You've got to be kidding. Then why not have the phone company randomly assign you a new telephone number each time you pick up the headset. No one would be able to call you, but you'd have lots of privacy!
This argument about backup copies and "illegal" copies is a strawman. The game companies put those "protections" into their systems to control who writes programs for their computers. (yes, game systems are fully operational computers.) It has nothing to due with copyright other than software companies claim their EULAs are valid because of copyright law.
IANAL, but I do not see how under any legal theory EULAs could be considered valid. First off, you generally aren't shown the EULA before you buy the product, in my jurisdiction that constitutes a blank contract which isn't valid. You don't even sign it anyway, so where is the agreement on the part of the buyer? Secondly, the companies say EULAs are enforcable because you have to agree when you copy the software to your system. In a game console you don't copy the firmware at all. Even if it is copied to RAM, it is highly dubious to apply copyright law because copyright law was ment to apply and applies to distribution, not simple copying.
I have a Nintendo DS, and I want to program it so I can use it as a PDA / portable computer and such. I bought it, I own it. There is no legitimate reason for me to be forbidden to use it in such a manner. In fact, the game companies should be charged with deceptive practices and possibly antitrust voilations for putting such "antitampering" "features" into their products.
That is why there is a need for protocols which try to connect to the closest peer on the network. Yeah, there are plenty of situations where you need something from a specific location or an item specific to you, but there are plenty of situations where many people will have a copy of what you want. The current client/server model of doing most things also causes these hangups. Having to go from your computer to a server to your next door neighbor can be very inefficient.
You must be stuck in the WebTV version of the internet.
How about an interactive 3D environment with no slowdowns / weird behaviour due to latency and bandwidth limitiations? How about home users being able to be true peers on the internet (the way the network was designed to run) instead of not being allowed to run servers or worse being restricted to only the web and email--isps claiming servers and other apps use too much bandwidth. They wouldn't have this argument anymore.
In fact email was originally designed to be sent directly to your machine, not be waiting on some server until you pick it up. Instant notification. And if unix talk made a comeback, it would break the stranglehold a few companies have on IM. They require you to use their servers on their terms. With anyone able to run a talk/IM or IRC server, we have easier access and a greater freedom of choice.
I'm sure plenty of others could think of more uses for such a network...
Because the guy is making up bullshit. It is obvious to anyone who knows anything about electronics or computers. DRAM is made up of capacitors which do store charge, but it leaks away in a matter of seconds or minutes based on the quality and size of capacitor. SRAM is made up of transisters and loses all its state as soon as power is lost.Neither one of these would retain any data whatsoever without power after even a small amount of time, say 15 minutes.
There is flash memory, but no one will use it as RAM because it goes bad after only a few thousand state changes--would probably only last a few seconds on a modern computer. There are also magnetic forms of memory used in chips, but from what I understand it is still experimental and bulky, though it was used in some ancient computers (before the days of microchips).
Maybe you should travel to Utah and Colorado, then you'd know what you where talking about. The vast majority of people live the central part of both states, not near the borders. If you actually drove around the Colorado and Utah border as I have, you'd know hardly anyone lives there. Most of the people who could do what you describe would have to be park rangers or ranchers or something. Only a small handfull of people live anywere near the Utah/Colorado border.
Worse yet, sometimes I'll bookmark a page and go back to it, and the page will be gone, the site down, or changed to something which isn't useful to me.
Yes, but if you post the illegal document, anyone can send a DMCA complaint to your hosting and have it taken down to shut you up.
Say this was a politician who was living under a false ID. Maybe he was really a criminal before he moved into town. You find this out and post a picture of his new and old ids on your website to prove it. He sends a DMCA complaint to take it down. Let's say this is the only way you are able to tell anyone (we'll say you are home bound). Nobody will find out for probably at least several days because your host will take down the page and the only way to get it back would be to sign a document stating you really own the copyright. However you don't, so you go to jail for perjury. And so on...
Actually they've been trying to implement an uncrackable watermarking system which would flag restricted music, then they wanted to mandate all recording devices and computers everywere detect these watermarks (at an increased expense in terms of cost for hardware and/or processing time--scanning all audio data is not free). It was called SMDI. Didn't really fly: first off, Professor Ed Felton showed he could easily crack the watermarking. Second, the bills which would've enforced things like the mandatory watermark detection (such as the SSSCA --info at EFF) caused a huge uproar. I think the MPAA also wanted it for video too.
I mean those systems could cause major problems. Just imagine if you are filming your best friend's wedding, some joker walks by with his jukebox--maybe not even audiable enough for you to notice, but loud enough for the system to detect it, and the watermarking causes your camera to stop recording. Let's say you lose the "I do" part. That could really happen.
From what I understand, banks and national treasuries have convinced some software and hardware developers to detect watermarking for photographic things. Such as Photoshop and printer drivers and such. Some printers also create a fingerprint so supposedly the secret service (or whatever agency controls currency fraud in your country) can trace the printed paper back to who printed it.
I would add incompetent companies to that. Plenty of companies will lose info, send the wrong package, send to the wrong address, have really stupid policies, etc. Every company will have problems from time to time, but some more than others. You won't have any idea unless you check them out, and no cert is going to tell you what issues a given company has.
Dealing with screw-ups can be as bad or worse than a scam....
in addition, even if the cert does weed out all pure scammers, I doubt it will take out companies with really bad/stupid/dishonest policies. I used to work for a place where one of their buyers would call a partial shipment a "gift" if they received the other partial shipment the day before. Then they would call and insist upon being credited for the product they "hadn't received." Do you really think a CA will deny or even understand to revoke a cert for such a company who makes such California claims? How do they now the person complaining isn't the real scammer? After all, there is no proof that the company actually asked for the shipment, and sending somethng without a request counts it as a gift (in my jurisdicion), so how do they know? I doubt they would even take the time and resources to investigate to such detail anyway...
That is why review sites are important. The reviews may not be 100% accurate, but reading a bunch of posts should give you an idea what you can expect...
I don't know about others, but having a valid key from a CA doesn't make me trust the site any more. I don't care if they have "levels" of trust. I look for a CA to verify the site is who they say they are and there is no man in the middle attack (supposedly).
I trust the site based upon what I know about the company behind it. If I don't know anything, I'll try searching for info about them before I buy.
The issues for me are:
Will the seller deliver the product I bought in a reasonable amount of time without hassle? Some companies are dishonest or just incompetent, the latter more common, so I need to know what pitfalls may exist while trying to do business with them.
Will someone intercept my CC and other info during the transaction? Encryption and a CA make this much more difficult, though problems with browsers and mistakes at the CA sometimes allow criminals to get around this.
Will the company themselves accidently leak my info? Insecure sites and bad company policy (letting too many emplyees see CC info) can let your CC# out into unsavory hands. Will they hold my CC info forever? The longer they hold the info in a database (especially one connected to their web site), the more likely a hacker or someone at the company may "help" themselves to my card's account. I hate those sites which insist upon keeping my CC# for "convenience". It doesn't take that long to type it in, and keeping it makes it easy if someone happens to somehow figure out my password (or a way to get around passwords) and send some merchandise to their address by charging me.
Linux is a server targeted OS. It is based on the ideas Unix/Posix and X11 which are most certainly server/client based. Though I don't see project trying to copy MSWin as a good thing...
What needs to be done is an original project made for the desktop from the ground up. I can't say if there are any which fit the bill or not...
We don't need a dominating player in the market, we need a market where no one dominates. If there is no leader, then nature dictates that all the players have to use standards or they will be limited to niche markets. Standards for everything, so programs will run on all the different systems without adapting the code. This is why things like OpenGL, libc, ELF, Ansi C and such are so important.
I think programming is going the same way as electronics did. The heyday is gone, and all the pure/top jobs are taken by those who got their degrees a long time ago and have much experience. Anyone new to the field isn't going to find much work as a programmer.
If you really want to get a job with computers, you need to look at other jobs. Something where programming skills may help, but the job title is something else. Maybe an office job. You said you know German and English, I'm sure many large corporations could use multilingual people....
One other problem: sometimes you don't get the job for other reasons. Maybe you don't dress right or some other silly thing. Try a mock interview with someone or ask others what they think... I think that is what the "breath mint" guy was trying to say.
Which drivers are you using? I've tried both the "stable" and beta drivers, and both of them crash a lot. In fact, the beta driver seems more stable! ??? I have to turn off all of the extended features and not do anthing "abnormal" like playing videos on the root window (which I would like to do) just so it will be usable. I also think their crappy libs may have broke some of my apps. BBkeys doesn't work properly on that machine now, so I can't use keyboard shortcuts. WTF?
Crappy open source drivers? What planet are you from? All the OSS drivers I have used have been rock solid, while the closed source Nvidia driver sucks. What good is a 3d video card if you can't use 3d and mpeg acceleration without fear of taking your system down?
Some people think that all emails they get should be opened, and out of curiosity, they open nearly every attachment they receive under the mistaken notion that their ISP or AV software is going to protect them.
This is one of the major problems with the software industry today. Some clueless hack does something which is incredibly stupid (design a program which runs programs, scripts and such directly off the network, creating a major security problem), nearly everyone copies this "feature", then people blame the users because they aren't careful to avoid this problem. No one should be afraid of opening an email attachment or visiting a web page.
If a file has any code it it, it should not be run by default or just by clicking it. If it has code, the user should have to at least save it and open it in another program. Perhaps even setting an exec permission flag.
When I VIEW an email DOCUMENT or a web DOCUMENT or a file off the network, it should NEVER execute code. For a program to execute any random code is just asking for trouble. To go with your car analogy, it is like puting steering wheels, brakes, accelerators on the outside of the car, so any idiot walking by can mess with it. You wouldn't blame a driver if some stranger walked up and tapped the accelerator causing the car to go crashing into the car in front of it, would you?
I don't think so...Once the registry program is running, the activex control would exit--I imagine. Someone with an Acer laptop can always try it and report back.;-)
Maybe it would make more sence if you were a three or four year old kid fascinated with fire and we gave the matches to you.
That analogy is completely wrong. It would be more like a carpet installation company always leaves a bunch of maches lying around on top of their very flammable carpets, all the while knowing many of the families who buy the homes will have three year old kids fascinated with matches. They don't even care about all the teenage arsonists around the neighborhood. Those companies knew about the fire dangers and practically encouraged it...
Apparently many people have forgotten recent history (the past 10-20 years). MS is the reason there are no other commercial web browser and commercial desktop OS vendors. Just look up all the info on the anti-trust trial, and that is just the beginning. The problem is indeed MS. They smash all competition then get lazy and start crapping out really poor code again. They don't care. Their goal isn't to make the best OS/browser ever, their goal is to take over the software world.
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You've got to be kidding. Then why not have the phone company randomly assign you a new telephone number each time you pick up the headset. No one would be able to call you, but you'd have lots of privacy!
This argument about backup copies and "illegal" copies is a strawman. The game companies put those "protections" into their systems to control who writes programs for their computers. (yes, game systems are fully operational computers.) It has nothing to due with copyright other than software companies claim their EULAs are valid because of copyright law.
IANAL, but I do not see how under any legal theory EULAs could be considered valid. First off, you generally aren't shown the EULA before you buy the product, in my jurisdiction that constitutes a blank contract which isn't valid. You don't even sign it anyway, so where is the agreement on the part of the buyer? Secondly, the companies say EULAs are enforcable because you have to agree when you copy the software to your system. In a game console you don't copy the firmware at all. Even if it is copied to RAM, it is highly dubious to apply copyright law because copyright law was ment to apply and applies to distribution, not simple copying.
I have a Nintendo DS, and I want to program it so I can use it as a PDA / portable computer and such. I bought it, I own it. There is no legitimate reason for me to be forbidden to use it in such a manner. In fact, the game companies should be charged with deceptive practices and possibly antitrust voilations for putting such "antitampering" "features" into their products.
You said what I was trying to, but more correctly and ...ummm...better. Thank you.
That sounds like a blank contract to me. Last time I checked they were illegal. Then again maybe it's not in your jurisdiction.
That is why there is a need for protocols which try to connect to the closest peer on the network. Yeah, there are plenty of situations where you need something from a specific location or an item specific to you, but there are plenty of situations where many people will have a copy of what you want. The current client/server model of doing most things also causes these hangups. Having to go from your computer to a server to your next door neighbor can be very inefficient.
Perhaps network software needs to be rethought.
You must be stuck in the WebTV version of the internet.
How about an interactive 3D environment with no slowdowns / weird behaviour due to latency and bandwidth limitiations? How about home users being able to be true peers on the internet (the way the network was designed to run) instead of not being allowed to run servers or worse being restricted to only the web and email--isps claiming servers and other apps use too much bandwidth. They wouldn't have this argument anymore.
In fact email was originally designed to be sent directly to your machine, not be waiting on some server until you pick it up. Instant notification. And if unix talk made a comeback, it would break the stranglehold a few companies have on IM. They require you to use their servers on their terms. With anyone able to run a talk/IM or IRC server, we have easier access and a greater freedom of choice.
I'm sure plenty of others could think of more uses for such a network...
Geek bars. Preferably one which is Star Trek themed.
Comic cons work too. Cosplay girls are HOT! HOT! HOT!
Because the guy is making up bullshit. It is obvious to anyone who knows anything about electronics or computers. DRAM is made up of capacitors which do store charge, but it leaks away in a matter of seconds or minutes based on the quality and size of capacitor. SRAM is made up of transisters and loses all its state as soon as power is lost.Neither one of these would retain any data whatsoever without power after even a small amount of time, say 15 minutes.
There is flash memory, but no one will use it as RAM because it goes bad after only a few thousand state changes--would probably only last a few seconds on a modern computer. There are also magnetic forms of memory used in chips, but from what I understand it is still experimental and bulky, though it was used in some ancient computers (before the days of microchips).
Maybe you should travel to Utah and Colorado, then you'd know what you where talking about. The vast majority of people live the central part of both states, not near the borders. If you actually drove around the Colorado and Utah border as I have, you'd know hardly anyone lives there. Most of the people who could do what you describe would have to be park rangers or ranchers or something. Only a small handfull of people live anywere near the Utah/Colorado border.
Worse yet, sometimes I'll bookmark a page and go back to it, and the page will be gone, the site down, or changed to something which isn't useful to me.
Yes, but if you post the illegal document, anyone can send a DMCA complaint to your hosting and have it taken down to shut you up.
Say this was a politician who was living under a false ID. Maybe he was really a criminal before he moved into town. You find this out and post a picture of his new and old ids on your website to prove it. He sends a DMCA complaint to take it down. Let's say this is the only way you are able to tell anyone (we'll say you are home bound). Nobody will find out for probably at least several days because your host will take down the page and the only way to get it back would be to sign a document stating you really own the copyright. However you don't, so you go to jail for perjury. And so on...
This is a problem, don't you think?
They will just add more talk about celebrities. I gave up on "news" outlets a long time ago.
Actually they've been trying to implement an uncrackable watermarking system which would flag restricted music, then they wanted to mandate all recording devices and computers everywere detect these watermarks (at an increased expense in terms of cost for hardware and/or processing time--scanning all audio data is not free). It was called SMDI. Didn't really fly: first off, Professor Ed Felton showed he could easily crack the watermarking. Second, the bills which would've enforced things like the mandatory watermark detection (such as the SSSCA --info at EFF) caused a huge uproar. I think the MPAA also wanted it for video too.
I mean those systems could cause major problems. Just imagine if you are filming your best friend's wedding, some joker walks by with his jukebox--maybe not even audiable enough for you to notice, but loud enough for the system to detect it, and the watermarking causes your camera to stop recording. Let's say you lose the "I do" part. That could really happen.
From what I understand, banks and national treasuries have convinced some software and hardware developers to detect watermarking for photographic things. Such as Photoshop and printer drivers and such. Some printers also create a fingerprint so supposedly the secret service (or whatever agency controls currency fraud in your country) can trace the printed paper back to who printed it.
I would add incompetent companies to that. Plenty of companies will lose info, send the wrong package, send to the wrong address, have really stupid policies, etc. Every company will have problems from time to time, but some more than others. You won't have any idea unless you check them out, and no cert is going to tell you what issues a given company has.
Dealing with screw-ups can be as bad or worse than a scam....
in addition, even if the cert does weed out all pure scammers, I doubt it will take out companies with really bad/stupid/dishonest policies. I used to work for a place where one of their buyers would call a partial shipment a "gift" if they received the other partial shipment the day before. Then they would call and insist upon being credited for the product they "hadn't received." Do you really think a CA will deny or even understand to revoke a cert for such a company who makes such California claims? How do they now the person complaining isn't the real scammer? After all, there is no proof that the company actually asked for the shipment, and sending somethng without a request counts it as a gift (in my jurisdicion), so how do they know? I doubt they would even take the time and resources to investigate to such detail anyway...
That is why review sites are important. The reviews may not be 100% accurate, but reading a bunch of posts should give you an idea what you can expect...
I don't know about others, but having a valid key from a CA doesn't make me trust the site any more. I don't care if they have "levels" of trust. I look for a CA to verify the site is who they say they are and there is no man in the middle attack (supposedly).
I trust the site based upon what I know about the company behind it. If I don't know anything, I'll try searching for info about them before I buy.
The issues for me are:
Linux is a server targeted OS. It is based on the ideas Unix/Posix and X11 which are most certainly server/client based. Though I don't see project trying to copy MSWin as a good thing...
What needs to be done is an original project made for the desktop from the ground up. I can't say if there are any which fit the bill or not...
We don't need a dominating player in the market, we need a market where no one dominates. If there is no leader, then nature dictates that all the players have to use standards or they will be limited to niche markets. Standards for everything, so programs will run on all the different systems without adapting the code. This is why things like OpenGL, libc, ELF, Ansi C and such are so important.
I think programming is going the same way as electronics did. The heyday is gone, and all the pure/top jobs are taken by those who got their degrees a long time ago and have much experience. Anyone new to the field isn't going to find much work as a programmer.
If you really want to get a job with computers, you need to look at other jobs. Something where programming skills may help, but the job title is something else. Maybe an office job. You said you know German and English, I'm sure many large corporations could use multilingual people....
One other problem: sometimes you don't get the job for other reasons. Maybe you don't dress right or some other silly thing. Try a mock interview with someone or ask others what they think... I think that is what the "breath mint" guy was trying to say.
Which drivers are you using? I've tried both the "stable" and beta drivers, and both of them crash a lot. In fact, the beta driver seems more stable! ??? I have to turn off all of the extended features and not do anthing "abnormal" like playing videos on the root window (which I would like to do) just so it will be usable. I also think their crappy libs may have broke some of my apps. BBkeys doesn't work properly on that machine now, so I can't use keyboard shortcuts. WTF?
Crappy open source drivers? What planet are you from? All the OSS drivers I have used have been rock solid, while the closed source Nvidia driver sucks. What good is a 3d video card if you can't use 3d and mpeg acceleration without fear of taking your system down?
This is one of the major problems with the software industry today. Some clueless hack does something which is incredibly stupid (design a program which runs programs, scripts and such directly off the network, creating a major security problem), nearly everyone copies this "feature", then people blame the users because they aren't careful to avoid this problem. No one should be afraid of opening an email attachment or visiting a web page.
If a file has any code it it, it should not be run by default or just by clicking it. If it has code, the user should have to at least save it and open it in another program. Perhaps even setting an exec permission flag.
When I VIEW an email DOCUMENT or a web DOCUMENT or a file off the network, it should NEVER execute code. For a program to execute any random code is just asking for trouble. To go with your car analogy, it is like puting steering wheels, brakes, accelerators on the outside of the car, so any idiot walking by can mess with it. You wouldn't blame a driver if some stranger walked up and tapped the accelerator causing the car to go crashing into the car in front of it, would you?
Yes, I was replying to your sarcasm. Thank you drive through.
I much prefer to strap a dildo on kernel32.dll and bend over. That guy can really give a pounding.
I don't think so...Once the registry program is running, the activex control would exit--I imagine. Someone with an Acer laptop can always try it and report back. ;-)
That analogy is completely wrong. It would be more like a carpet installation company always leaves a bunch of maches lying around on top of their very flammable carpets, all the while knowing many of the families who buy the homes will have three year old kids fascinated with matches. They don't even care about all the teenage arsonists around the neighborhood. Those companies knew about the fire dangers and practically encouraged it...
Apparently many people have forgotten recent history (the past 10-20 years). MS is the reason there are no other commercial web browser and commercial desktop OS vendors. Just look up all the info on the anti-trust trial, and that is just the beginning. The problem is indeed MS. They smash all competition then get lazy and start crapping out really poor code again. They don't care. Their goal isn't to make the best OS/browser ever, their goal is to take over the software world.