He compared it to making a phone call and getting a busy signal, then trying again and getting through Hey, good phone analogy, but you're not quite right, Mr. Comcast Executive. Let me try to lend you a hand: it's like already being on a phone call and having it dropped in the middle of your conversation. Over and over and over. And it makes you so angry you vow you're going to cancel your service and switch to a competitor, except you can't, because they're the Phone Company, the only game in town.
At least, that's the way it works for a huge portion of Comcast's service area, including large swaths of Chicagoland.
You want to deny everybody else access to the wires you laid on public easements, using grants, subsidies, and tax breaks given to you by the government? Fine. Pay all of the back leasing costs and taxes that were handed to you so you could establish your geo-monopolies everywhere. Sounds fair to me.
Sometimes I read the RIAA's arguments and I think I can figure out what they're saying behind us: "Oh, yeah, 'downloading Linux' (nudge) yeah, right... (smirk) 'legitimate traffic' (nudge), heh heh." You know what? Legitimate traffic or not, I don't give a damn. They're poking around in my traffic, and worse, changing parts of it. If Comcast is examining my traffic to see if it is conforming to P2P traffic patterns, what else are they examining my traffic for? If they are spoofing packets and claiming they came from me, what else might they censor or add? People may say that's tinfoil-hat thinking, but we already know for a fact that ISPs collude with the MPAA/RIAA to catch "pirates," and telcos have colluded with the government to catch "terr'rsts." All it takes is the right number of zeroes after the dollar sign, and I'm sure they'll be happy to deliver whatever sorts of traffic reports their clients want, "for the good of the [country|DMCA|Patriot Act].
Or a T1, or IDSL... or probably some other option you haven't considered because your looking for something under $100/mo...
Because I don't even have comcast as an option, I'm basically stuck with dialup, satellite, T1, or IDSL. At the moment, I've chosen IDSL (144/144kbps @ $120/mo), but I'm seriously considering a full T1 and sharing the bandwidth with neighbors to offset the cost.
Some people just take 'cheap bandwidth' for granted. You're right, there is IDSL. I actually did consider it for a while, before even Comcast was available at my location, but I was already using a 56k modem on a dedicated dial-up line and the total cost came out to around $40/mo. I couldn't justify barely doubling that speed for a 200% increase in price. The T-1 idea was (and is) pretty much out of the question for me, as I doubt anybody in my neighborhood is a techie-enough type to go for it.
I'm not trying to argue the monetary value of bandwidth, just that I always hear people saying "if you don't like it, quit and use a competitor instead," and it annoys the hell out of me. I define a competitor to Comcast as a company that offers comparable speed for a comparable price, and using that definition, there are none available for myself and a lot of other folks in the United States.
You could relocate, that'll show em!! Believe me, if I would, I could (and for more reasons than broadband selection), but I own a house and now isn't exactly the best time to be trying to sell. Maybe in a few years... in the meantime, I'm stuck with Comcast, like thousands of other people in the Chicago metropolitan area.
Oh, yeah, I'm a whole thirty miles out of downtown Chicago. Holy cow, I must be plowin' fields n' chawin' tobbacky! GIT ON THE TRACTOR, MA! WE'S A-GOIN' TO SEE THEM THAR CITY FOLK!
But we now have the "Hammer" method. Boycott the bastards, no matter what the cost. Then when the people we use as an alternative to Comcast start to mess with us, just DROP them too. What a great idea! Okay, let me see, what's my alternative to Comcast? I know, DSL! Oh, wait, my house is too far from the CO, and AT&T isn't interested in expanding service in our location. Okay then, I'll go to FiOS! Oh, wait, it isn't available in my state. Alright, how about a satellite service? What's that? Half-second lag times? Well, that just about destroys any gaming or VoIP links, and costs a ridiculous amount in both startup and monthly costs, so that's out... Wireless? Nope, nothing in our area.
My choices are literally dial-up, Comcast, or nothing. And dial-up and nothing aren't really options because I often have to VPN into my office from home.
Ah yes, simple market response. I can choose any broadband provider I want, as long as it's Comcast.
mythtv likes firewire tuners, comcast's boxes have firewire outputs. Comcast disables FireWire output for a huge number of digital channels on a whim -- in Illinois, at least. I have friends who say that 75% of their programming at any given time disables the FireWire port on their STB.
I don't think that's an accurate comparison. We're talking about pulling a feature out of a product that already exists, not designing a new product. It would be more accurate if the Wii were selling worse than the PS3 and X360, and Nintendo's response was to remove GameCube back-compatibility, or the Virtual Console.
I realize Sony is doing this to cut costs by removing the Emotion Engine from the PS3's bill of materials, but it just doesn't seem to be a smart move to me when PS3 sales are already flagging. There have been pitifully few reasons why I'd be interested in a PS3: LittleBigPlanet looks cool, FFXIII is certainly a draw, and @Home has some appeal. But I have around 30 PS2 games in my library, some of which my wife and I play somewhat regularly still, and now Sony's saying that if I get a PS3, I'll have to keep my PS2 hooked up to my entertainment center to be sure I can play those? I'm out of A/V inputs as it is!
Let me get this straight. Their console is doing worse than both of their competitors, and they're going to catch up by removing features that consumers want?
I've been thinking about this for a while. I seem to remember somebody who wrote and article about reverse-engineering a trojan in order to determine the IRC channel name and password the bot used to connect to the botnet -- fascinating stuff. Anyways, this is all plain text being sent over your network, and there will be certain strings you can expect to see in any IRC connection. Wouldn't it be possible to write a packet sniffer that searches for IRC activity being attempted over your network, captures the channel name and password, joins the channel, and then hangs out until it sees the botnet controller join? Using that info one could then spoof the botnet operator and cripple (or destroy) the botnet -- perhaps by directing it to attack its own creator.
It seems to me that some serious gray-hat work could be done here to hunt down and destroy botnets, for somebody with the time, talent and interest in doing so.
And browsing through the top results, I see almost every one is either (a) about spam or (b) a spam page of its own. This seems to strengthen my theory, not weaken it. Now, combine that with checking to see if the page hides details when User-Agent = Googlebot (as the pages talking about spam should remain relatively unchanged), and you have a fairly aggressive filtering system.
Apparently it's something more subtle than what one could think of in few mins on Slashdot, and we'll learn soon enough. Damn. So much for my applying to Google with the bullet point "Solved PageRank spamming problems by posting on Slashdot after thinking for about thirty seconds" on my resumé.
What if someone is actually looking for information on Viagra, or replica Swiss watches, or cheap stocks? What if someone is looking for information on spam? That's a good point. But perhaps combinations of keywords would work -- it's pretty unlikely that you'd see "viagra" and "mortgage" on the same site, for example. If you partner this with checking for significant user-agent differences it could become a pretty good tool, I think.
Yeah, spoofing an IP is easy if you're not looking for a response... but if you're spoofing a request (as a GoogleBot would be doing), where does the response go?
Perhaps Google should create a browser extension -- completely voluntary, of course -- that essentially turns everybody's browsers into a distributed GoogleBot. Of course then they have to deal with malicious nodes poisoning the data, but that could be resolved by having a dozen or so random systems checking the same website and sending their results for comparison.
This way, no spam/scammer could filter by IP, since the IPs would be everywhere.
Which raises the question: Why not have GoogleBot do a check also as a normal user-agent (IE/Firefox/etc.) and see if the page is significantly different than when it identifies itself? At the very least GoogleBot could check if there are common blacklist words ("viagra" et al) on the website when identifying itself as IE or Firefox.
in opensource-based stuff a flash usually leaves the bootloader intact In well-designed firmware designed to be upgraded on the fly a flash leaves the bootloader intact. Don't try to pretend that this some magical quality that Open Source firmware/software has above closed systems. I'm all for open source as well, but whether or not an upgrade trashes the firmware has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
they saved a ton by using a premade OS rather than building their own Not to disagree with you, but for an embedded application as sophisticated as TomTom it would be rare (and foolish) to build your own embedded OS when there are options like VxWorks, Nucleus, QNX, etc. out there. Having said that, yes, they probably went with embedded Linux to save money over licensing one of those OSes.
But as I pointed out in my other comment, it is very likely that the folks that developed the firmware have little or nothing to do with those who developed the support drivers and applications, save for a few architecture/API/integration meetings.
I'm not saying the company as a whole shouldn't be trying to give back to the Linux community, just that you may be talking apples and oranges here when it comes to the software developers involved.
One guess is that the TomTom firmware was developed by their embedded engineering team (or outsourced), while their drivers and applications are developed by their (non-embedded) programming team. This is not uncommon; at the place I work we often design and/or develop the firmware for a company, while the company develops supporting applications in-house.
You know, like, if somebody encrypts any of their Internet traffic because they don't like the idea of Comcast snooping inside my packets to see what they're doing... well, obviously they're acting suspicious and must have something to hide.
Why else would they believe in outmoded concepts like "privacy"?
Just do a Google search for "Ad-Aware" or "Spybot" and check out how many of the sponsored links are actually links to scam or malware programs masquerading as these spyware cleaners.
Until Google stops doing business with outright criminals, I'm not going to trust them to tell me who is a criminal and who is legitimate.
Slashdot Mirror
At least, that's the way it works for a huge portion of Comcast's service area, including large swaths of Chicagoland.
You want to deny everybody else access to the wires you laid on public easements, using grants, subsidies, and tax breaks given to you by the government? Fine. Pay all of the back leasing costs and taxes that were handed to you so you could establish your geo-monopolies everywhere. Sounds fair to me.
Because I don't even have comcast as an option, I'm basically stuck with dialup, satellite, T1, or IDSL. At the moment, I've chosen IDSL (144/144kbps @ $120/mo), but I'm seriously considering a full T1 and sharing the bandwidth with neighbors to offset the cost.
Some people just take 'cheap bandwidth' for granted. You're right, there is IDSL. I actually did consider it for a while, before even Comcast was available at my location, but I was already using a 56k modem on a dedicated dial-up line and the total cost came out to around $40/mo. I couldn't justify barely doubling that speed for a 200% increase in price. The T-1 idea was (and is) pretty much out of the question for me, as I doubt anybody in my neighborhood is a techie-enough type to go for it.
I'm not trying to argue the monetary value of bandwidth, just that I always hear people saying "if you don't like it, quit and use a competitor instead," and it annoys the hell out of me. I define a competitor to Comcast as a company that offers comparable speed for a comparable price, and using that definition, there are none available for myself and a lot of other folks in the United States.
Oh, yeah, I'm a whole thirty miles out of downtown Chicago. Holy cow, I must be plowin' fields n' chawin' tobbacky! GIT ON THE TRACTOR, MA! WE'S A-GOIN' TO SEE THEM THAR CITY FOLK!
Then when the people we use as an alternative to Comcast start to mess with us, just
DROP them too. What a great idea! Okay, let me see, what's my alternative to Comcast? I know, DSL! Oh, wait, my house is too far from the CO, and AT&T isn't interested in expanding service in our location. Okay then, I'll go to FiOS! Oh, wait, it isn't available in my state. Alright, how about a satellite service? What's that? Half-second lag times? Well, that just about destroys any gaming or VoIP links, and costs a ridiculous amount in both startup and monthly costs, so that's out... Wireless? Nope, nothing in our area.
My choices are literally dial-up, Comcast, or nothing. And dial-up and nothing aren't really options because I often have to VPN into my office from home.
Ah yes, simple market response. I can choose any broadband provider I want, as long as it's Comcast.
I don't think that's an accurate comparison. We're talking about pulling a feature out of a product that already exists, not designing a new product. It would be more accurate if the Wii were selling worse than the PS3 and X360, and Nintendo's response was to remove GameCube back-compatibility, or the Virtual Console.
I realize Sony is doing this to cut costs by removing the Emotion Engine from the PS3's bill of materials, but it just doesn't seem to be a smart move to me when PS3 sales are already flagging. There have been pitifully few reasons why I'd be interested in a PS3: LittleBigPlanet looks cool, FFXIII is certainly a draw, and @Home has some appeal. But I have around 30 PS2 games in my library, some of which my wife and I play somewhat regularly still, and now Sony's saying that if I get a PS3, I'll have to keep my PS2 hooked up to my entertainment center to be sure I can play those? I'm out of A/V inputs as it is!
Let me get this straight. Their console is doing worse than both of their competitors, and they're going to catch up by removing features that consumers want?
Makes sense to me.
Wrote an article. ARGH. I never used to make those sorts of typos. It must be a natural part of the aging process. For me, anyway.
I've been thinking about this for a while. I seem to remember somebody who wrote and article about reverse-engineering a trojan in order to determine the IRC channel name and password the bot used to connect to the botnet -- fascinating stuff. Anyways, this is all plain text being sent over your network, and there will be certain strings you can expect to see in any IRC connection. Wouldn't it be possible to write a packet sniffer that searches for IRC activity being attempted over your network, captures the channel name and password, joins the channel, and then hangs out until it sees the botnet controller join? Using that info one could then spoof the botnet operator and cripple (or destroy) the botnet -- perhaps by directing it to attack its own creator.
It seems to me that some serious gray-hat work could be done here to hunt down and destroy botnets, for somebody with the time, talent and interest in doing so.
Those aren't encrypted files. I just like to keep a few multi-gigabyte files of random data on my system at all times -- it's a fetish of mine.
And browsing through the top results, I see almost every one is either (a) about spam or (b) a spam page of its own. This seems to strengthen my theory, not weaken it. Now, combine that with checking to see if the page hides details when User-Agent = Googlebot (as the pages talking about spam should remain relatively unchanged), and you have a fairly aggressive filtering system.
Yeah, spoofing an IP is easy if you're not looking for a response... but if you're spoofing a request (as a GoogleBot would be doing), where does the response go?
Perhaps Google should create a browser extension -- completely voluntary, of course -- that essentially turns everybody's browsers into a distributed GoogleBot. Of course then they have to deal with malicious nodes poisoning the data, but that could be resolved by having a dozen or so random systems checking the same website and sending their results for comparison.
This way, no spam/scammer could filter by IP, since the IPs would be everywhere.
Which raises the question: Why not have GoogleBot do a check also as a normal user-agent (IE/Firefox/etc.) and see if the page is significantly different than when it identifies itself? At the very least GoogleBot could check if there are common blacklist words ("viagra" et al) on the website when identifying itself as IE or Firefox.
But as I pointed out in my other comment, it is very likely that the folks that developed the firmware have little or nothing to do with those who developed the support drivers and applications, save for a few architecture/API/integration meetings.
I'm not saying the company as a whole shouldn't be trying to give back to the Linux community, just that you may be talking apples and oranges here when it comes to the software developers involved.
One guess is that the TomTom firmware was developed by their embedded engineering team (or outsourced), while their drivers and applications are developed by their (non-embedded) programming team. This is not uncommon; at the place I work we often design and/or develop the firmware for a company, while the company develops supporting applications in-house.
You know, like, if somebody encrypts any of their Internet traffic because they don't like the idea of Comcast snooping inside my packets to see what they're doing... well, obviously they're acting suspicious and must have something to hide.
Why else would they believe in outmoded concepts like "privacy"?
I'm sorry, I couldn't resist... and I shouldn't talk, as I've made plenty of embarrassing tyops myself.
Just do a Google search for "Ad-Aware" or "Spybot" and check out how many of the sponsored links are actually links to scam or malware programs masquerading as these spyware cleaners.
Until Google stops doing business with outright criminals, I'm not going to trust them to tell me who is a criminal and who is legitimate.