Most of the time you're incorrect to think the way you do. I say "most of the time" because this really depends on the details of the specific contract.
You see most contracts include a section laying out the guidelines of what happens if one / either / both of the parties decide to not fulfill their part of one or more of the contract agreements.
For example, the lease I signed with my landlord has one of these sections. It states that if I move out prior to the decided upon date I am to pay a certain amount of dollars. Since there are no stipulations provided for such a case where I am to be kicked out prior to the decided upon date (without just cause) this would be illegal.
Having said that, since we both agreed upon the contract, I did not sign the contract saying that I will stay until the decided upon date... I signed it saying I will either stay until that date, or I will pay the required fee.
There is no moral or legal ramifications to "breaking" these types of contracts (which is almost every contract in existence today). As soon as a contract includes these terms you are not in violation of contract breaking, you are simply adhering to one of the agreed upon outcomes of the contract.
The fact is, we have no idea what the contract between Sony and Sanu says. We should not be making moral judgements against him, or Sony, without knowing more information.
I was in the same boat as you (except with FLAC instead of OGG). EQU freakin' OWNS all over the place. You have no idea how good music can sound until you've tried this thing out. 31 bands!?. Of course you can do fewer bands if you want.
I frequently make a call to india using Reliance... the charge is only $0.129 using their toll free number. Other companies like Onesuite too provide very low cost service to many destinations including europe and india. So don't see really any great value in this.
First of all reliance is not cheap. 13 cents per minute. Onesuite is also not cheap (ranging from 2 to 14 cents per minute).
Skye is... say it with me: FREE.
Also this is totally different than using some cheap long distance carrier. This is using a phone to connect to the iSkoot service which routes your phone call over the Skype network.
You're making calls to other Skype users for free (10$ / year), from any phone including your cell phone (which only incurs the cost of local calls... for which many people get for free).
Did you even read the article? Do you even know what Skype or VOIP is? 2 cents a minute is massively expensive compared to Skype and traditional VOIP.
My VOIP plan, the cheapest and crappiest possible plan, gives me 1.6 cents per minute TO ANYWHERE, and that's the most expensive long distance you can get from the company I chose. (I don't use long distance, only local calls).
You may not see any great value in this, but that's because you have no idea what this is all about. You're comparing traditional low-cost long distance providers to a service that connects people's phones to the Skype network.
Also, you're not thinking forward enough. This is another nail in the coffin to LD carriers. Think about it. Skype has them scared, because now anyone can talk to anyone for any period of time for free (provided they're both on the network).
This means if you spend most of your time talking to a few people (which is almost always the case), and they also have a computer (which is often the case) you can just say "Why don't we use Skype!"
Problem being: I need to be at my computer to talk to them.
Problem solved!
This is an indication of a growing trend. People are unwilling to pay stupid amounts of money for LD when the means exist to do it for practically nothing.
I haven't paid a cent for long distance in the past year, and I haven't given my local Telco Monopoly a single dime either. My home phone costs me $15 a month, and I am not paying anything more!
It's called capitalism, and it's a sort of technology Darwinism where hopefully the best of the best survive. Yes, there are exceptions, but I prefer it over some central government resolution to declare whatever half-assed proposal comes first the standard.
You're incredibly naive if you still believe this.
It's a great theory, but the problem with the pseudo-democratic capitalism that survives here in North America is that the outcome rarely represents the interests of consumers.
The best product has an exactly equal amount of opportunity to flourish as the worst product. This is determined, not by consumer choice, but by politicians, marketers, and other large and powerful bodies.
The problem with our so-called "capitalism" is exactly this: we let the corporations tell us what we need. They have their psychologist designed advertising campaigns, their hushed up negative testing results (which are often spun into something positive), and their huge political clout which can sometimes force desicions on us without us even realizing it.
Having said that, I must say I too prefer this form of capitalism over some totalitarian government run market.
The interesting thing is that if we were able to elect a dictator that was perfectly good and uncorruptable (maybe a computer? maybe a genetically designed person?) I can see this approach being vastly superior to the one we currently employ.
But until that day, at least our current system gives us the impression that we have some freedom of choice, and the ability to influence the market with those choices. Reality may dictate otherwise, but this is still much better than having some easily corruptable system where, like you said, we end up with "whatever half-assed proposal comes first the standard," or worse we end up with whatever suits the interests of the government the best.
Also, about the idea of electing a computer or genetically engineered person as a dictator... I can't say I think this is the best idea either (evne if it were feasable). There's plenty of potential for badness there too:).
Anyway... all I was trying to say was: don't kid yourself. Our current market system almost never gives us the best product as the dominant one.
This is especially true in the tech sector. Examples: Windows (first OS/2, now OSX), x86 (anything else), Dell (anything else), Beta (VHS) , Qwerty, etc.
Basically every innovation brought to market is plagued by this!
Think about it this way. Who's likely going to control the adoption of HD or Blu-ray? Probably it's going to be the pornography producers. They have typically been the early adopters of these types of technology, and generally drive the markets choice.
Now, wouldn't it be nice if the pornographers had the consumers best interests at heart? But let's be realistic, they don't. They're going to pick the one that makes them the most money. And if some conglomerate decides to pull some underhanded dealings with the porn producers we're basically stuck with whatever happens.
It seems like we might be able to revolt, but we can't! A true democracy relies on a completely educated public. Certainly this does not exist, even if it COULD exist (which it can't, there's just too much to know).
Joe six-pack will rush out and buy whatever it takes to play Debbie Does Seabiscuit IV. As long as it has zoom, one handed operation, multiple camera angles, and costs less than a certain threshold percentage of the mean gross income, he'll buy it.
That's the standard situation, which of course is easily crackable. But, what if the code is on microsoft's server?
In this case, microsoft update. You can hex edit yourself to death, but you'll never get microsoft's server to give you updates if you're not a valid user.
In this situation a hex editor will do absolutely no good at all, neither will setting up a dummy server.
Sure that would get you past the installation phase, but you'd get no updates.
Also, let's be realistic here... the average joe is never going ot set up a dummy server. A lot of computer people would have no problem with that, but even then you'd need another computer, and either a fairly decent router, or the skills to build your own router.
Yes it's totally possible, but not only does it not solve the problem, but it goes way beyond cracking, patching, and key-gens.
One thing I could see someone doing is setting up their own Windows Update server, procuring all the software updates with a legal copy and then giving out a patch that makes windows connect to the fake server instead of microsoft.com.
Yeah it's possible, but it would take a while to implement something like that, what do you think Windows pirates will do in the mean time?
Probably start to consider other options.
One thing I should say though, is you're absolutely right, it was silly of me to say "never." There's always a way. I was just trying to convey that if they really really wanted to, by sacrificing a lot of their customer base, they could probably stamp out a lot of Windows piracy.
Again though, I really don't think it would be a good idea for them to do it.
No they don't do this already. The CD-Key just matches against a key algorithm. If they did what I was talking about you would never be able to install Windows without a legitmate key.
This is the reason why you can see key generators available. If such a scheme were implemented a keygen would never work.
Also, there's no reason why this wouldn't work for corporate customers. Instead of activating the key on the client machine side, this could be done at the server level.
The CD Key system they currently use is very different from what I was suggesting is a possibility for them in the future.
Again, I'm not suggesting it's a good idea, or even predicting that's what they'll do, just saying if they wanted to stop piracy, they could do it, and there's nothing we could do to get around it.
I actually have a theory that this is a precursor to a more wide spread anti-piracy scheme to be implemented by Microsoft.
This is a great way for them to test their licensing check system without causing too much harm when it goes astray. People/Companies who get adversely affected by it will still be able to function.
Once this phase is completed and they've worked out the bugs, they'll probably roll out the next phase of protection which will include install checks, maybe a check every time the computer connects to the internet... who knows how far they'll go.
Basically if they get their way, running a pirated copy of Windows simply won't be possible.
See my previous post on this for more details on how I think this would work, and why I think this would be a bad plan of action for them to take.
Keep in mind this is probably a prelude to a larger anti-piracy scheme to be phased in over the next generation(s) of Windows.
They'll likely employ the same tactic that online games use.
Every copy that's printed gets a code, same with OEM. Those codes are all recorded and shoved into a database. When you connect, you MUST have one of those codes, and ONLY ONE of those codes can be active at a time.
If this is implemented properly, there's really no way around it. The only thing you can do is buy a legit copy.
Having said that, this method is prone to all sorts of problems. For instance, many companies Ghost all of their machines, and deploy a standard image. They use the same key on all the machines, but have a stockpile of keys (usually larger than the number of actual deployed machines).
Obviously this would break that system. But, workarounds will be found. It would be easy to add (maybe it's already there?) functionality so that when a newly ghosted machine boots up on the network the server sees it has the "newly ghosted key" and assigns it one from its pool or something.
Who knows, but the point is, if Microsoft gets smart about this, there's no way you'll be able to pirate Windows anymore.
The funny thing about all of this is, I think it's actually against their best interests to do this. One of the biggest reasons Windows is so widespread is due to piracy. Many many people are simply not willing to pay for Windows. If they succeed in doing something like this, I think we'll see interest in alternative operating systems rise yet again.
I have to agree with you. Just because the guy made one comment about a company going from "desktop operating system to embedded system" doesn't null and void the entire article!
I mean really, it's no trivial matter to create a custom piece of hardware from scratch, make it run Linux, and make people have no idea that they're not just using another random hardware device.
Claiming that linux has more successful roots in the desktop GUI market than it does in the embedded market is one of the more ignorant things he could have said.
I would say putting words in the authors mouth and misrepresenting him would be one of the more ignorant things a person could do.
The article author never said "desktop GUI market" he just said "desktop market." So relax! If you think it's so easy to build a Linux distro from scratch for an embedded device, then let's see you do it!
The article is a little misleading. If you know more about the Windows USB subsystem (I've created hardware USB devices, and written Windows drivers for them) you'd know how the architecture works.
You're right that the article is talking about individual drivers that interact with the host USB subsystem, although this is a greater symptom of the USB subsystem itself. It IS a Windows vulnerability, and actually has nothing to do with the individual drivers themselves. The proper fix for this is not to patch the drivers, but to patch the USB subsystem that the drivers interact with.
If the underlying Windows USB subsystem wasn't flawed it wouldn't allow buffer overflows in device drivers to compromise the system.
As someone who's done USB device and driver development I can say that the Windows USB implementation is absolutely terrible. It comes as no suprise to me that a vulnerability was found.
How did this get modded insightful? Obviously you AND the mods did not read the article and have absolutely no idea what's going on here.
First of all there is only one USB subsystem driver for Windows. That's not actually technically correct since there are drivers for the various USB control architectures (such as UHCI, OHCI, EHCI), but they use are a small part of a larger unified USB subsystem driver.
I suspect you mistakenly thought the article was talking about the individual usb device drivers (for things like gamepads, cameras, printers, etc).
This is not what's happening at all. This is a Windows vulnerability, and actually has absolutely nothing to do with USB, other than it affects the USB subystem of the Windows (and only Windows) operating system.
There's a buffer overflow in the USB system, which allows any properly designed device to be plugged into a locked Windows computer, and execute arbitrary code (ie unlock the machine, etc).
You may think this isn't a big deal, but this is a huge deal. You can pick up USB dev kits for a couple hundred bucks that come with an FPGA, flash rom, and more. Basically for the price of one of these devices you could theoretically walk into any place where you can gain physical access to a Windows machine, and pwn it.
Yeah for sure. I put Kubuntu on her machine, simply because I've been hearing good things about the Ubuntu distros and wanted to see for myself.
Turned out to work quite well for her. She uses the Synaptic package manager to install her own apps, which she really likes. I went with Kubuntu over Ubuntu simply because I knew she would like KDE.
As a side note, I personally run Gentoo (and would never wish that distro upon a newbie), so I'm no Ubuntu fan boy or anything, but it really is a fine distro. The only downfall I'd say that the Ubuntu distros have is the installer is a pretty simplistic text based one. Although it works well, and the install was painless.
Oh actually it's a program called picwiz she installed that integrates itself into konqueror. She just clicks on a folder, or selects a bunch of files, right clicks, and selects resize images.
how the hell did you get first post with so much freakin' writing?
Did you type this up ages ago, just waiting for the day you could get first post with this?
As for my comments on your fine post:
I recently installed Linux on my non-computer literate girlfriend's computer. She was always afraid of Linux because whenever she tried to use my computer it was nothing like Windows.
I put on a nice easy to use distro, set her up with KDE, and let her go to town. She's now using GIMP, uses it for all her photographic needs (scanning, digital camera). She even sighs when she has to reboot to Windows.
She was amazed at the little things, like how cut 'n paste works. I could tell she was thinking "why wasn't it always this easy?"
Or how she can resize an entire "folder" of images with a couple of clicks and no fuss.
I really don't think it's so much a matter of Linux offering nothing of value that Windows doesn't, because that's simply not true. Linux has tons to offer the average person that Windows doesn't.
The major problem, as I see it, is that it requires changing the way you think about using a computer.
When I first started using Linux I got very frustrated for a while, simply because my mind is notoriously bad for resisting change. It didn't like having to re learn such simple stuff. In fact in the beginning I kind of felt like I was a prisoner to my computer. I no longer knew how it worked at all. No idea! How do things run at startup? How do I add a printer? It was all this huge mystery.
And then, even beyond that, everything is just Done Differently. You really have to change your mindset to become a fully functioning *nix/*BSD user.
For a lot of people that's a really hard thing to do. But the funny thing is it really doesn't take that long. No longer than a week later my girlfriend was installing her own applications, updating her system, etc.
Anyway I don't want to give the impression I don't agree with what you said, because that really was a good and well thought out post. For the most part I agree with what you said, I just wanted to add that.
Yeah, as much as I'd love to believe this, the logical part of my brain says no way.
Plus with details from the article as technical as "it's fast," and "blazing speeds," you just know that's some newsworthy stuff there.
Also the opposite is also going to be true. An intel compiled binary is going to stomp all over a PPC binary run with Rosetta.
Why even bother making such a comparison, and even more so, why bother making such a claim?
If you absolutely have to run PPC code on Intel you will, and you're not going to be impressed at the speed.
And as for comparing the intel hardware to PPC hardware it's Apples and oranges as far as I'm concerned. It seemed like the article was going as far as to say an Intel osx machine is just as fast when running PPC binaries with an emulator than a top of the line dual processor G5 running native PPC binaries?
Come on! Give us a break. Those would be fine claims to make, as long as they were backed with something a little more concrete than "my web browser seemed to run about the same."
Like I said, I'd love to believe this, I'm no fanboy either way (intel/ppc), and I've never owned a Mac, but this whole article is trite.
If you've got some developers with access to the machines, just spend the 15 minutes and do a couple benchies.
This is basically like taking your computer and moving it into another room, and connecting your keyboard, mouse, and video to it with very long cables.
This is different than a thin client setup because you're not sharing resources.
If you read the article you'd know that they're actually using a KVM style technology to connect the user IO devices to the individual PC "blades." The user is only "remotely" acccessing their PC in the same way you remotely access yours but with shorter cables. Extend the cables on your PC, store it in another room and now all of a sudden you're using a thin client? No, it doesn't work like that.
This is fundamentally different than a thin client setup.
Personally I would argue that if you're going to use a solution like this you might as well just go the thin client route. I mean this isn't very cost effective (it actually costs more than having regular PCs at each desk), although I suppose some maintenance cost is saved by not having to walk to each desk when a problem occurs. (?).
Heh. Do you realize you're suggesting that people get paid no matter how productive they are?
That's exactly the opposite of what I'm suggesting. That's what happens right now, because of the system we have which promotes only long work hours, and not productivity.
The bushmen have a life expectancy of, what, 30-40 years? I'll have double that. But to do that, I'll need to work.
Actually the average life expectancy of the kalahari bushmen is about 70 years, higher than many civizilized nations.
You may have been mistakenly looking at figures for the people of africa, whom are plagued with an AIDS/HIV epidemic.
Anyway... If you actually WANT to work more then by all means do so, but I think you're crazy, and I love my work.
I personally have never seen a study been done that suggested a 40 hour work week is optimal for productivity. I would like to see some sources please.
Even if a study were to exist, you have to take into context the nature of the study. For example, to which end is the productivity rated? Is this the productivity of individual workers on a scale of work done per time unit, or is it some ratio esitimator of productivity per dollar spent, because they're quite different.
Having said that, I do agree with you. Making workers work more hours can definitely lower overall productivity.
France has enacted a law dicatating that 35 hours is the maximum time one should spend working in a week.
While they intended the law to promote hiring new employees, they found that companies resisted and instead demanded higher time unit production quotas. Indeed an interesting result.
Note that our average work week has been shortening since the 13th century.
This is definitely a good thing, although I still don't think it's enough. USA and Canada are still pretty high on the list of time spent at work.
Paul Lafargue's Right to be Lazy (1883) suggests an optimal workday of 2 to 3 hours per day.
Nearly all pre-modernized tribes peoples live with a considerably shorter work week. The Kalahari Bushmen, for example, work on average 12-20 hours per week.
Now the Bushment also don't have TV, computers, cars, planes, etc. But then again they don't have Guns, or Heroine either. And I suspect if a study were done on their happiness or contentment in life, it would probably rate _much_ higher than the average North American.
I'm not saying we should trade it all in for the life of a Bushman, but there has to be a balance. We've got the highest rates of mental disease in the world, we lock up more of our people and spend more money on incarceration per person than a lot of the countries in the world combined.
If we were really getting paid for the service of being available at work, even while we're not being productive, then we wouldn't feel guilty when we get caught reading slashdot. We wouldn't immediately switch away from minesweeper when we see the boss walking down the hall.
The workplace makes us feel like we should be productive even though there are many times when productivity is simply not going to happen.
We're tied to this 40 hour work week (which is often much higher) that forces us into a schedule that minimizes our ability to have any serious daily enjoyment beyond the workplace.
Many of us commute. After an 8 hour day and a commute, doing the daily chores, there's little time to reflect, ponder, play a game of whatever with friends.
We've been pushed into complacency and we all sit back and take it. We're a society that by enlarge lives for the weekend. I really don't consider this an optimal solution by any stretch.
I thought maybe a better, and more fun way would be to use a GPS and wifi equipped PDA. Just tape the sucker to the handle bars. Of course you'd limit yourself to the largest wifi area around, but if you pick say the university campus, you'd have more than enough room to play a sweet game.
Also much cheaper. Could even use any old school bluetooth enabled PDA and bluetooth GPS adapter.
Slashdot Mirror
Most of the time you're incorrect to think the way you do. I say "most of the time" because this really depends on the details of the specific contract.
You see most contracts include a section laying out the guidelines of what happens if one / either / both of the parties decide to not fulfill their part of one or more of the contract agreements.
For example, the lease I signed with my landlord has one of these sections. It states that if I move out prior to the decided upon date I am to pay a certain amount of dollars. Since there are no stipulations provided for such a case where I am to be kicked out prior to the decided upon date (without just cause) this would be illegal.
Having said that, since we both agreed upon the contract, I did not sign the contract saying that I will stay until the decided upon date... I signed it saying I will either stay until that date, or I will pay the required fee.
There is no moral or legal ramifications to "breaking" these types of contracts (which is almost every contract in existence today). As soon as a contract includes these terms you are not in violation of contract breaking, you are simply adhering to one of the agreed upon outcomes of the contract.
The fact is, we have no idea what the contract between Sony and Sanu says. We should not be making moral judgements against him, or Sony, without knowing more information.
Get yourself a real equalizer for xmms.
I was in the same boat as you (except with FLAC instead of OGG). EQU freakin' OWNS all over the place. You have no idea how good music can sound until you've tried this thing out. 31 bands!?. Of course you can do fewer bands if you want.
I frequently make a call to india using Reliance... the charge is only $0.129 using their toll free number. Other companies like Onesuite too provide very low cost service to many destinations including europe and india. So don't see really any great value in this.
First of all reliance is not cheap. 13 cents per minute. Onesuite is also not cheap (ranging from 2 to 14 cents per minute).
Skye is... say it with me: FREE.
Also this is totally different than using some cheap long distance carrier. This is using a phone to connect to the iSkoot service which routes your phone call over the Skype network.
You're making calls to other Skype users for free (10$ / year), from any phone including your cell phone (which only incurs the cost of local calls... for which many people get for free).
Did you even read the article? Do you even know what Skype or VOIP is? 2 cents a minute is massively expensive compared to Skype and traditional VOIP.
My VOIP plan, the cheapest and crappiest possible plan, gives me 1.6 cents per minute TO ANYWHERE, and that's the most expensive long distance you can get from the company I chose. (I don't use long distance, only local calls).
You may not see any great value in this, but that's because you have no idea what this is all about. You're comparing traditional low-cost long distance providers to a service that connects people's phones to the Skype network.
Also, you're not thinking forward enough. This is another nail in the coffin to LD carriers. Think about it. Skype has them scared, because now anyone can talk to anyone for any period of time for free (provided they're both on the network).
This means if you spend most of your time talking to a few people (which is almost always the case), and they also have a computer (which is often the case) you can just say "Why don't we use Skype!"
Problem being: I need to be at my computer to talk to them.
Problem solved!
This is an indication of a growing trend. People are unwilling to pay stupid amounts of money for LD when the means exist to do it for practically nothing.
I haven't paid a cent for long distance in the past year, and I haven't given my local Telco Monopoly a single dime either. My home phone costs me $15 a month, and I am not paying anything more!
It's called capitalism, and it's a sort of technology Darwinism where hopefully the best of the best survive. Yes, there are exceptions, but I prefer it over some central government resolution to declare whatever half-assed proposal comes first the standard.
:).
You're incredibly naive if you still believe this.
It's a great theory, but the problem with the pseudo-democratic capitalism that survives here in North America is that the outcome rarely represents the interests of consumers.
The best product has an exactly equal amount of opportunity to flourish as the worst product. This is determined, not by consumer choice, but by politicians, marketers, and other large and powerful bodies.
The problem with our so-called "capitalism" is exactly this: we let the corporations tell us what we need. They have their psychologist designed advertising campaigns, their hushed up negative testing results (which are often spun into something positive), and their huge political clout which can sometimes force desicions on us without us even realizing it.
Having said that, I must say I too prefer this form of capitalism over some totalitarian government run market.
The interesting thing is that if we were able to elect a dictator that was perfectly good and uncorruptable (maybe a computer? maybe a genetically designed person?) I can see this approach being vastly superior to the one we currently employ.
But until that day, at least our current system gives us the impression that we have some freedom of choice, and the ability to influence the market with those choices. Reality may dictate otherwise, but this is still much better than having some easily corruptable system where, like you said, we end up with "whatever half-assed proposal comes first the standard," or worse we end up with whatever suits the interests of the government the best.
Also, about the idea of electing a computer or genetically engineered person as a dictator... I can't say I think this is the best idea either (evne if it were feasable). There's plenty of potential for badness there too
Anyway... all I was trying to say was: don't kid yourself. Our current market system almost never gives us the best product as the dominant one.
This is especially true in the tech sector. Examples: Windows (first OS/2, now OSX), x86 (anything else), Dell (anything else), Beta (VHS) , Qwerty, etc.
Basically every innovation brought to market is plagued by this!
Think about it this way. Who's likely going to control the adoption of HD or Blu-ray? Probably it's going to be the pornography producers. They have typically been the early adopters of these types of technology, and generally drive the markets choice.
Now, wouldn't it be nice if the pornographers had the consumers best interests at heart? But let's be realistic, they don't. They're going to pick the one that makes them the most money. And if some conglomerate decides to pull some underhanded dealings with the porn producers we're basically stuck with whatever happens.
It seems like we might be able to revolt, but we can't! A true democracy relies on a completely educated public. Certainly this does not exist, even if it COULD exist (which it can't, there's just too much to know).
Joe six-pack will rush out and buy whatever it takes to play Debbie Does Seabiscuit IV. As long as it has zoom, one handed operation, multiple camera angles, and costs less than a certain threshold percentage of the mean gross income, he'll buy it.
In the end though, does it really matter?
Symbian does not do all of that.
See how useless that kind of argument is?
That's the standard situation, which of course is easily crackable. But, what if the code is on microsoft's server?
In this case, microsoft update. You can hex edit yourself to death, but you'll never get microsoft's server to give you updates if you're not a valid user.
In this situation a hex editor will do absolutely no good at all, neither will setting up a dummy server.
Sure that would get you past the installation phase, but you'd get no updates.
Also, let's be realistic here... the average joe is never going ot set up a dummy server. A lot of computer people would have no problem with that, but even then you'd need another computer, and either a fairly decent router, or the skills to build your own router.
Yes it's totally possible, but not only does it not solve the problem, but it goes way beyond cracking, patching, and key-gens.
One thing I could see someone doing is setting up their own Windows Update server, procuring all the software updates with a legal copy and then giving out a patch that makes windows connect to the fake server instead of microsoft.com.
Yeah it's possible, but it would take a while to implement something like that, what do you think Windows pirates will do in the mean time?
Probably start to consider other options.
One thing I should say though, is you're absolutely right, it was silly of me to say "never." There's always a way. I was just trying to convey that if they really really wanted to, by sacrificing a lot of their customer base, they could probably stamp out a lot of Windows piracy.
Again though, I really don't think it would be a good idea for them to do it.
No they don't do this already. The CD-Key just matches against a key algorithm. If they did what I was talking about you would never be able to install Windows without a legitmate key.
This is the reason why you can see key generators available. If such a scheme were implemented a keygen would never work.
Also, there's no reason why this wouldn't work for corporate customers. Instead of activating the key on the client machine side, this could be done at the server level.
The CD Key system they currently use is very different from what I was suggesting is a possibility for them in the future.
Again, I'm not suggesting it's a good idea, or even predicting that's what they'll do, just saying if they wanted to stop piracy, they could do it, and there's nothing we could do to get around it.
Very true. A bad deal for consumers indeed.
I actually have a theory that this is a precursor to a more wide spread anti-piracy scheme to be implemented by Microsoft.
This is a great way for them to test their licensing check system without causing too much harm when it goes astray. People/Companies who get adversely affected by it will still be able to function.
Once this phase is completed and they've worked out the bugs, they'll probably roll out the next phase of protection which will include install checks, maybe a check every time the computer connects to the internet... who knows how far they'll go.
Basically if they get their way, running a pirated copy of Windows simply won't be possible.
See my previous post on this for more details on how I think this would work, and why I think this would be a bad plan of action for them to take.
Keep in mind this is probably a prelude to a larger anti-piracy scheme to be phased in over the next generation(s) of Windows.
They'll likely employ the same tactic that online games use.
Every copy that's printed gets a code, same with OEM. Those codes are all recorded and shoved into a database. When you connect, you MUST have one of those codes, and ONLY ONE of those codes can be active at a time.
If this is implemented properly, there's really no way around it. The only thing you can do is buy a legit copy.
Having said that, this method is prone to all sorts of problems. For instance, many companies Ghost all of their machines, and deploy a standard image. They use the same key on all the machines, but have a stockpile of keys (usually larger than the number of actual deployed machines).
Obviously this would break that system. But, workarounds will be found. It would be easy to add (maybe it's already there?) functionality so that when a newly ghosted machine boots up on the network the server sees it has the "newly ghosted key" and assigns it one from its pool or something.
Who knows, but the point is, if Microsoft gets smart about this, there's no way you'll be able to pirate Windows anymore.
The funny thing about all of this is, I think it's actually against their best interests to do this. One of the biggest reasons Windows is so widespread is due to piracy. Many many people are simply not willing to pay for Windows. If they succeed in doing something like this, I think we'll see interest in alternative operating systems rise yet again.
I have to agree with you. Just because the guy made one comment about a company going from "desktop operating system to embedded system" doesn't null and void the entire article!
I mean really, it's no trivial matter to create a custom piece of hardware from scratch, make it run Linux, and make people have no idea that they're not just using another random hardware device.
Claiming that linux has more successful roots in the desktop GUI market than it does in the embedded market is one of the more ignorant things he could have said.
I would say putting words in the authors mouth and misrepresenting him would be one of the more ignorant things a person could do.
The article author never said "desktop GUI market" he just said "desktop market." So relax! If you think it's so easy to build a Linux distro from scratch for an embedded device, then let's see you do it!
The article is a little misleading. If you know more about the Windows USB subsystem (I've created hardware USB devices, and written Windows drivers for them) you'd know how the architecture works.
You're right that the article is talking about individual drivers that interact with the host USB subsystem, although this is a greater symptom of the USB subsystem itself. It IS a Windows vulnerability, and actually has nothing to do with the individual drivers themselves. The proper fix for this is not to patch the drivers, but to patch the USB subsystem that the drivers interact with.
If the underlying Windows USB subsystem wasn't flawed it wouldn't allow buffer overflows in device drivers to compromise the system.
As someone who's done USB device and driver development I can say that the Windows USB implementation is absolutely terrible. It comes as no suprise to me that a vulnerability was found.
How did this get modded insightful? Obviously you AND the mods did not read the article and have absolutely no idea what's going on here.
First of all there is only one USB subsystem driver for Windows. That's not actually technically correct since there are drivers for the various USB control architectures (such as UHCI, OHCI, EHCI), but they use are a small part of a larger unified USB subsystem driver.
I suspect you mistakenly thought the article was talking about the individual usb device drivers (for things like gamepads, cameras, printers, etc).
This is not what's happening at all. This is a Windows vulnerability, and actually has absolutely nothing to do with USB, other than it affects the USB subystem of the Windows (and only Windows) operating system.
There's a buffer overflow in the USB system, which allows any properly designed device to be plugged into a locked Windows computer, and execute arbitrary code (ie unlock the machine, etc).
You may think this isn't a big deal, but this is a huge deal. You can pick up USB dev kits for a couple hundred bucks that come with an FPGA, flash rom, and more. Basically for the price of one of these devices you could theoretically walk into any place where you can gain physical access to a Windows machine, and pwn it.
Yeah for sure. I put Kubuntu on her machine, simply because I've been hearing good things about the Ubuntu distros and wanted to see for myself.
Turned out to work quite well for her. She uses the Synaptic package manager to install her own apps, which she really likes. I went with Kubuntu over Ubuntu simply because I knew she would like KDE.
As a side note, I personally run Gentoo (and would never wish that distro upon a newbie), so I'm no Ubuntu fan boy or anything, but it really is a fine distro. The only downfall I'd say that the Ubuntu distros have is the installer is a pretty simplistic text based one. Although it works well, and the install was painless.
Oh actually it's a program called picwiz she installed that integrates itself into konqueror. She just clicks on a folder, or selects a bunch of files, right clicks, and selects resize images.
Pretty slick.
Must be it. I was kind of under the impression that all the fr1st p0st nazis also had subscriptions, but what do I know.
how the hell did you get first post with so much freakin' writing?
Did you type this up ages ago, just waiting for the day you could get first post with this?
As for my comments on your fine post:
I recently installed Linux on my non-computer literate girlfriend's computer. She was always afraid of Linux because whenever she tried to use my computer it was nothing like Windows.
I put on a nice easy to use distro, set her up with KDE, and let her go to town. She's now using GIMP, uses it for all her photographic needs (scanning, digital camera). She even sighs when she has to reboot to Windows.
She was amazed at the little things, like how cut 'n paste works. I could tell she was thinking "why wasn't it always this easy?"
Or how she can resize an entire "folder" of images with a couple of clicks and no fuss.
I really don't think it's so much a matter of Linux offering nothing of value that Windows doesn't, because that's simply not true. Linux has tons to offer the average person that Windows doesn't.
The major problem, as I see it, is that it requires changing the way you think about using a computer.
When I first started using Linux I got very frustrated for a while, simply because my mind is notoriously bad for resisting change. It didn't like having to re learn such simple stuff. In fact in the beginning I kind of felt like I was a prisoner to my computer. I no longer knew how it worked at all. No idea! How do things run at startup? How do I add a printer? It was all this huge mystery.
And then, even beyond that, everything is just Done Differently. You really have to change your mindset to become a fully functioning *nix/*BSD user.
For a lot of people that's a really hard thing to do. But the funny thing is it really doesn't take that long. No longer than a week later my girlfriend was installing her own applications, updating her system, etc.
Anyway I don't want to give the impression I don't agree with what you said, because that really was a good and well thought out post. For the most part I agree with what you said, I just wanted to add that.
Yeah, as much as I'd love to believe this, the logical part of my brain says no way.
Plus with details from the article as technical as "it's fast," and "blazing speeds," you just know that's some newsworthy stuff there.
Also the opposite is also going to be true. An intel compiled binary is going to stomp all over a PPC binary run with Rosetta.
Why even bother making such a comparison, and even more so, why bother making such a claim?
If you absolutely have to run PPC code on Intel you will, and you're not going to be impressed at the speed.
And as for comparing the intel hardware to PPC hardware it's Apples and oranges as far as I'm concerned. It seemed like the article was going as far as to say an Intel osx machine is just as fast when running PPC binaries with an emulator than a top of the line dual processor G5 running native PPC binaries?
Come on! Give us a break. Those would be fine claims to make, as long as they were backed with something a little more concrete than "my web browser seemed to run about the same."
Like I said, I'd love to believe this, I'm no fanboy either way (intel/ppc), and I've never owned a Mac, but this whole article is trite.
If you've got some developers with access to the machines, just spend the 15 minutes and do a couple benchies.
This is basically like taking your computer and moving it into another room, and connecting your keyboard, mouse, and video to it with very long cables.
This is different than a thin client setup because you're not sharing resources.
If you read the article you'd know that they're actually using a KVM style technology to connect the user IO devices to the individual PC "blades." The user is only "remotely" acccessing their PC in the same way you remotely access yours but with shorter cables. Extend the cables on your PC, store it in another room and now all of a sudden you're using a thin client? No, it doesn't work like that.
This is fundamentally different than a thin client setup.
Personally I would argue that if you're going to use a solution like this you might as well just go the thin client route. I mean this isn't very cost effective (it actually costs more than having regular PCs at each desk), although I suppose some maintenance cost is saved by not having to walk to each desk when a problem occurs. (?).
I have never seen a comprehensive listing of work hours sorted by country that included the US and Canada. Link please.
Directly from the parent that you requested the link from: The Previously Mentioned Link.
Heh. Do you realize you're suggesting that people get paid no matter how productive they are?
That's exactly the opposite of what I'm suggesting. That's what happens right now, because of the system we have which promotes only long work hours, and not productivity.
The bushmen have a life expectancy of, what, 30-40 years? I'll have double that. But to do that, I'll need to work.
Actually the average life expectancy of the kalahari bushmen is about 70 years, higher than many civizilized nations.
You may have been mistakenly looking at figures for the people of africa, whom are plagued with an AIDS/HIV epidemic.
Anyway... If you actually WANT to work more then by all means do so, but I think you're crazy, and I love my work.
These are totally not thin clients!
I personally have never seen a study been done that suggested a 40 hour work week is optimal for productivity. I would like to see some sources please.
Even if a study were to exist, you have to take into context the nature of the study. For example, to which end is the productivity rated? Is this the productivity of individual workers on a scale of work done per time unit, or is it some ratio esitimator of productivity per dollar spent, because they're quite different.
Having said that, I do agree with you. Making workers work more hours can definitely lower overall productivity.
France has enacted a law dicatating that 35 hours is the maximum time one should spend working in a week.
While they intended the law to promote hiring new employees, they found that companies resisted and instead demanded higher time unit production quotas. Indeed an interesting result.
Note that our average work week has been shortening since the 13th century.
This is definitely a good thing, although I still don't think it's enough. USA and Canada are still pretty high on the list of time spent at work.
Paul Lafargue's Right to be Lazy (1883) suggests an optimal workday of 2 to 3 hours per day.
Nearly all pre-modernized tribes peoples live with a considerably shorter work week. The Kalahari Bushmen, for example, work on average 12-20 hours per week.
Now the Bushment also don't have TV, computers, cars, planes, etc. But then again they don't have Guns, or Heroine either. And I suspect if a study were done on their happiness or contentment in life, it would probably rate _much_ higher than the average North American.
I'm not saying we should trade it all in for the life of a Bushman, but there has to be a balance. We've got the highest rates of mental disease in the world, we lock up more of our people and spend more money on incarceration per person than a lot of the countries in the world combined.
If we were really getting paid for the service of being available at work, even while we're not being productive, then we wouldn't feel guilty when we get caught reading slashdot. We wouldn't immediately switch away from minesweeper when we see the boss walking down the hall.
The workplace makes us feel like we should be productive even though there are many times when productivity is simply not going to happen.
We're tied to this 40 hour work week (which is often much higher) that forces us into a schedule that minimizes our ability to have any serious daily enjoyment beyond the workplace.
Many of us commute. After an 8 hour day and a commute, doing the daily chores, there's little time to reflect, ponder, play a game of whatever with friends.
We've been pushed into complacency and we all sit back and take it. We're a society that by enlarge lives for the weekend. I really don't consider this an optimal solution by any stretch.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing.
I thought maybe a better, and more fun way would be to use a GPS and wifi equipped PDA. Just tape the sucker to the handle bars. Of course you'd limit yourself to the largest wifi area around, but if you pick say the university campus, you'd have more than enough room to play a sweet game.
Also much cheaper. Could even use any old school bluetooth enabled PDA and bluetooth GPS adapter.
Also as a resident of Calgary, I would like to say that most of us here actually understand irony.
Come on tricops you're giving us a bad name! At least wait for the people from Austin to say something stupid before starting up.
Heh I know... I was actually trying to be funny, without much success I guess.
Unlock the secrets of the planet? six-sigma what?
Truly awesome.