I simply mean that eBay doesn't pro-actively monitor the contents of any posting. If somebody complains, they will check it out, but many questionable postings remain on the service for many hours or days.
In this respect, they are something like a bulletin board system.
I wonder if you would say the same thing about craigslist?
The issue that bothers me, and it has nothing to do with elephants or ivory, is that eBay is merely a silent broker in these transactions. Could you realistically expect the relevant carriers of information to ban exchanges of ivory arranged over e-mail? Over postal mail? The telephone? At swap meets?
eBay has built the smoothest, most liquid, easiest-to-use method of arranging private sales between geographically disparate private parties. That results in transaction volume that far exceeds the capability of any single person to review it (and read TFA and you'll see that even IFAW built its statistics by doing the most basic text searches -- they didn't actually try to verify anything).
Organizations that like to tell people what to do and get themselves in the news, like the IFAW, hate such liquid markets. They want all transactions involving their particular interest to be monitored, filtered, verified, etc. Even though they are not willing to do it themselves.
So if we monitor, filter, and verify transactions involving ivory, where do we stop? Do we ever stop? Does private enterprise go away and get replaced by "monitored and certified enterprise"?
They are the same thing economically. Communism demands authoritarian central control of the means of production. It's right there in the manifesto. That's no different than rank-and-file fascism.
You can quibble about how the top-level organization of the two governments may differ, but when the rubber hits the road, the result is very much the same: production is nationalized and the ability to freely exchange the products of labor is eliminated. Free markets are the antithesis of central control.
Not it's *not* a whole other thing. Bringing free markets under government control to serve the national interest is a basic tenet of authoritarianism.
The TFA advocates:
"consider reopening the question of a federal charter or license for US firms as a way to specify certain requirements for behavior"
Let me translate that into English for you:
"consider reopening the question of a federal barrier to entry into the marketplace for new competitors with meritorious ideas, so we can line the pockets of our cronies with sweet, sweet oligopoly money"
The free market is survival of the fittest, and that idea is at the core of fascist thinking.
I challenge you to back this up with facts. The core of all fascist regimes is rigid government control of the economy. The first thing an authoritarian government seeks to do is socialize the economy, so it can direct money toward its supporters and away from its enemies.
If anything, it's the carrot of free markets that is slowly drawing traditionally authoritarian regimes (Cuba, China for example) into the 21st century.
Free market economies reward consumer utility. Nothing more. "Strength" is a word that has no meaning in a free market, except perhaps that talented individuals form firms that maintain competitive advantage. You can call that strength, if you wish. I think a better word is "merit".
Simply use symmetric encryption (AES-256, for example) with a strong random key, then provide the key on a separate hand-delivered or voice-delivered medium.
Public key doesn't really buy you anything in this case -- if somebody grabs their copy of the symmetric key, you're screwed. If somebody grabs their copy of the private key, you're screwed. Protecting the private key with an additional symmetric key doesn't make it more secure.
But explaining to a clueless consultant how to keep a single key secure is a lot easier than trying to explain public key/private key operation.
Ender_Stonebender (60900): Linux is usable: Did you read the part of the article where searching for a directory is mentioned? There are a large number of things that could be done to increase the usability of Linux - but these are not tasks which programmers find "interesting", so they don't get done.
I disagree, they are getting done all the time. Look at how far Ubuntu has come in just a couple of years. The problem is, every user interface has idiomatic differences that you can obsess about all day long, if you want. I find it incredibly infuriating that Windows won't show me a list of files and folders sorted by name. You can tell it to sort by name, but it will always group certain types of files and folders non-alphabetically. Back to the DOS command line for me.
Some users can't get over these differences. They will never be happy with the initial switch to a new OS, and that barrier to entry will often be high enough to prevent them from ever switching. Unless you write a window manager that completely replicates a competing product, you will never get past that problem. Ever.
I'd rather Linux OS & GUI developers spend their time developing and deploying new concepts, than blow 80% of their effort replicating something that already exists in another OS.
OK, call off the dogs, Windows admins. I'm not an AD admin, and I admit it. At the time we were looking at this problem (like I said, Sept 2007), the documentation had not been fleshed out either.
The bulk converters, such as they are, do not address our our needs for several reasons:
Office 2007 converter only converts to new Office Open XML format. Files won't work with Office 2003.
Other bulk converters have various limitations, and pretty much all consist of macros that open the files in the target app and re-save them in Office 2003 format.
Per my original post, many of the documents to be converted are nowhere near an accessible command line. They are on backup media, secured in a documents database, unavailable due to security concerns, etc.
To be fair, applying the reg keys as scripts or GPOs is not that hard. I will admit to certain aggrandizement of that concern. But that still puts us in the position of running insecure code and subjecting our users to potential phishing attacks. Microsoft won't even correct the problem in Office 2007, their currently shipping product!
Allow me to specify. In this context, define "insecure" as "allowing malicious software to execute arbitrary code".
OK, yes, even by that definition, PowerPoint 4 is insecure because I believe it had a VB scripting component. But, given that you ignore the macros/VB scripts, the file data is not insecure by itself. It's the software reading the data that fails in an insecure way.
OK, yes, you could include WMFs in PowerPoint 4 files that could trigger arbitrary executable code.
It's very likely that few documents exist in such old formats at this point.
I can only speculate that you've not worked in any institutions that have persisted for more than 10 years?
I used to run a university help desk; by the time I left in late 2006 we were still getting requests to convert 5.25" floppies and DOS Wordperfect 4 documents.
The situation is complicated by many other issues:
There is no easy way to identify the files that need conversion. Microsoft gives you no tool or flag to quickly identify old files, which share the same filename conventions as current files. Except of course to open them in Office 2K3SP3 and watch them fail:-(
Although bulk conversion tools exist, they cost money and they won't reach files that are secured in such a way that IT support staff can't get at them (e.g., on a CD-ROM in a locked filing cabinet).
Because a ridiculously complicated registry hack is required to enable the converters for the old documents, there's no easy way to apply it, for example as an Active Directory group policy. We're left with error-prone methods like push tools & login scripts.
Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with the "file formats". A file format is not insecure. The issue is that Microsoft is shipping insecure code in Office 2007 and 2003 which may break when these files are opened and allow malicious executable code to run in the user's security context. Rather than fix this insecure code in a shipping product, their policy is to turn off the code and tell the user, "if you want to take the risk, turn it back on, but we won't make it easy."
I work at an organization that has been grappling with this problem since SP3 came out in September 2007. We routinely work on projects that span 15 years, so it's not at all unusual to open project documentation that is 10+ years old. Companies were loyal to MS Office precisely because it promised reasonably complete forward compatibility with archived documents. Microsoft needs to provide a more robust solution to this problem, preferably by fixing the broken code (gasp!) or (less preferably) giving system administrators the tools necessary to enable and disable the functionality in a more global way.
RTFA. That is not how "border surveillance" is defined in the Privacy International report. They are specifically referring to collection of data at the border entrance that is useful to and/or distributed to law enforcement.
I'll repeat: I see no problem with this. If I enter another country where I have no records on file, the least I can do is tell them who I am and give them the opportunity to verify. "Trust but verify" is good security policy that need not have substantial privacy implications.
However, everyone who does cross the borders LEGALLY is subjected to all kinds of privacy invasions like fingerprinting. Even just those who transit through the country - without ever leaving the international terminals at the airports - are recorded. The result is, if you want to keep your privacy you have to break the law in order to do it.
I have to wonder why anyone would think this is a problem. Basic security theory: crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. They take your fingerprints at the border precisely so can keep you out if you shouldn't be here. Since US international terminals are on US soil and planes fly over US territory, this does not seem outside the norm.
Does anyone seriously consider it a "right to privacy" to cross a national border without identification? I haven't done a lot of international travel, but I had to send my passport with my photo and all my vitals to the Australian consulate to get a tourist visa back in 1994. This did not seem strange to me; if I'm going to enter their country, it seems reasonable to tell them who I am. I don't really expect privacy in that situation.
case law on government searches has considered new technology
Considered it to be... what?
I think they probably meant to say "exempt", but given later misstatements, it's hard to say.
# REAL-ID and biometric identification programs continue to spread without adequate oversight, research, and funding structures
Huh? I thought REAL-ID was dead in the water. What does "spread" mean? Does it actually exist somewhere? Do they mean that more research and funding of REAL-ID would enhance our privacy against government surveillance? This statement is a jumble.
# World leading in border surveillance, mandating trans-border data flows
I call FUD on that. Prove that we have more per capita surveillance of border crossings than, say, Switzerland, Singapore, Norway or Israel.
Heck, we have container ships full of every product imaginable unloading left and right, and the government doesn't have a clue what is in those things. More people cross the southern borders of the USA every year undetected than *live* in some of these countries. And our border with Canada often consists of a road sign saying "Welcome to the USA, hosers!"
plans spread for 'rings of steel' around cities to monitor movements of individuals
OK, now they are just making crap up. The only relevant reference I could find about "rings of steel" referred to British security around central London. Anybody who thinks that would work in the US has never seen a freeway or a cargo train.
At best, this is a poorly edited article. At worst, it is deliberate misinformation.
All the card-based systems are migrating towards chip-based cards which should make it harder to create copies of them.
Migrating but failed. I got an American Express Blue card back in 2002 or so precisely because they offered a card with an embedded chip that is supposed to enhance security. They were supposed to issue a USB smart card reader to the card holders so they could swipe the card to make on-line purchases too.
The chip would be required for all purchases, but... to date, I have never seen the USB reader and the chip in my card has never been used. The advertised features silently disappeared from AMEX's marketing materials.
Hey, if you've got the time to make all purchases with cash, if you never buy stuff on-line or via mail order and choose not to maintain a credit card, if you pay all your bills in cash by going to the billing office for each utility instead of mailing a check or providing your check routing information for payment... then more power to you. Fight the man, brother! Just don't waste a lot of fossil fuel in the process:-)
Many people, myself included, need the convenience that non-cash mechanisms provide. It's not a luxury. Many years ago, companies would maintain local billing offices in grocery stores and strip malls so people could pay cash for utility services. They just don't do it any more, because there is not enough demand to support it.
I want paperless billing -- but I want secure paperless billing. The technology exists to support it, but companies won't invest because they do not pay the direct costs of fraud.
I used credit card and check payment as examples of financial transactions that should require strong authentication, but it doesn't end there, of course. Opening accounts, getting loans, purchasing on credit (e.g. a car or furniture or whatever), etc. are all types of transactions that should be using better authentication methods.
However, and this was the point of my post, you don't have to be "careless with credit cards or checks" to get in trouble. All that is required to create a fake check is an account number. And credit transactions can be easily faked using the information printed on the card (number and verification code) along with your publicly available address and phone number. How many people have an opportunity to memorize your credit card info every day? I'm sure there are plenty of criminals that could memorize the number, verification code and full name in just a few seconds of looking at the card, and many merchants demand your photo ID too -- so now they have your home address! There's no way to stop it; you have to give up this information to make a transaction.
What I want is a piece of information I *do not* have to give up to make a transaction, such as a secret PIN, biometric identifier or even better an RSA SecurID one-time-passcode. No system is perfect, but that would go a long way toward permanently fixing this problem.
You should be worried about these types of transactions, because, as you said, "The money may be mine, but, other than that, it has nothing to do with me." That first bit is pretty darn important. I don't know about you, but I don't want other people to take my money.
It continues to astonish me that people think of "data theft" as the cause of identity theft.
Data theft is not the problem. The problem is that financial organizations are willing to accept transactions without authentication, or with very weak authentication. Supplying a 9-digit number which is a matter of public record is not a form of authentication. It does not prove that the person speaking is the account holder. Anybody can walk into a store with a fake credit card and buy stuff in my name, no questions asked. People can write checks with my account number on them, and it will be charged to my account. At no point is the slightest attempt made to authenticate the identity of the person making the transaction and certify that they are allowed to post transactions to the account.
There is no way to "plug" these leaks; most of these names and numbers are a matter of public record and must be surrendered in order to make a transaction in the first place. The identity theft problem will not abate until account holders have enhanced authentication options, and the financial institutions are required to use them. Biometrics, physical security tokens, PINs, it doesn't really matter what solution we use. We just need to use something to verify the identify of the person making the transaction. It's the only solution.
When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago. It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content.
...
What's new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the Internet -- and no one's gonna shut down the Internet. And it only takes one stolen copy to be on the Internet. And the way we expressed it to them is: Pick one lock -- open every door. It only takes one person to pick a lock. Worst case: Somebody just takes the analog outputs of their CD player and rerecords it -- puts it on the Internet. You'll never stop that.
...
We said: These [music subscription] services that are out there now are going to fail. Music Net's gonna fail, Press Play's gonna fail. Here's why: People don't want to buy their music as a subscription. They bought 45's; then they bought LP's; then they bought cassettes; then they bought 8-tracks; then they bought CD's. They're going to want to buy downloads. People want to own their music.
He didn't actually use the words "Digital Rights Management", but I think his position in 2003 was crystal clear. DRM is not going to work in the long term. I'll say one thing for Jobs: his view of the near future is extremely good, and unlike most corporate types, he has no mental investment in his point of view. He understands the difference between sunk cost and new costs, and he watches technology evolution constantly then branches in new direction like a speed skater picking a line. He doesn't keepthrowingmoneyat bad ideas.
I've downloaded several albums and I'm very happy with it. Odd mix of bit rates (some are about 224 kbit VBR, others are 256 kbit fixed rate), but no complaints with the music. I just wish their library was larger.
Only real complaint is that the album downloader (that allows you to get the album discount) only runs on Windows & MacOS. Write a Java client and get with the program, Amazon!
Slashdot Mirror
Keep in mind that probably includes redundant drives, redundant controllers, redundant fiber connections, redundant power...
Sure, you could build your own 6TB external drive array for $1000, but it would have redundant nothing.
Bow before your new robotic overlo...
"But they're not a silent broker."
I simply mean that eBay doesn't pro-actively monitor the contents of any posting. If somebody complains, they will check it out, but many questionable postings remain on the service for many hours or days.
In this respect, they are something like a bulletin board system.
I wonder if you would say the same thing about craigslist?
(Disclaimer: I'm the OP.)
The issue that bothers me, and it has nothing to do with elephants or ivory, is that eBay is merely a silent broker in these transactions. Could you realistically expect the relevant carriers of information to ban exchanges of ivory arranged over e-mail? Over postal mail? The telephone? At swap meets?
eBay has built the smoothest, most liquid, easiest-to-use method of arranging private sales between geographically disparate private parties. That results in transaction volume that far exceeds the capability of any single person to review it (and read TFA and you'll see that even IFAW built its statistics by doing the most basic text searches -- they didn't actually try to verify anything).
Organizations that like to tell people what to do and get themselves in the news, like the IFAW, hate such liquid markets. They want all transactions involving their particular interest to be monitored, filtered, verified, etc. Even though they are not willing to do it themselves.
So if we monitor, filter, and verify transactions involving ivory, where do we stop? Do we ever stop? Does private enterprise go away and get replaced by "monitored and certified enterprise"?
They are the same thing economically. Communism demands authoritarian central control of the means of production. It's right there in the manifesto. That's no different than rank-and-file fascism.
You can quibble about how the top-level organization of the two governments may differ, but when the rubber hits the road, the result is very much the same: production is nationalized and the ability to freely exchange the products of labor is eliminated. Free markets are the antithesis of central control.
Not it's *not* a whole other thing. Bringing free markets under government control to serve the national interest is a basic tenet of authoritarianism.
The TFA advocates:
Let me translate that into English for you:
I challenge you to back this up with facts. The core of all fascist regimes is rigid government control of the economy. The first thing an authoritarian government seeks to do is socialize the economy, so it can direct money toward its supporters and away from its enemies.
If anything, it's the carrot of free markets that is slowly drawing traditionally authoritarian regimes (Cuba, China for example) into the 21st century.
Free market economies reward consumer utility. Nothing more. "Strength" is a word that has no meaning in a free market, except perhaps that talented individuals form firms that maintain competitive advantage. You can call that strength, if you wish. I think a better word is "merit".
Simply use symmetric encryption (AES-256, for example) with a strong random key, then provide the key on a separate hand-delivered or voice-delivered medium.
Public key doesn't really buy you anything in this case -- if somebody grabs their copy of the symmetric key, you're screwed. If somebody grabs their copy of the private key, you're screwed. Protecting the private key with an additional symmetric key doesn't make it more secure.
But explaining to a clueless consultant how to keep a single key secure is a lot easier than trying to explain public key/private key operation.
Wasn't this already done by the CIH (later called Chernobyl) virus, circa 1998? There was even an e-mail variant of it, based on the Loveletter worm.
So, how long does it take to type DOE into Google and hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button?
Oh, wait, you could have done that 100 times in the time required to make that post. Good use of your time, there.
Yes.
It even has the real red ring of death! It's just that authentic!
I disagree, they are getting done all the time. Look at how far Ubuntu has come in just a couple of years. The problem is, every user interface has idiomatic differences that you can obsess about all day long, if you want. I find it incredibly infuriating that Windows won't show me a list of files and folders sorted by name. You can tell it to sort by name, but it will always group certain types of files and folders non-alphabetically. Back to the DOS command line for me.
Some users can't get over these differences. They will never be happy with the initial switch to a new OS, and that barrier to entry will often be high enough to prevent them from ever switching. Unless you write a window manager that completely replicates a competing product, you will never get past that problem. Ever.
I'd rather Linux OS & GUI developers spend their time developing and deploying new concepts, than blow 80% of their effort replicating something that already exists in another OS.
OK, call off the dogs, Windows admins. I'm not an AD admin, and I admit it. At the time we were looking at this problem (like I said, Sept 2007), the documentation had not been fleshed out either.
The bulk converters, such as they are, do not address our our needs for several reasons:
Allow me to specify. In this context, define "insecure" as "allowing malicious software to execute arbitrary code".
OK, yes, even by that definition, PowerPoint 4 is insecure because I believe it had a VB scripting component. But, given that you ignore the macros/VB scripts, the file data is not insecure by itself. It's the software reading the data that fails in an insecure way.
OK, yes, you could include WMFs in PowerPoint 4 files that could trigger arbitrary executable code.
Dang it, Microsoft! Just dang it!
I can only speculate that you've not worked in any institutions that have persisted for more than 10 years?
I used to run a university help desk; by the time I left in late 2006 we were still getting requests to convert 5.25" floppies and DOS Wordperfect 4 documents.
The situation is complicated by many other issues:
Ultimately, there is nothing wrong with the "file formats". A file format is not insecure. The issue is that Microsoft is shipping insecure code in Office 2007 and 2003 which may break when these files are opened and allow malicious executable code to run in the user's security context. Rather than fix this insecure code in a shipping product, their policy is to turn off the code and tell the user, "if you want to take the risk, turn it back on, but we won't make it easy."
I work at an organization that has been grappling with this problem since SP3 came out in September 2007. We routinely work on projects that span 15 years, so it's not at all unusual to open project documentation that is 10+ years old. Companies were loyal to MS Office precisely because it promised reasonably complete forward compatibility with archived documents. Microsoft needs to provide a more robust solution to this problem, preferably by fixing the broken code (gasp!) or (less preferably) giving system administrators the tools necessary to enable and disable the functionality in a more global way.
RTFA. That is not how "border surveillance" is defined in the Privacy International report. They are specifically referring to collection of data at the border entrance that is useful to and/or distributed to law enforcement.
I'll repeat: I see no problem with this. If I enter another country where I have no records on file, the least I can do is tell them who I am and give them the opportunity to verify. "Trust but verify" is good security policy that need not have substantial privacy implications.
I have to wonder why anyone would think this is a problem. Basic security theory: crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. They take your fingerprints at the border precisely so can keep you out if you shouldn't be here. Since US international terminals are on US soil and planes fly over US territory, this does not seem outside the norm.
Does anyone seriously consider it a "right to privacy" to cross a national border without identification? I haven't done a lot of international travel, but I had to send my passport with my photo and all my vitals to the Australian consulate to get a tourist visa back in 1994. This did not seem strange to me; if I'm going to enter their country, it seems reasonable to tell them who I am. I don't really expect privacy in that situation.
Quoting TFA:
case law on government searches has considered new technologyConsidered it to be... what?
I think they probably meant to say "exempt", but given later misstatements, it's hard to say.
# REAL-ID and biometric identification programs continue to spread without adequate oversight, research, and funding structuresHuh? I thought REAL-ID was dead in the water. What does "spread" mean? Does it actually exist somewhere? Do they mean that more research and funding of REAL-ID would enhance our privacy against government surveillance? This statement is a jumble.
# World leading in border surveillance, mandating trans-border data flowsI call FUD on that. Prove that we have more per capita surveillance of border crossings than, say, Switzerland, Singapore, Norway or Israel.
Heck, we have container ships full of every product imaginable unloading left and right, and the government doesn't have a clue what is in those things. More people cross the southern borders of the USA every year undetected than *live* in some of these countries. And our border with Canada often consists of a road sign saying "Welcome to the USA, hosers!"
plans spread for 'rings of steel' around cities to monitor movements of individualsOK, now they are just making crap up. The only relevant reference I could find about "rings of steel" referred to British security around central London. Anybody who thinks that would work in the US has never seen a freeway or a cargo train.
At best, this is a poorly edited article. At worst, it is deliberate misinformation.
Migrating but failed. I got an American Express Blue card back in 2002 or so precisely because they offered a card with an embedded chip that is supposed to enhance security. They were supposed to issue a USB smart card reader to the card holders so they could swipe the card to make on-line purchases too.
The chip would be required for all purchases, but... to date, I have never seen the USB reader and the chip in my card has never been used. The advertised features silently disappeared from AMEX's marketing materials.
Hey, if you've got the time to make all purchases with cash, if you never buy stuff on-line or via mail order and choose not to maintain a credit card, if you pay all your bills in cash by going to the billing office for each utility instead of mailing a check or providing your check routing information for payment... then more power to you. Fight the man, brother! Just don't waste a lot of fossil fuel in the process :-)
Many people, myself included, need the convenience that non-cash mechanisms provide. It's not a luxury. Many years ago, companies would maintain local billing offices in grocery stores and strip malls so people could pay cash for utility services. They just don't do it any more, because there is not enough demand to support it.
I want paperless billing -- but I want secure paperless billing. The technology exists to support it, but companies won't invest because they do not pay the direct costs of fraud.
I used credit card and check payment as examples of financial transactions that should require strong authentication, but it doesn't end there, of course. Opening accounts, getting loans, purchasing on credit (e.g. a car or furniture or whatever), etc. are all types of transactions that should be using better authentication methods.
However, and this was the point of my post, you don't have to be "careless with credit cards or checks" to get in trouble. All that is required to create a fake check is an account number. And credit transactions can be easily faked using the information printed on the card (number and verification code) along with your publicly available address and phone number. How many people have an opportunity to memorize your credit card info every day? I'm sure there are plenty of criminals that could memorize the number, verification code and full name in just a few seconds of looking at the card, and many merchants demand your photo ID too -- so now they have your home address! There's no way to stop it; you have to give up this information to make a transaction.
What I want is a piece of information I *do not* have to give up to make a transaction, such as a secret PIN, biometric identifier or even better an RSA SecurID one-time-passcode. No system is perfect, but that would go a long way toward permanently fixing this problem.
You should be worried about these types of transactions, because, as you said, "The money may be mine, but, other than that, it has nothing to do with me." That first bit is pretty darn important. I don't know about you, but I don't want other people to take my money.
It continues to astonish me that people think of "data theft" as the cause of identity theft.
Data theft is not the problem. The problem is that financial organizations are willing to accept transactions without authentication, or with very weak authentication. Supplying a 9-digit number which is a matter of public record is not a form of authentication. It does not prove that the person speaking is the account holder. Anybody can walk into a store with a fake credit card and buy stuff in my name, no questions asked. People can write checks with my account number on them, and it will be charged to my account. At no point is the slightest attempt made to authenticate the identity of the person making the transaction and certify that they are allowed to post transactions to the account.
There is no way to "plug" these leaks; most of these names and numbers are a matter of public record and must be surrendered in order to make a transaction in the first place. The identity theft problem will not abate until account holders have enhanced authentication options, and the financial institutions are required to use them. Biometrics, physical security tokens, PINs, it doesn't really matter what solution we use. We just need to use something to verify the identify of the person making the transaction. It's the only solution.
I think you need to read more carefully.
Quoth Jobs:
...
...
He didn't actually use the words "Digital Rights Management", but I think his position in 2003 was crystal clear. DRM is not going to work in the long term. I'll say one thing for Jobs: his view of the near future is extremely good, and unlike most corporate types, he has no mental investment in his point of view. He understands the difference between sunk cost and new costs, and he watches technology evolution constantly then branches in new direction like a speed skater picking a line. He doesn't keep throwing money at bad ideas.
I've downloaded several albums and I'm very happy with it. Odd mix of bit rates (some are about 224 kbit VBR, others are 256 kbit fixed rate), but no complaints with the music. I just wish their library was larger.
Only real complaint is that the album downloader (that allows you to get the album discount) only runs on Windows & MacOS. Write a Java client and get with the program, Amazon!