the fair tax system would be the sharp reduction in the number of returns to process: Instead of the IRS processing say 100 million returns they could just process the returns of all the businesses large and small (say 1 million). Look at the benefit: 99% of the manpower at the IRS would not be needed as the number of returns to process is 99% less.
Enforcement and penalties would be easier to perform but would be likely unecessary. The 'Big Brother' infrastructure is already in place: The businesses bank their earnings with a bank who report it all to the IRS. Going the 'cash in a mattress' route will not help business who cheat on their taxes. The IRS knows where these businesses are via the local governemnts that have these business 'on file' and can simply 'stake them out' or raid them and confiscate everything.
All that will be left are people running underground businesses out of their home.
Then there could be a return to bartering: No cash changes hands and no income to tax(?)
IMO, all legitimate mail relays should refuse SMTP traffic from cable, dsl and other inappropriate IP space.
An even better solution is for mailservers to simply reject incoming IPs that ARE NOT on file with DNS as bonafide mailservers.
The problem is is that the crackers and spammers will now attack bonafide SMTP mailservers, compromise them if possible (or just set one up 'properly' for a spam/malware mailbombing). And then we are back to square one....
End user client filtering and mailservers that punish spammers and neutralize malware seem to be the best way to go. The choice is yours....
Corporates or networks don't need SOME computers to survive. They need ALL to survive. Data is sacred not computers. Data is located in far flung pockets of the network. The loss of even small amounts of data can be disastrous. Telling someone "it's ok cos' some of our computers survived" will get you fired.
For the Apollo 13 astronauts, ground control computer failure of any sort (including system compromise by hostile users) would have been all but a guaranteed death sentence for the 3 men aboard the crippled, barely-working spaceship.
Gene Krantz was right. In mission-critical situations: Failure is *not* an option!
As for the data being 'sacred', I agree about that. Data collected, created, or processed (including the software itself as a form of 'data') is eminently more valuable than the hardware itself that contains it which can be replaced/upgraded. The same can't be said of data -- it may be irreplaceable or be too time consuming to reconstruct after experiencing catastrophic data loss.
Case in point: Before 2001-09-11, some WTC tennant's idea of off-site backup was somewhere in the 'other' tower.
Look what happend that day....
Devastating, catastrophic loss of life, property, and data.
2001-09-11 should have served as a wakeup call to the IT industry: Handle your information resources with care, your livelyhood (and maybe your life) depends on it.
After decades in limbo due to the music rights, Heavy Metal finally came out on DVD.
For this reason, WKRP In Cincinnati will probably never come out on DVD -- Paying for the music rights would make the series too expensive to buy on DVD.
And then you've got Darth Vader, the blackest brother in the galaxy.
In voice only.
Lucas hired James Earl Jones to be the voice of Darth Vader. If you've seen Episodes III to VI in the STAR WARS movie series, it is easy to see why: Jones' peformance in the films gives the vocal embodiment of pure villiany for the most (in)famous bad guy in movies ever created to date. Race had nothing to do with Lucas' casting decision. Though David Prowse was deeply annoyed to find out he would be dubbed in Episode IV, it didn't stop him from appearing as the body of Darth Vader in the two follow-up sequels, Episodes V and VI.
On a related note, I have seen a hilariously insightful move about race relations, perceptions, and prejudices if anyone openminded and mature enough is interested: The Gristle.
About 10 years ago I taped The Tick Vs. The Tick episode from the old cartoon of the same name.
PURE UNADULTERATED COMEDY GOLD!!! XD (^_^)
I have it on tape twice. The second time full and complete.
Unfortunately, not long after that, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed.
After that, this episode of THE TICK appparently was never aired again.
Terrorism sucks on so many levels...Most importantly the tragic loss of life and senseless destruction of property. To a lesser extent, in the aftermath of such events, the entertainment industry gets 'cold feet' putting out 'related' content so close to tragedies like this.
Case in point: Collateral Damage and Big Trouble were mothballed in the wake of 2001-09-11 but, eventually, they were commercially released.
Apparently, there was too much money invested in both those films to shelve them for good unseen in the wake of 'related current events' which prevented them from enjoying a 'normal' release.
They turn your machine into a zombie and then sell it to spammers.
But first they have to infect it.
The easy way to avoid a zombied computer:
Pretty much use any OS other than one made by Microsoft. Since the market share for a non-Microsoft OS is so small, it isn't worth the malware author's time to attack them. A successful attack (if possible) would yeild little or no damage in a collective sense.
On a Microsoft OS? More work is involved in order to stay malware free.
Go into IE and turn off ActiveX, and scripting or (religiously) use the Off By One browser or Lynx which both doesn't understand ActiveX and scripting.
Treat your email and email attachments like 'text files' like I do. I only use Outlook to send email--not receive it.
Use a software firewall and antivirus. I use Agnitum's Outpost and Grisoft's AVG. I also recommended Trend Micro's Sysclean.
A great help would be to surf the internet from behind a hardware router that drops ALL incoming unsolicited connections. The other tips mentioned above should minimize the risk of system compromise from all other user initiated connections.
Not unless you are a qualifying intelligence agency. Our digitizing techniques and proprietary software cannot be purchased at this time unless your team is a high level governmental intelligence team. For others, ChurchStreet offers the reconstruction as a service, not as a product to be purchased.
Qualifying intelligence agencies should call ChurchStreet directly to get more information about our Reconstruction Software Suite.
This is just a simple(?) exercise in matching edges and colors at those edges to each other in all the piecess. This is how a standard jigsaw puzzle is assembled in 'meatspace'. ChurchStreet's software likely does this all inside the computer after the document shreds have been scanned in.
These guys are in the best postion to write/adapt such software and make it available to the public at large--not just government intelligence organizations.
P.S. For secure document destruction, burn it--it is the only way to be sure the document cannot be reconstructed. This applies to assorted forms of computer related information storage and processing--just toss the hard drives, CD-ROMs, floppy disks, RAM chips, memory sticks, motherboards, CRTs, etc., into the nearest (approved) incinerator and be done with it. It's an environmental/safety nightmare but the data in the destroyed media is now gone for good.
Want to give the ChurchStreet boys an 'impossible job?' Do the following:
1) Print up a document in English using a monospaced font.
2) Cross cut the document so that each character is in its own square 'cell' and is completly surrounded on all four sides by whitespace.
3) Hire ChurchStreet to reconstitute this document and send them the 'confetti'.
They won't be able to reconstruct the document because all the pieces are edgewise topologically identical to each other. The best they can do is use all the 'letters' and reconstruct all the words in the document. If they accomplish that, then they have to put them into the right order. If the document had 58 words on it, there would be so many message combinations that you could easily assign each one to every atom in the universe.
If their 'proprietary' document reconstruction techniques take into consideration the texture, grain, and thickness of the paper then they would stand a fighting to good chance of reconstituting such a 'challange document'.:)
Will this mean higher prices for desktop users? I hope not. I for one HATE with a passion laptops. There great for surfing the web and chatting on aim but for real work I need a desktop. I'm personally much more productive on a larger screen, full sized keyboard, and a comfortable external mouse.
I used to lug around A DESKTOP TOWER in order to do my work several years ago. Horrifically inconvenient but a necessary evil.:( Getting (and using) a laptop took some getting used to but now I wouldn't use a desktop unless I absolutely have to. My laptop allow me to work anywhere there is an electrical outlet, a chair and a desk. I heard that the laptop I have was one of the first ones to 'cram' desktop computing power in a laptop-sized package--kudos the the laptop manufactuer! (They are Japanese and they put out music and anime 'on the side'. I won't identify them lest I be branded a 'corporate shill' but I will say their laptops are built to last! My boss dropped his laptop several times with the last time borking the LCD display for good. Guess what? The HD was fine throughout all the unintentional abuse and is now working inside a laptop made by a large U.S. computer/business machine firm that shall remain nameless to avoid me being branded a 'corporate shill'.:)
And to the smart asses who say you can hook all these up to a notebook, yeah but why?
I did that at first then quit. I only hook up assorted data storage devices to my laptop via USB nowadays as these are external peripherals that matter the most to me.
I like my laptop and am glad I was able to get one to use it.
Laptops truly make computing complete and convenient - Ahhhh!:)
The 'New Internet' - My thoughts....
on
Intel Claims No DRM
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· Score: 2, Insightful
If (when?) DRM/Trusted Computing becomes the defacto standard and the current Internet shuts out/locks out DRMless hardware/software, it just means a return back to days of Bulletin Board Systems and FidoNet (BBS-based 'Internet') for people who truly care about their interet experience and don't want it tainted by DRM/Trusted Computing. Such an 'Internet' will benefit from the absence of the bandwith-sapping, 'unwashed masses' who only see today's Internet as little more than 'online televison' and/or a 'shopping mall'. Email spam should be non-existant on this 'new' internet as the people who use it would be savvy enough to block/delete spam on sight and blackhole the IPs that spew the stuff pronto.
For all Netizens who truly care about the free echange of ideas and resources, please archive all the legally shareable bits of the current Internet you can so you can share them on the 'new internet' when you have to and let the IP cartels have the current spammed-out Internet as their own 'private' content distribution medium.
This page is over 4 years old but still seems to be official as it is still 'up' at the time of this post.
Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria are also on this list for various reasons. Read the page for more information if you want to.
P.S. Want to export crypto outside USA/Canada and are in the USA? Read this first!
Crypto is (ultimately?) math.
Why treat a reversible mathematical transformation as a 'dangerous weapon' just because it can be used to hide secrets?
The 'terrorists' are using strong crypto in defiance of any countries rules on the subject. Why hamstring e-commerce and computer programmers world wide because of it?
I've seen this mentioned here quite some time ago (no, I don't have the relavent link at hand). Anyway, my guess is these 'hackers' might be 'cookbookers' who are just 'following scripts' put out by 'real hackers' (really system crackers). However, as North Korea is a recoginzed 'terrorist state' and has 'The Bomb', this threat should not be taken lightly.
If the CIA or any other world famous security organization have their act together, all the 'good stuff' is on an internal computer network that has ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION TO THE INTERNET (or any other form of 'at large' telecommunications). This is very important as it is impossible to break into such a system -- there is no 'front door' to use to gain access. The usual procedure is to have two computers side by side: one on the secure internal network and the other connected to the internet/unsecure network. A human being is required to type information from the insecure PC to the secure one and vice versa. In this setup, the only way the secrets can get out is if the human in this situation is incompetent, being blackmailed (and told no one who can help them), or an outright traitor -- there are no other alternatives.
There is a slight chance of passively picking up the secret stuff with a so called TEMPEST attack but surely the IT people at these kind of organizations have already taken measures to make such attacks effectively impossible.
Really though, this doesn't sound so anonymous anyway. All the **AA has to do is set up a bunch of "C" machines, and keep logs.
Won't do them any good if the data being relayed through them is encrypted. All they'd have is dates, times, IPs, and volume of data sent by said IPs. Is that probable cause to 'crack down' on these IPs addresses and the people using them?
Any comments?
Re:Why stream from DVD? Copy protection.
on
A Gamer's Manifesto
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· Score: 1
The 'compact disc digital audo' logo is on the CD itself so it should be a 'real' CD.
A while back I bought the LOTR:ROTK OST and had to 'jump through hoops' to get it to my PC hard disk as a compressed wave file to listen with WinAmp. I didn't have any problem space shifting the other two soundracks in the series though.
On a related note of sorts, I saw Episode III at the movies and did not notice those annoying 'cap codes' used by the studios to catch 'camrippers' and punish the theaters that 'allow them to work'. I don't think there were any in the film because I would have noticed them being used as I have in other movies I've seen in the theaters in the past. This is all 'moot' as the film wound up on the Internet a few hours after 12:01 AM 2005-05-19 anyway.
Also, I have tons of free diskspace left and 2 gigs of RAM. There's no reason anything should be streaming off my DVD. Drop the entire contents on the HD, and stream it from there.
Copy protection is the only sensible reason publishers do this. Why else would they force you to keep the optical media in the drive in order to play the game? Cracking the game or using a 'virtual CD drive' may or may not solve this 'problem'.
P.S. I just bought the Episode III soundtrack. There is a big FBI logo stamped on both the CD and the bonus DVD as well as on the backside insert card in the jewel case -- thus marring the artistic beauty of these mass-produced materials.... This is ultimately pointless as the ripping tools are already out there and if the media is uncopyable digitally, it sure is copyable in the analog domain.
If they are smart and talented enough to break into a webserver, they could use those skills to set up some sort of clearinghouse for phish sites to avoid that could be done as some sort of proxy + RBL for phish sites. Better yet, program a web proxy program that does something simple:
Compare the href tags in downloaded webpages with the displayed links. If the 'root' domains don't match, imbed a warning in the HTML page before it is sent to the browser for the user to see. The proxy could be programed to look out for spoofery involving internet giants like eBay PayPal and the like. Of course this could be construed as a copyright violation for modifying someone else's webpage (unless you happen to be Google with their Google Cache).
i'm kind of waiting for if you want to use your laptop, you're limited to battery life
That won't stop the madcore wifi squatters from bringing a buncha batteries with them to power their laptop(s). Do they care if they have about 5 minutes of downtime (or so) to swap out a dead/dying laptop battery for a fresh one?
If there is a will, there is a way (to exploit/abuse a common resource available to the general public at large [like email]).
Slashdot Mirror
But I have no sympathy whatsoever for technical users who should know better that continue to use Internet Explorer to visit websites that are in no way trustworthy.
I've been using PC's and 'Billware' since the 1980s -- the days of DOS. Now pretty much exclusively on Windows, I just lock IE down and use that -- just disable ActiveX and scripting and your PC cannot be 0wned that way provided the affected routines are coded correctly by the folks at Microsoft. To keep the rest of the malware out, I use a software firewall and am currently behind a hardware one as well. My guess is that by the hardware firewall simply dropping all unsolicited incoming connections except to 'well known internet ports' for HTTP, SMTP, POP3, NNTP, and FTP servers coded to defend against buffer overflows and illegal command execution would go a long way toward quashing malware. Using trusted antivirus programs and treating your email like text like I do would go a long way toward preventing system compromise.
Oh well, let the naysayers say 'Get A Mac' as the solution to the malware problem but aren't there documented cases where Macs were compromised? C'mon, Windows is just the whipping boy for this issue.
I was a net newbie once....
I learned (in time) how to take care of my PC when surfing the Internet.
If it seems like he has too much free time, give him more resposibility. If he struggles with it, can him or lighten his workload.
It is this manegerial attitude (the 'can him' part) that gave birth to the deadly phenomenon of 'going postal' in the first place!
When people become 'tools with pulses' and 'a persistent drag on the corporate bottom line' what else can you expect?
If 'bosses' and 'workers' TRULY treated each other with respect and understanding, there would be no need for things like:
Minimum wage laws, occupational safety laws, laws against all forms of harassment and discrimination, unions, etc.
Thanks to 'the love of money', the worldwide workplace is a convoluted imbroglio of rules, regulations, and the resulting lawsuits that occur when they aren't followed.
What a mess....
For shame to make fun of anime music!
Masterpieces from the genre I've heard:
24 of the 36 songs in 'classic' Bubblegum Crisis (9 of them I consider to be 'time capsule' material--they should be preserved for future generations to listen to and enjoy).
Gunbuster
Iczer I (energetic and well done but recorded on 'low end' equipment)
Cowboy Bebop
Sailor Moon (music from the original Japanese version is consistently excellent!)
Symphonic Suite Yamamoto (the only(?) Starblazers OST done in stereo and extremely well done--70s anime music at its best!)
Akira (the piece Requiem is 'one for the ages')
Project A-ko (I)
Gall Force (I): Eternal Story
Genocyber ('repetitive' but well done)
Battleskipper (I almost passed up this Takeo Miratsu technomusic masterpiece!)
Princess Mononoke
InuYasha (thanks to one of the movie DVDs, I learned the composer is so pressed for time, he composes and orchestrates music 'to fit' on the spot! Even legends like John Williams and the late Jerry Goldsmith had outside help to make their works 'look good')
I probably could go on and on about this but my point is that all anime music is not just 'technocrap'. Some of it can stand on its own as serious music that is equal or better than the equivalent soundtracks from big Hollywood movies.
In a nutshell, concerning NASA, the only stats that matter:
Two destroyed Space Suttles, 14 dead astronauts
versus
One destroyed space capsule, 3 dead astronauts
(woulda been 6 if Apollo 13 truly got 'lost in space')
Simple is better (though not reliable without complicated redundant backups).
I'm not trying to be a troll by 'reopening' old wounds, I'm just trying to cut to the very heart of the matter.
The only other alternative is to keep sending out 'cute little bots' -- a far cry from the Viking/Voyager I and II missions from the 1970s -- that is how these kinds of missions *should* be done!
The other day, I bought a $40.00 PC chess game, a 25 console game collection for $5.00, and a financial sim game for $3.00 [prices rounded up a penny or so.... :) ]
;) Look at the situation from this particular vendors position: They spent *MILLIONS* of dollars to develop this operating system and have priced it at such a level to recover their costs (labor and materials) and make a healthy profit which they share with their investors (the stockholders). Don't like it? Use that alternate operating system initially crafted by that Finnish guy back in 1991. ;)
All three game packages were interesting to me and were worth the money I paid for them. I *almost* didn't buy the chess game but was glad I did when I read the instructions which contained a complete list of its features.
Anyway, my point is the old adage that merchants price their goods as high as "what the market will bear" must be possible in order for them to recoup their production costs and make as much a profit as possible. This is why we have '50 cent pieces of plastic' selling in computer stores for around $200.00 just because one particular computer operating system is optically encoded on them.
To get back to the bootlegs issue, yes I've bought a few (no I won't identify them). This was due at first to ignorance but then to the glaring fact that no legitimate commercial pressing of the item existed at the time I got the bootleg. In some cases, commercial releases was made available and I bought them without hesitation. In one special case I admired the bootleged work so much I sought out and bought a legit release of it which was twice as expensive in order to reward the artist who made the work in some small way. In another case, I deliberately passed up a 'good' deal on eBay that interested me because it was quite obvious the items were bootlegs (except one of them). Had they all been legitimate, the price would have well above what I could have paid for them.
The media cartels cry 'Piracy! Piracy! Piracy!' all they want since the days of 'original flavor' Napster and nobody listens to them until they sue children and dead people so I quite understand their business model is at risk. The only way I see they can stop 'piracy' is to stop mass encoding and distribution of the works they own. But that is a conundrum: to do that would essentially put them out of business -- not if they made their works 'uncopyable'.
For example, the movie studios could go back to the practice of renting theatres and projecting their movies using loyal(?) employees as projectionists and ushers wearing night-vision goggles looking through the audience for 'camrippers' to bust and prosecute. This would be the only way to see movies as it was before the advent of the (in)famous VCR. If done today, there would be no more DVD movie releases(!) This model is 'sorta' used by one particular studio who regularly re-releases their handful of world-famous movies on DVD every 5-7 years (with more and more 'bonus features' to them) after having them deliberatly pulled from the market at the expiration of their 'sales window'. This practice keeps their movies in high demand with the consumers at large. Indeed, an 'out of print' copy of these movies can easily fetch two or more times the original retail price of the movie themselves!
Instead of 'waging war' against potential customers, the content industries can simply turn their current business model based on 'artificial scarcity' that can involve 14 million copies or more of the same work available for sale (I own one copy of a particular work that actually sold that many copies), into one of real scarcity akin to a limited show run on Broadway in New York City or your city's equivalent live entertainment forum.
Then the media industry and consumers would have to deal with ticket scalpers who buy up blocks of prime
Another plus if the government followed through on the fair tax system would be the sharp reduction in the number of returns to process: Instead of the IRS processing say 100 million returns they could just process the returns of all the businesses large and small (say 1 million). Look at the benefit: 99% of the manpower at the IRS would not be needed as the number of returns to process is 99% less.
Enforcement and penalties would be easier to perform but would be likely unecessary. The 'Big Brother' infrastructure is already in place: The businesses bank their earnings with a bank who report it all to the IRS. Going the 'cash in a mattress' route will not help business who cheat on their taxes. The IRS knows where these businesses are via the local governemnts that have these business 'on file' and can simply 'stake them out' or raid them and confiscate everything.
All that will be left are people running underground businesses out of their home.
Then there could be a return to bartering: No cash changes hands and no income to tax(?)
IMO, all legitimate mail relays should refuse SMTP traffic from cable, dsl and other inappropriate IP space.
An even better solution is for mailservers to simply reject incoming IPs that ARE NOT on file with DNS as bonafide mailservers.
The problem is is that the crackers and spammers will now attack bonafide SMTP mailservers, compromise them if possible (or just set one up 'properly' for a spam/malware mailbombing). And then we are back to square one....
End user client filtering and mailservers that punish spammers and neutralize malware seem to be the best way to go. The choice is yours....
Corporates or networks don't need SOME computers to survive. They need ALL to survive. Data is sacred not computers. Data is located in far flung pockets of the network. The loss of even small amounts of data can be disastrous. Telling someone "it's ok cos' some of our computers survived" will get you fired.
For the Apollo 13 astronauts, ground control computer failure of any sort (including system compromise by hostile users) would have been all but a guaranteed death sentence for the 3 men aboard the crippled, barely-working spaceship.
Gene Krantz was right. In mission-critical situations: Failure is *not* an option!
As for the data being 'sacred', I agree about that. Data collected, created, or processed (including the software itself as a form of 'data') is eminently more valuable than the hardware itself that contains it which can be replaced/upgraded. The same can't be said of data -- it may be irreplaceable or be too time consuming to reconstruct after experiencing catastrophic data loss.
Case in point: Before 2001-09-11, some WTC tennant's idea of off-site backup was somewhere in the 'other' tower.
Look what happend that day....
Devastating, catastrophic loss of life, property, and data.
2001-09-11 should have served as a wakeup call to the IT industry: Handle your information resources with care, your livelyhood (and maybe your life) depends on it.
After decades in limbo due to the music rights, Heavy Metal finally came out on DVD. For this reason, WKRP In Cincinnati will probably never come out on DVD -- Paying for the music rights would make the series too expensive to buy on DVD.
And then you've got Darth Vader, the blackest brother in the galaxy.
In voice only.
Lucas hired James Earl Jones to be the voice of Darth Vader. If you've seen Episodes III to VI in the STAR WARS movie series, it is easy to see why: Jones' peformance in the films gives the vocal embodiment of pure villiany for the most (in)famous bad guy in movies ever created to date. Race had nothing to do with Lucas' casting decision. Though David Prowse was deeply annoyed to find out he would be dubbed in Episode IV, it didn't stop him from appearing as the body of Darth Vader in the two follow-up sequels, Episodes V and VI.
On a related note, I have seen a hilariously insightful move about race relations, perceptions, and prejudices if anyone openminded and mature enough is interested: The Gristle.
About 10 years ago I taped The Tick Vs. The Tick episode from the old cartoon of the same name.
PURE UNADULTERATED COMEDY GOLD!!! XD (^_^)
I have it on tape twice. The second time full and complete.
Unfortunately, not long after that, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed.
After that, this episode of THE TICK appparently was never aired again.
Terrorism sucks on so many levels...Most importantly the tragic loss of life and senseless destruction of property. To a lesser extent, in the aftermath of such events, the entertainment industry gets 'cold feet' putting out 'related' content so close to tragedies like this.
Case in point: Collateral Damage and Big Trouble were mothballed in the wake of 2001-09-11 but, eventually, they were commercially released.
Apparently, there was too much money invested in both those films to shelve them for good unseen in the wake of 'related current events' which prevented them from enjoying a 'normal' release.
They turn your machine into a zombie and then sell it to spammers.
But first they have to infect it.
The easy way to avoid a zombied computer:
Pretty much use any OS other than one made by Microsoft. Since the market share for a non-Microsoft OS is so small, it isn't worth the malware author's time to attack them. A successful attack (if possible) would yeild little or no damage in a collective sense.
On a Microsoft OS? More work is involved in order to stay malware free.
Go into IE and turn off ActiveX, and scripting or (religiously) use the Off By One browser or Lynx which both doesn't understand ActiveX and scripting.
Treat your email and email attachments like 'text files' like I do. I only use Outlook to send email--not receive it.
Use a software firewall and antivirus. I use Agnitum's Outpost and Grisoft's AVG. I also recommended Trend Micro's Sysclean.
A great help would be to surf the internet from behind a hardware router that drops ALL incoming unsolicited connections. The other tips mentioned above should minimize the risk of system compromise from all other user initiated connections.
After learning about a string of these 'mishaps' here lately, I wonder who *really* has the lost data now and what are they going to do with it.
Mere fraud is too obvious and passe.
Could be the start of something more sinister....
Be on your guard, people.
From the ChurchStreet's FAQ.
:)
10) Can the reconstruction software be purchased?
Not unless you are a qualifying intelligence agency. Our digitizing techniques and proprietary software cannot be purchased at this time unless your team is a high level governmental intelligence team. For others, ChurchStreet offers the reconstruction as a service, not as a product to be purchased.
Qualifying intelligence agencies should call ChurchStreet directly to get more information about our Reconstruction Software Suite.
This is just a simple(?) exercise in matching edges and colors at those edges to each other in all the piecess. This is how a standard jigsaw puzzle is assembled in 'meatspace'. ChurchStreet's software likely does this all inside the computer after the document shreds have been scanned in.
These guys are in the best postion to write/adapt such software and make it available to the public at large--not just government intelligence organizations.
P.S. For secure document destruction, burn it--it is the only way to be sure the document cannot be reconstructed. This applies to assorted forms of computer related information storage and processing--just toss the hard drives, CD-ROMs, floppy disks, RAM chips, memory sticks, motherboards, CRTs, etc., into the nearest (approved) incinerator and be done with it. It's an environmental/safety nightmare but the data in the destroyed media is now gone for good.
Want to give the ChurchStreet boys an 'impossible job?' Do the following:
1) Print up a document in English using a monospaced font.
2) Cross cut the document so that each character is in its own square 'cell' and is completly surrounded on all four sides by whitespace.
3) Hire ChurchStreet to reconstitute this document and send them the 'confetti'.
They won't be able to reconstruct the document because all the pieces are edgewise topologically identical to each other. The best they can do is use all the 'letters' and reconstruct all the words in the document. If they accomplish that, then they have to put them into the right order. If the document had 58 words on it, there would be so many message combinations that you could easily assign each one to every atom in the universe.
If their 'proprietary' document reconstruction techniques take into consideration the texture, grain, and thickness of the paper then they would stand a fighting to good chance of reconstituting such a 'challange document'.
Will this mean higher prices for desktop users? I hope not. I for one HATE with a passion laptops. There great for surfing the web and chatting on aim but for real work I need a desktop. I'm personally much more productive on a larger screen, full sized keyboard, and a comfortable external mouse.
:( :)
:)
I used to lug around A DESKTOP TOWER in order to do my work several years ago. Horrifically inconvenient but a necessary evil.
Getting (and using) a laptop took some getting used to but now I wouldn't use a desktop unless I absolutely have to. My laptop allow me to work anywhere there is an electrical outlet, a chair and a desk. I heard that the laptop I have was one of the first ones to 'cram' desktop computing power in a laptop-sized package--kudos the the laptop manufactuer! (They are Japanese and they put out music and anime 'on the side'. I won't identify them lest I be branded a 'corporate shill' but I will say their laptops are built to last! My boss dropped his laptop several times with the last time borking the LCD display for good. Guess what? The HD was fine throughout all the unintentional abuse and is now working inside a laptop made by a large U.S. computer/business machine firm that shall remain nameless to avoid me being branded a 'corporate shill'.
And to the smart asses who say you can hook all these up to a notebook, yeah but why?
I did that at first then quit. I only hook up assorted data storage devices to my laptop via USB nowadays as these are external peripherals that matter the most to me.
I like my laptop and am glad I was able to get one to use it.
Laptops truly make computing complete and convenient - Ahhhh!
If (when?) DRM/Trusted Computing becomes the defacto standard and the current Internet shuts out/locks out DRMless hardware/software, it just means a return back to days of Bulletin Board Systems and FidoNet (BBS-based 'Internet') for people who truly care about their interet experience and don't want it tainted by DRM/Trusted Computing. Such an 'Internet' will benefit from the absence of the bandwith-sapping, 'unwashed masses' who only see today's Internet as little more than 'online televison' and/or a 'shopping mall'. Email spam should be non-existant on this 'new' internet as the people who use it would be savvy enough to block/delete spam on sight and blackhole the IPs that spew the stuff pronto.
For all Netizens who truly care about the free echange of ideas and resources, please archive all the legally shareable bits of the current Internet you can so you can share them on the 'new internet' when you have to and let the IP cartels have the current spammed-out Internet as their own 'private' content distribution medium.
North Korea is a recognized terrorist state
Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism
This page is over 4 years old but still seems to be official as it is still 'up' at the time of this post.
Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria are also on this list for various reasons. Read the page for more information if you want to.
P.S. Want to export crypto outside USA/Canada and are in the USA? Read this first!
Crypto is (ultimately?) math.
Why treat a reversible mathematical transformation as a 'dangerous weapon' just because it can be used to hide secrets?
The 'terrorists' are using strong crypto in defiance of any countries rules on the subject. Why hamstring e-commerce and computer programmers world wide because of it?
Well, as a last resort, there is always Chaffing and Winnowing: Confidentiality without Encryption Let's see governments worldwide outlaw that!
Isn't this the *real* reason why Microsoft is 'killing' it?
Beware of 'Trusted Computing'. I'll bet Longhorn is the gateway to that DRM nightmare....
I've seen this mentioned here quite some time ago (no, I don't have the relavent link at hand). Anyway, my guess is these 'hackers' might be 'cookbookers' who are just 'following scripts' put out by 'real hackers' (really system crackers). However, as North Korea is a recoginzed 'terrorist state' and has 'The Bomb', this threat should not be taken lightly.
If the CIA or any other world famous security organization have their act together, all the 'good stuff' is on an internal computer network that has ABSOLUTELY NO CONNECTION TO THE INTERNET (or any other form of 'at large' telecommunications). This is very important as it is impossible to break into such a system -- there is no 'front door' to use to gain access. The usual procedure is to have two computers side by side: one on the secure internal network and the other connected to the internet/unsecure network. A human being is required to type information from the insecure PC to the secure one and vice versa. In this setup, the only way the secrets can get out is if the human in this situation is incompetent, being blackmailed (and told no one who can help them), or an outright traitor -- there are no other alternatives.
There is a slight chance of passively picking up the secret stuff with a so called TEMPEST attack but surely the IT people at these kind of organizations have already taken measures to make such attacks effectively impossible.
Really though, this doesn't sound so anonymous anyway. All the **AA has to do is set up a bunch of "C" machines, and keep logs.
Won't do them any good if the data being relayed through them is encrypted. All they'd have is dates, times, IPs, and volume of data sent by said IPs. Is that probable cause to 'crack down' on these IPs addresses and the people using them?
Any comments?
The 'compact disc digital audo' logo is on the CD itself so it should be a 'real' CD.
A while back I bought the LOTR:ROTK OST and had to 'jump through hoops' to get it to my PC hard disk as a compressed wave file to listen with WinAmp. I didn't have any problem space shifting the other two soundracks in the series though.
On a related note of sorts, I saw Episode III at the movies and did not notice those annoying 'cap codes' used by the studios to catch 'camrippers' and punish the theaters that 'allow them to work'.
I don't think there were any in the film because I would have noticed them being used as I have in other movies I've seen in the theaters in the past. This is all 'moot' as the film wound up on the Internet a few hours after 12:01 AM 2005-05-19 anyway.
Also, I have tons of free diskspace left and 2 gigs of RAM. There's no reason anything should be streaming off my DVD. Drop the entire contents on the HD, and stream it from there.
Copy protection is the only sensible reason publishers do this. Why else would they force you to keep the optical media in the drive in order to play the game? Cracking the game or using a 'virtual CD drive' may or may not solve this 'problem'.
P.S. I just bought the Episode III soundtrack. There is a big FBI logo stamped on both the CD and the bonus DVD as well as on the backside insert card in the jewel case -- thus marring the artistic beauty of these mass-produced materials.... This is ultimately pointless as the ripping tools are already out there and if the media is uncopyable digitally, it sure is copyable in the analog domain.
Instead of defacing websites?
If they are smart and talented enough to break into a webserver, they could use those skills to set up some sort of clearinghouse for phish sites to avoid that could be done as some sort of proxy + RBL for phish sites. Better yet, program a web proxy program that does something simple:
Compare the href tags in downloaded webpages with the displayed links. If the 'root' domains don't match, imbed a warning in the HTML page before it is sent to the browser for the user to see. The proxy could be programed to look out for spoofery involving internet giants like eBay PayPal and the like. Of course this could be construed as a copyright violation for modifying someone else's webpage (unless you happen to be Google with their Google Cache).
i'm kind of waiting for if you want to use your laptop, you're limited to battery life
That won't stop the madcore wifi squatters from bringing a buncha batteries with them to power their laptop(s). Do they care if they have about 5 minutes of downtime (or so) to swap out a dead/dying laptop battery for a fresh one?
If there is a will, there is a way (to exploit/abuse a common resource available to the general public at large [like email]).
These alternatives have been proven to be secure, likely just as secure as the 'big boys' like PGP and GPG.
Enjoy!
Tiny Encryption Algorithm
Pure Crypto Project
CipherSaber (CAUTION: uses RSA's 'cracked' RC4 algorithm)