You miss the point... Your argument works under regular economic principles. But that is not the case here - we have what is essentially a monopoly. So cable companies will not offer popular channels at an individual discount (they'll probably offer promo bundles or something similar) - they will charge either the same, or more, than the less-demanded channels, because they'll make more profit that way.
It's really a case of perverted economic principles - demand for the popular channels is high (by definition - "popular" = "in demand"). In a normal, physical goods market, that would drive the price up. It'll do the same here even though supply is esentially unlimited (ie the marginal cost of supplying content to another house that is already wired is zero), because "megacorp" will make more money that way. Simple as that.
Oh yes, heaven-forbid we have a Democratic nominee with a little passion! Dean showed more life in one scream than Al Gore and Sen. Kerry would show even if their hair was on fire.
But, of course, Big Brother doesn't like people who have emotion. So... Set candidateDean = Nothing
As you tell it, I can't see that they did anything that should be criminal, quite honestly. If the three million dollars in damages is because they bought things with the credit cards, or because they used them maliciously, then that's one thing. If the three million dollars is because now the companies they cracked have to clean up their security, and the CC holders have to get new numbers, that's quite another.
I really wondered about that too - where did they come up with this $3mil figure? Was this a result of malicious use, or did they use the same monetary damage calculator the RIAA, SPA, and SCO use (ie inflated, arbitrary amounts that are grossly out of scale to the real costs)?
The crackers may well have been doing something illegal and immoral. But when I read a story with such obvious bias and leaving out critical details, I assume the writer left out the details because they don't support his bias.
TINSTAAFL. There is no such thing as a free lunch. The bad guy got some product for free, so the company lost money, so they jack up prices to cover, and we all pay for it. Ditto for credit card companies losing money.
But it doesn't stop there - if the company jacks up prices, they lose business to competition. And if word gets out about their systems being insecure, they will lose consumer trust. So if the cost of making their CC transactions more secure is less than how much money they would lose on sales (from higher prices and/or consumer distrust), then it is rational for them to be more secure. It is economics at work - you are not just paying for the company's product or the credit card company's service, you are paying for their trust, also.
Seems to me like the system works. If you don't like the price of something, then you find an alternative (which may include simply not getting whatever it was you desired).
Of course they will! Why fix security problems when you can legislate them away? It works for spam, it works for airlines (see the CAPPS II story on the front page right now), and it'll work for email viruses, too!:-)
The MM20 is designed as a second notebook for corporate executives or frequent business travelers that prefer something lightweight when traveling, Hanly says.
You are right - its the wrong price point for home use. The mass market there buys Dell, HP/Compaq, and maybe Sony. They have the cheap laptops at the price point you speak of. I'm actually in the market for a laptop, and I've decided to skip the cheap consumer junk and go with an IBM T40/41 - a durable business-class notebook backed by a 3 year warranty with a company known for great customer service. And I should be able to get it around the $1500 price point within a few months.
How could California have different laws? We're talking about federal law here - Edison had patents on his invention and had a trust company to enforce it on the east coast. So the pirates moved to California (still under federal jurisdiction, but thousands of miles away from Edison) to operate, and by the time the "law" got there, the 17 year life on the patent had expired. Given that technology has come so far since them, it seems crazy to think such a thing would have worked, but communications was a little slower back then.
This isn't some kind of constitutional right. You are paying for a commercial service. Part of that transaction involves certain restrictions in what you're able to do with the service. If you do not like those restrictions, you can choose to not use the service and either start your own or find an alternate service more to your liking.
What I find really ironic is that this is exactly opposite of what many/.'ers said back when we had those stories about broadband and "unlimited access" (and of course I'm too lazy to find the exact articles & comments & link to them). A slightly different beast, but it just seems hypocritical:
Download too many bits on your "unlimited" account, which degrades service in violation of your AUP, and get charged fees / disconnected = Bad ISP!
Get infected with a spam-relay worm, which degrades service in violation of your AUP, and get your account temporarily disabled = Good ISP!
They both amount to the same thing - you are degrading service for the ISP and its customers in violation of your AUP.
Software has a way of becoming obsolete because of the dependencies between applications, operating systems, and hardware. 5 years is probably a decent expected life span for a given version of a program.
So you were able to use Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS - running on which OS? Were you still using Windows 95? Or 98? Or did you switch to Windows 2000 or Windows XP? I don't know, but for the sake of argument let's say that Win2k / XP breaks WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. So now you have a choice - keep your existing billing functionality in WordPerfect by keeping those machines on Windows 9x (at the cost of whatever features, security, and compatibility with new products you wanted from Windows 2k / XP, such as continued MS support), or switch to a new billing system that is compatible with newer versions of Windows. It sounds like you eventually chose the latter (although there were probably many reasons, compatibility being just a small part of that decision).
The point is, while software CAN last much longer than mfgr's expectations, it is my expectation that it normally DOESN'T.
I'm going to have to agree with ostiguy. The two things I don't like about XP Pro are the product activation and the 30 seconds it takes me to turn off the dog-awful cartoon UI. Just about everything else about XP Pro I like a lot more than 2k, including network configuration, other UI enhancements, and especially Remote Desktop.
Of course, I'm one of those people who'll spend an hour or more tweaking their fresh install to turn off all the crap and run the way *I* want it to run. For most users (ie non-power users), I don't know that they'll see a big difference. Except for the stupid, bloated, cartoon XP interface that probably 98% of all XP users never change.
But, it *DOES* make it "less illegal", since money greases the wheels (and palms) of government. If you charge $$ for your software and you are a big company that has power and influence, then you can get things done the way you want. If you are a small, freedom-living company or individual, you obviously don't have money or power, and so your needs and "rights" are clearly less important.
Although I enjoy Microsoft bashing as much as the next/.'er, this is bordering troll-ish.
As much as we may hate to admit it, there are a lot of smart people working at Microsoft. To think they would simply ignore peer code review (isn't that considered an industry "best practice"?) is silly. Maybe some smaller projects, *maybe*, but even then I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least a couple sets of eyes looking over the code.
I'm sure Microsoft has deadlines and management pressures to deliver, same as just about any software company, and peer review may not always be 100% comprehensive (and not nearly as extensive as open-source procedures), but I'm sure its there.
'Course, I have no proof to back up my claims either, so I could be just as ignorant as parent!:-)
Plug & play is such a joke - I see cheap analog speakers being advertised as "plug & play". Well, duh - speakers have ALWAYS been plug & play (unless you are some kind of audiophile).
Sorry for the rant - plug & play is just another one of those marketing gimmicks that gets so diluted it becomes meaningless.
And let's throw some depth-charges in, for good measure.
Re:Not only cost, but what about security?
on
WiFi Free-For-All
·
· Score: 1
You make a good point - but, look at what has happened:
1) Many people know enough (or are convinced by the salesman) to buy surge protectors for expensive home electronics, such as home theater setups, computers, etc. Not everyone, like you said, but I suspect many do (and I have no numbers to prove or disprove this).
2) Water is a great example - it's a commodity, so it's available for practically everyone. But many, many people choose to purchase bottled water - they have commodity A, but they supplement it with more expensive option B.
I think it'll be the same thing with Internet policies & protocols. Companies in the know already uses these tools now (VPNs, for example). As more and more people are able to access the internet in public spaces, companies are going to adopt stricter policies to protect their networks & information. It is my (optimistic) hope that this will translate into more widespread adoption of secure general-use protocols. But, more likely, it'll result in greatly increased sales for VPN and related products.
Very interesting post - it's easy to miss the other side of the argument sometimes, isn't it?
I think the intent of the website creator, in taking down the site, is a good-faith effort to make it a little less abusive. Personally, I disagree with his decision to allow profs to make reviews private; instead, I think it would be better to have a feature allowing a prof's response to a particular review.
Funny how a lot of things all boil down to similar principles, isn't it? How to balance the rights & the privacy of the many against the evil intentions of the few?
Slashdot Mirror
You miss the point... Your argument works under regular economic principles. But that is not the case here - we have what is essentially a monopoly. So cable companies will not offer popular channels at an individual discount (they'll probably offer promo bundles or something similar) - they will charge either the same, or more, than the less-demanded channels, because they'll make more profit that way.
It's really a case of perverted economic principles - demand for the popular channels is high (by definition - "popular" = "in demand"). In a normal, physical goods market, that would drive the price up. It'll do the same here even though supply is esentially unlimited (ie the marginal cost of supplying content to another house that is already wired is zero), because "megacorp" will make more money that way. Simple as that.
Thankfully, we're /. - we are completely ignorant of any such nastiness 0:)
Oh yes, heaven-forbid we have a Democratic nominee with a little passion! Dean showed more life in one scream than Al Gore and Sen. Kerry would show even if their hair was on fire.
But, of course, Big Brother doesn't like people who have emotion. So... Set candidateDean = Nothing
(OT - complicated projects in VB annoy me...)
As you tell it, I can't see that they did anything that should be criminal, quite honestly. If the three million dollars in damages is because they bought things with the credit cards, or because they used them maliciously, then that's one thing. If the three million dollars is because now the companies they cracked have to clean up their security, and the CC holders have to get new numbers, that's quite another.
I really wondered about that too - where did they come up with this $3mil figure? Was this a result of malicious use, or did they use the same monetary damage calculator the RIAA, SPA, and SCO use (ie inflated, arbitrary amounts that are grossly out of scale to the real costs)?
The crackers may well have been doing something illegal and immoral. But when I read a story with such obvious bias and leaving out critical details, I assume the writer left out the details because they don't support his bias.
Agreed - so much for journalistic integrity!
TINSTAAFL. There is no such thing as a free lunch. The bad guy got some product for free, so the company lost money, so they jack up prices to cover, and we all pay for it. Ditto for credit card companies losing money.
But it doesn't stop there - if the company jacks up prices, they lose business to competition. And if word gets out about their systems being insecure, they will lose consumer trust. So if the cost of making their CC transactions more secure is less than how much money they would lose on sales (from higher prices and/or consumer distrust), then it is rational for them to be more secure. It is economics at work - you are not just paying for the company's product or the credit card company's service, you are paying for their trust, also.
Seems to me like the system works. If you don't like the price of something, then you find an alternative (which may include simply not getting whatever it was you desired).
Of course they will! Why fix security problems when you can legislate them away? It works for spam, it works for airlines (see the CAPPS II story on the front page right now), and it'll work for email viruses, too! :-)
Uh, RTFA?
The MM20 is designed as a second notebook for corporate executives or frequent business travelers that prefer something lightweight when traveling, Hanly says.
You are right - its the wrong price point for home use. The mass market there buys Dell, HP/Compaq, and maybe Sony. They have the cheap laptops at the price point you speak of. I'm actually in the market for a laptop, and I've decided to skip the cheap consumer junk and go with an IBM T40/41 - a durable business-class notebook backed by a 3 year warranty with a company known for great customer service. And I should be able to get it around the $1500 price point within a few months.
How could California have different laws? We're talking about federal law here - Edison had patents on his invention and had a trust company to enforce it on the east coast. So the pirates moved to California (still under federal jurisdiction, but thousands of miles away from Edison) to operate, and by the time the "law" got there, the 17 year life on the patent had expired. Given that technology has come so far since them, it seems crazy to think such a thing would have worked, but communications was a little slower back then.
It's not Real suing out of the blue just because Windows Media Player exists.
<mode=SCO>
But that's not a reason not to sue...
</mode>
But, you said "functional". So why would you want someone to send you MS Office? :-)
This isn't some kind of constitutional right. You are paying for a commercial service. Part of that transaction involves certain restrictions in what you're able to do with the service. If you do not like those restrictions, you can choose to not use the service and either start your own or find an alternate service more to your liking.
What I find really ironic is that this is exactly opposite of what many /.'ers said back when we had those stories about broadband and "unlimited access" (and of course I'm too lazy to find the exact articles & comments & link to them). A slightly different beast, but it just seems hypocritical:
They both amount to the same thing - you are degrading service for the ISP and its customers in violation of your AUP.
Software has a way of becoming obsolete because of the dependencies between applications, operating systems, and hardware. 5 years is probably a decent expected life span for a given version of a program.
So you were able to use Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS - running on which OS? Were you still using Windows 95? Or 98? Or did you switch to Windows 2000 or Windows XP? I don't know, but for the sake of argument let's say that Win2k / XP breaks WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. So now you have a choice - keep your existing billing functionality in WordPerfect by keeping those machines on Windows 9x (at the cost of whatever features, security, and compatibility with new products you wanted from Windows 2k / XP, such as continued MS support), or switch to a new billing system that is compatible with newer versions of Windows. It sounds like you eventually chose the latter (although there were probably many reasons, compatibility being just a small part of that decision).
The point is, while software CAN last much longer than mfgr's expectations, it is my expectation that it normally DOESN'T.
I'm going to have to agree with ostiguy. The two things I don't like about XP Pro are the product activation and the 30 seconds it takes me to turn off the dog-awful cartoon UI. Just about everything else about XP Pro I like a lot more than 2k, including network configuration, other UI enhancements, and especially Remote Desktop.
Of course, I'm one of those people who'll spend an hour or more tweaking their fresh install to turn off all the crap and run the way *I* want it to run. For most users (ie non-power users), I don't know that they'll see a big difference. Except for the stupid, bloated, cartoon XP interface that probably 98% of all XP users never change.
Don't be silly - I'm sure Herr Bush and his minions will think up a far better name for it. Like, Operation Kill The Bad Guys.
I would just like to say, I applaud this conversation. Doubleplus good! :-)
er, that should have read...
[mode=cynical]
(rant...)
[/mode]
But, it *DOES* make it "less illegal", since money greases the wheels (and palms) of government. If you charge $$ for your software and you are a big company that has power and influence, then you can get things done the way you want. If you are a small, freedom-living company or individual, you obviously don't have money or power, and so your needs and "rights" are clearly less important.
Although I enjoy Microsoft bashing as much as the next /.'er, this is bordering troll-ish.
:-)
As much as we may hate to admit it, there are a lot of smart people working at Microsoft. To think they would simply ignore peer code review (isn't that considered an industry "best practice"?) is silly. Maybe some smaller projects, *maybe*, but even then I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least a couple sets of eyes looking over the code.
I'm sure Microsoft has deadlines and management pressures to deliver, same as just about any software company, and peer review may not always be 100% comprehensive (and not nearly as extensive as open-source procedures), but I'm sure its there.
'Course, I have no proof to back up my claims either, so I could be just as ignorant as parent!
You could run Windows XP....
;-)
Oh wait, you said *modern* OS - so sorry
You insensitive clod! How could you say something like that?
Ahhhh... I love Eddie Izzard :-)
Plug & play is such a joke - I see cheap analog speakers being advertised as "plug & play". Well, duh - speakers have ALWAYS been plug & play (unless you are some kind of audiophile).
Sorry for the rant - plug & play is just another one of those marketing gimmicks that gets so diluted it becomes meaningless.
Agreed.
And let's throw some depth-charges in, for good measure.
You make a good point - but, look at what has happened:
1) Many people know enough (or are convinced by the salesman) to buy surge protectors for expensive home electronics, such as home theater setups, computers, etc. Not everyone, like you said, but I suspect many do (and I have no numbers to prove or disprove this).
2) Water is a great example - it's a commodity, so it's available for practically everyone. But many, many people choose to purchase bottled water - they have commodity A, but they supplement it with more expensive option B.
I think it'll be the same thing with Internet policies & protocols. Companies in the know already uses these tools now (VPNs, for example). As more and more people are able to access the internet in public spaces, companies are going to adopt stricter policies to protect their networks & information. It is my (optimistic) hope that this will translate into more widespread adoption of secure general-use protocols. But, more likely, it'll result in greatly increased sales for VPN and related products.
Very interesting post - it's easy to miss the other side of the argument sometimes, isn't it?
I think the intent of the website creator, in taking down the site, is a good-faith effort to make it a little less abusive. Personally, I disagree with his decision to allow profs to make reviews private; instead, I think it would be better to have a feature allowing a prof's response to a particular review.
Funny how a lot of things all boil down to similar principles, isn't it? How to balance the rights & the privacy of the many against the evil intentions of the few?