And so what if they do? If the said company already has your information, why does it matter if they know how often you come to their site, and where you go on the site, and which sites they get click throughs from?
And this is paranoia on crack... it assumes that people will ALWAYS do the wrong thing and will ALWAYS try and screw you about, and that customer profiling NEVER results in a better service.
I fail to understand why people like you refer to corporations as people. I will trust any single individual more than I will ever trust any corporation. Corporations exist to extract as much money from me as possible. That's it.
I think it is a safe assumption that corporations will *always* end up doing some things wrong, and will *always* end up making a decision at some point that compromises what is best for me (or the world in general) in order to make a profit.
It's not the people in the corporation. I would probably get along with most of them if we ever met. I also realize that corporations are a necessary evil, because many of the products I currently enjoy could only be manufactured by large corporations. That doesn't mean the corporations in any way care about me.
But ultimatly, most users would probably enjoy the massive improvments in customer expierience that could be achieved using this information.
When I go to the gas station, the attendant does not put a tracking device on the car that keeps track of everything I look at in the store and allows him to take note of whether I stop off for gas with one of his competitors.
Here's the problem: companies are impersonal. So are websites. No amount of "tracking" will make a website seem like a conversation with anohter person. If you want my opinion, ask for it. Either way, I will be deleting cookies from your website every day.
A DRM chip is going to be mandatory - unless it already is. The existing digital receivers for Linux will not be able to pick up content after some (currently unspecified) future date.
Do you have any links or cites that you can give to back yourself up on this? The Broadcast Flag didn't make it through the courts - that was supposed to take effect July 1. It didn't.
So, what you're saying is that there is DRM that isn't mentioned in TFA (which has nothing to do with television and is all about online content) and isn't the broadcast flag. I would love to see anything *concrete* that you can give me, because you're hinting about things I've never heard of, and I pay attention to this corner of the industry.
Peak Oil Theory assumes that there is still more oil to be found d in unexpected places. It also assumes that as we pass the oil peak that the rest of the oil becomes harder to find, and more expensive to procure and refine (i.e. the oil is less pure). There is undoubtedly oil left to be found - it just costs more to get it to market.
At that point, if you want TV, you WILL use DRM-based technology, like it or not
But there are *already digital receivers out there, including ones you can buy to setup your linux mythtv box. So unless they make drastic changes to the technology (and I don't even know if that's possible) you'll be able to get TV without DRM using current hardware.
I would prefer a 60" flat-screen television that doubled as my computer monitor. I'd love to be able to split that into four screens - three different shows and my computer, using software.
That said, I'm middle-class. I make enough to live in a nice town on my own, have a car, pay back school loans, and have some fun. My apartment is small, so I need a flat-screen. My plan is to hang a 17" flat-screen monitor on the wall, for computing and television purposes. It's the best I can do in my circumstances.
This is a serious question -- as a sports enthusiast, particularly if you want US major-league stuff, isn't TV pretty much perfect?
Far from it, actually. The NFL, for instance, sells a subscription to see *all* the games - Sunday Ticket. But this can only be purchased through Direct TV.
In college football, games are often regionally broadcast, and only a satellite (and not even always a satellite) can get you the regional broadcast of the game. And not all the games are broadcast (though they're all filmed). I'd pay to see every Nebraska game online.
Baseball can stream video better than other sports because for the vast majority of the game, almost nothing MOVES. Chess is another good candidate for cheap streaming video.
You'd be surprised at how *good* the MLB streams are. With a stream full-screen in my laptop, if I'm sitting five feet away it's like I'm watching a small tv. That's all the quality I need.
I've seen other sports online before (European football, American football) and I had no problem following the game. In fact, I loved it because it's the ONLY way to see the game where I was (England for American football, America for English football).
That's the genius of streaming all the games - there's an international audience.
My apartment is 300 square feet. The only thing I watch is sports, most of which are on cable television (I don't like most of the local L.A. teams). I don't want to $50 for cable when I'll only watch the Daily Show, ESPN, and Fox Sports.
When I start watching regular television, it just sucks me in. I don't want to watch most of the crap on there, but inertia is strong. Sports at least I can just leave on in the background.
During baseball season I don't even notice the television being gone.
1. They're using Realplayer. It's probably Windows-only, because they have some proprietary program they're using.
2. DRM? Depends how you define it. It's been illegal to rip Real streams for a while, but if you can find a copy of Streambox somewhere you can do it - if you find the stream URL (they try really hard to hide that). But there are always ways to rip video streams.
3. It's pretty clear that they're keeping this limited to their internal network, so you probably have to be authenticated through IP (or they just know you're on their network - don't know much about how they would know).
4. The big differences between this and torrents is a) this is live and b) torrent can be and probably are higher quality.
I've been waiting for something like this to start happening. I don't have a television, don't want a television, don't intend to get one. But I like to watch sports.
This year, my roommates and I have a subscription with mlbtv.com. For around $70 we get all non-local/national broadcast streamed via either real or windows media. Setup two laptops, forward the appropriate ports and traffic types through the router, and !voila! two baseball games.
(for those who care, mlb.com checks your IP address to find out where you are, so using a proxy server gets you access to local games)
If BASEBALL, the most old-fashioned, stodgy sport out there, can stream all games online, there's absolutely no good reason besides stupidity that the NFL, NBA, and other sports don't take advantage of this.
Just like there's no reason *not* to stream television over the internet. Forget being nice to your customers. How about the extra commercial revenue they'll get from having people online and watching tv at the same time.
Cable Companies! Stop being stupid and stream your broadcast signals my way.
A man with a bomb in a backpack and a train ticket. Or, if you like, a nuke in a crate marked "Washington D.C.".
You know, just because putting a bomb in a backpack or a nuke in a crate makes your scenarios *sound* low-tech doesn't actually make them low-tech.
I spent some time searching for the article unsuccessfully, but the Guardian reported two days ago that the bombs used in London were quite complicated and obviously the work of someone who knew what they were doing.
And to get a nuke in a crate to blow up, you still have to have the technical knowledge to make it blow up. I'm sure that wouldn't be a problem for you, but the rest of us might not be up to the task.
I think you need a different definition of high tech, one that involves the *technology* behind an attack and not the *method* of deploying the technology. Chances are that anyone who knows how to take plutonium or uranium and make it blow up out of a crate is also going to be capable of using "high-tech" methods of planning an attack. Like say, using wifi to coordinate a bombing in mid-air.
I can imagine the following scenario: detonation device for bomb is attached to wifi-enabled laptop. The laptop is logged into remotely using VNC, the detonator is triggered by terrorist sitting working from a free municipal wireless hotspot, and blam 400 people are dead.
I disagree, high tech is by nature inflexible and brittle. It requires a certain infrastructure to work.
Then again, you sound like you work for Micro$oft'$ PR Department, so I'll stop wasting my breath.
Just remember,/.s favorite internet blocking country China would now have a say in the final product. If that idea fails to scare you, then I can't reach you.
Sure, that idea is terrifying. But the DMCA (and international pressure to adopt miniDMCAs) shows that the U.S. can be just as terrifying in its management of internet "freedoms".
Your statement is xenophobic in the extreme. An organization is not inherently bad or inherently good just because China is involved. Things will not automatically fall apart just because China is involved. Who knows? In ten years, we may *wish* that China was involved.
The rest of the world says the same thing about the U.S right now. Twenty years ago we would have been saying that about the U.S.S.R. and sixty years ago we would have been saying this about Germany. A global medium should have international oversite.
That said, it's impossible to honestly critique this (there is nothing actionable in the article, just lots of talk) - there are valid points on both sides. I think it would be possible to set up an organization that can handle the high-level technical issues without getting into many of the "freedom" issues that worry you - I also think it would be possible to thoroughly screw this thing up.
All this high tech stuff is futile, the terrorists aren't using it. The fact that the FBI are chasing it says to me that they don't understand the nature of the threat or they're after something else.
I've seen this response a few times in this thread, and I think this is crazy. Low-tech terrorism can have a disastrous impact (see 9/11, 7/7). But it's not the only game in the book, and every year the likelihood of a high-tech terrorist attack will increase.
I have issues with the FBI, but just because the FBI realizes how disastrous a smart, high-tech terrorist operation could be DOES NOT MEAN they don't understand the nature of the threat. I would tend to think it means that you don't understand the nature of the threat we're facing.
Look, the truth is calling this "terrorism" is disingenuous. When I say "terrorist", you and everyone else in the world thinks "Islamic radical". That focus is going to inherently weaken our ability to deal with other threats - which do exist. Just because the Islamic radicals aren't *currently* high-tech doesn't mean there aren't high-tech threats right now.
exactly like the office xp to office 2003 upgrade, right?
The Open Office team will have their work cut out for them.
Cuz more stuff will be broken all over again.
I'm taking you at face-value, whether or not you're serious.
I'm an American and I don't want the communists to get richer at our expense.
You talk about the free market, but you ignore our freedom to *not* buy their products. Are you an American, or are you selfish? If you're an American, and you're concerned about China getting rich off of us, then stop buying Chinese products. Or, you could selfishly give into the market, and buy whatever is cheapest.
It'd be good for the US and China to get into a trade war NOW while China still doesn't have too much leverage against us. Yeah, they could do a good bit of damage, but nothing we couldn't recover from within five to ten years
IANAE, but I've had this same thought for about ten years. I don't understand the hypocrisy of our trade policy with China. We wouldn't even have to get into a trade war, honestly. It wouldn't come to that.
It'd be nice to see Bush actually pull one of his "homeland security" initiatives by getting a law passed that mandates a major US divestment from China. Why we're investing in a country that is belligerant toward Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, three of our largest trade partners and three good allies is beyond me.
Because Bush isn't stupid (for the record, I'm a member of the Green party) and has read his history. The same history that tells us that whenever America tries to ignore the rest of the world, it doesn't work. We end up getting into wars anyways.
We live in a global economy now. Nothing is cut-and-dry, there are no easy solutions to simple problems. I'd be willing to bet that if we really had a free market, you wouldn't like it very much, since your standard of living would significantly decrease. Significantly.
if and when the PLA invades Taiwan before 2008.
Please. There will be no invasion. It will be a peaceful coup. It will happen anytime China decides to make it happen. But it won't be an invasion.
I almost agree with everything you said. I don't agree with any of it.
Sure we could. We just don't want to do that. We are not a nation that can handle short-term instability for the sake of long-term stability. But we could afford to call their bluff.
Just think about it for a second. A Windows XP computer is infected within 12 minutes because of unpatched exploits that need to be updated from Microsoft. It's worms getting through open ports that infect the computer once it's plugged into the internet. A hardware firewall takes care of that worm traffic.
But theoretically, those ports should be closed on Fedora already. And since most internet attacks are meant for Windows anyways, I should be safe not using the hardware router. But the truth is I don't know enough about the innards of Fedora 4 to know if it's a safe move or not.
That's why I asked. Because Windows problems != Fedora problems necessarily.
Slashdot Mirror
Or, if you want to be lazy, anonymous, AND a bastard, throw the card away too.
This is exactly what I do. I decided to treat corporations like corporations, and not people.
And so what if they do? If the said company already has your information, why does it matter if they know how often you come to their site, and where you go on the site, and which sites they get click throughs from?
Apparently, you've never heard of variable pricing.
And this is paranoia on crack... it assumes that people will ALWAYS do the wrong thing and will ALWAYS try and screw you about, and that customer profiling NEVER results in a better service.
I fail to understand why people like you refer to corporations as people. I will trust any single individual more than I will ever trust any corporation. Corporations exist to extract as much money from me as possible. That's it.
I think it is a safe assumption that corporations will *always* end up doing some things wrong, and will *always* end up making a decision at some point that compromises what is best for me (or the world in general) in order to make a profit.
It's not the people in the corporation. I would probably get along with most of them if we ever met. I also realize that corporations are a necessary evil, because many of the products I currently enjoy could only be manufactured by large corporations. That doesn't mean the corporations in any way care about me.
They only care about my money.
I'm not being paranoid, I'm just being realistic.
But ultimatly, most users would probably enjoy the massive improvments in customer expierience that could be achieved using this information.
When I go to the gas station, the attendant does not put a tracking device on the car that keeps track of everything I look at in the store and allows him to take note of whether I stop off for gas with one of his competitors.
Here's the problem: companies are impersonal. So are websites. No amount of "tracking" will make a website seem like a conversation with anohter person. If you want my opinion, ask for it. Either way, I will be deleting cookies from your website every day.
Still doesn't work. I usually ignore the "updates" and download the latest version myself from mozilla when I'm ready to install it.
A DRM chip is going to be mandatory - unless it already is. The existing digital receivers for Linux will not be able to pick up content after some (currently unspecified) future date. Do you have any links or cites that you can give to back yourself up on this? The Broadcast Flag didn't make it through the courts - that was supposed to take effect July 1. It didn't.
So, what you're saying is that there is DRM that isn't mentioned in TFA (which has nothing to do with television and is all about online content) and isn't the broadcast flag. I would love to see anything *concrete* that you can give me, because you're hinting about things I've never heard of, and I pay attention to this corner of the industry.
Peak Oil Theory assumes that there is still more oil to be found d in unexpected places. It also assumes that as we pass the oil peak that the rest of the oil becomes harder to find, and more expensive to procure and refine (i.e. the oil is less pure). There is undoubtedly oil left to be found - it just costs more to get it to market.
At that point, if you want TV, you WILL use DRM-based technology, like it or not
But there are *already digital receivers out there, including ones you can buy to setup your linux mythtv box. So unless they make drastic changes to the technology (and I don't even know if that's possible) you'll be able to get TV without DRM using current hardware.
I would prefer a 60" flat-screen television that doubled as my computer monitor. I'd love to be able to split that into four screens - three different shows and my computer, using software.
That said, I'm middle-class. I make enough to live in a nice town on my own, have a car, pay back school loans, and have some fun. My apartment is small, so I need a flat-screen. My plan is to hang a 17" flat-screen monitor on the wall, for computing and television purposes. It's the best I can do in my circumstances.
This is a serious question -- as a sports enthusiast, particularly if you want US major-league stuff, isn't TV pretty much perfect?
Far from it, actually. The NFL, for instance, sells a subscription to see *all* the games - Sunday Ticket. But this can only be purchased through Direct TV.
In college football, games are often regionally broadcast, and only a satellite (and not even always a satellite) can get you the regional broadcast of the game. And not all the games are broadcast (though they're all filmed). I'd pay to see every Nebraska game online.
Baseball can stream video better than other sports because for the vast majority of the game, almost nothing MOVES. Chess is another good candidate for cheap streaming video.
You'd be surprised at how *good* the MLB streams are. With a stream full-screen in my laptop, if I'm sitting five feet away it's like I'm watching a small tv. That's all the quality I need.
I've seen other sports online before (European football, American football) and I had no problem following the game. In fact, I loved it because it's the ONLY way to see the game where I was (England for American football, America for English football).
That's the genius of streaming all the games - there's an international audience.
My apartment is 300 square feet. The only thing I watch is sports, most of which are on cable television (I don't like most of the local L.A. teams). I don't want to $50 for cable when I'll only watch the Daily Show, ESPN, and Fox Sports.
When I start watching regular television, it just sucks me in. I don't want to watch most of the crap on there, but inertia is strong. Sports at least I can just leave on in the background.
During baseball season I don't even notice the television being gone.
The article isn't *that* light on details...
1. They're using Realplayer. It's probably Windows-only, because they have some proprietary program they're using.
2. DRM? Depends how you define it. It's been illegal to rip Real streams for a while, but if you can find a copy of Streambox somewhere you can do it - if you find the stream URL (they try really hard to hide that). But there are always ways to rip video streams.
3. It's pretty clear that they're keeping this limited to their internal network, so you probably have to be authenticated through IP (or they just know you're on their network - don't know much about how they would know).
4. The big differences between this and torrents is a) this is live and b) torrent can be and probably are higher quality.
I've been waiting for something like this to start happening. I don't have a television, don't want a television, don't intend to get one. But I like to watch sports.
This year, my roommates and I have a subscription with mlbtv.com. For around $70 we get all non-local/national broadcast streamed via either real or windows media. Setup two laptops, forward the appropriate ports and traffic types through the router, and !voila! two baseball games.
(for those who care, mlb.com checks your IP address to find out where you are, so using a proxy server gets you access to local games)
If BASEBALL, the most old-fashioned, stodgy sport out there, can stream all games online, there's absolutely no good reason besides stupidity that the NFL, NBA, and other sports don't take advantage of this.
Just like there's no reason *not* to stream television over the internet. Forget being nice to your customers. How about the extra commercial revenue they'll get from having people online and watching tv at the same time.
Cable Companies! Stop being stupid and stream your broadcast signals my way.
A man with a bomb in a backpack and a train ticket. Or, if you like, a nuke in a crate marked "Washington D.C.".
You know, just because putting a bomb in a backpack or a nuke in a crate makes your scenarios *sound* low-tech doesn't actually make them low-tech.
I spent some time searching for the article unsuccessfully, but the Guardian reported two days ago that the bombs used in London were quite complicated and obviously the work of someone who knew what they were doing.
And to get a nuke in a crate to blow up, you still have to have the technical knowledge to make it blow up. I'm sure that wouldn't be a problem for you, but the rest of us might not be up to the task.
I think you need a different definition of high tech, one that involves the *technology* behind an attack and not the *method* of deploying the technology. Chances are that anyone who knows how to take plutonium or uranium and make it blow up out of a crate is also going to be capable of using "high-tech" methods of planning an attack. Like say, using wifi to coordinate a bombing in mid-air.
I can imagine the following scenario: detonation device for bomb is attached to wifi-enabled laptop. The laptop is logged into remotely using VNC, the detonator is triggered by terrorist sitting working from a free municipal wireless hotspot, and blam 400 people are dead.
I disagree, high tech is by nature inflexible and brittle. It requires a certain infrastructure to work.
Then again, you sound like you work for Micro$oft'$ PR Department, so I'll stop wasting my breath.
boy, i never realized ICANN could dictate what could be placed on the web. i must be an idiot.
Just remember, /.s favorite internet blocking country China would now have a say in the final product. If that idea fails to scare you, then I can't reach you.
Sure, that idea is terrifying. But the DMCA (and international pressure to adopt miniDMCAs) shows that the U.S. can be just as terrifying in its management of internet "freedoms".
Your statement is xenophobic in the extreme. An organization is not inherently bad or inherently good just because China is involved. Things will not automatically fall apart just because China is involved. Who knows? In ten years, we may *wish* that China was involved.
The rest of the world says the same thing about the U.S right now. Twenty years ago we would have been saying that about the U.S.S.R. and sixty years ago we would have been saying this about Germany. A global medium should have international oversite.
That said, it's impossible to honestly critique this (there is nothing actionable in the article, just lots of talk) - there are valid points on both sides. I think it would be possible to set up an organization that can handle the high-level technical issues without getting into many of the "freedom" issues that worry you - I also think it would be possible to thoroughly screw this thing up.
All this high tech stuff is futile, the terrorists aren't using it. The fact that the FBI are chasing it says to me that they don't understand the nature of the threat or they're after something else.
I've seen this response a few times in this thread, and I think this is crazy. Low-tech terrorism can have a disastrous impact (see 9/11, 7/7). But it's not the only game in the book, and every year the likelihood of a high-tech terrorist attack will increase.
I have issues with the FBI, but just because the FBI realizes how disastrous a smart, high-tech terrorist operation could be DOES NOT MEAN they don't understand the nature of the threat. I would tend to think it means that you don't understand the nature of the threat we're facing.
Look, the truth is calling this "terrorism" is disingenuous. When I say "terrorist", you and everyone else in the world thinks "Islamic radical". That focus is going to inherently weaken our ability to deal with other threats - which do exist. Just because the Islamic radicals aren't *currently* high-tech doesn't mean there aren't high-tech threats right now.
exactly like the office xp to office 2003 upgrade, right? The Open Office team will have their work cut out for them. Cuz more stuff will be broken all over again.
Whether or not Microsoft bought Publisher from someone, it was part of the Office 95 suite for Windows.(i think it was Office 95 Pro)
I'm taking you at face-value, whether or not you're serious.
I'm an American and I don't want the communists to get richer at our expense.
You talk about the free market, but you ignore our freedom to *not* buy their products. Are you an American, or are you selfish? If you're an American, and you're concerned about China getting rich off of us, then stop buying Chinese products. Or, you could selfishly give into the market, and buy whatever is cheapest.
It'd be good for the US and China to get into a trade war NOW while China still doesn't have too much leverage against us. Yeah, they could do a good bit of damage, but nothing we couldn't recover from within five to ten years
IANAE, but I've had this same thought for about ten years. I don't understand the hypocrisy of our trade policy with China. We wouldn't even have to get into a trade war, honestly. It wouldn't come to that.
It'd be nice to see Bush actually pull one of his "homeland security" initiatives by getting a law passed that mandates a major US divestment from China. Why we're investing in a country that is belligerant toward Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, three of our largest trade partners and three good allies is beyond me.
Because Bush isn't stupid (for the record, I'm a member of the Green party) and has read his history. The same history that tells us that whenever America tries to ignore the rest of the world, it doesn't work. We end up getting into wars anyways.
We live in a global economy now. Nothing is cut-and-dry, there are no easy solutions to simple problems. I'd be willing to bet that if we really had a free market, you wouldn't like it very much, since your standard of living would significantly decrease. Significantly.
if and when the PLA invades Taiwan before 2008.
Please. There will be no invasion. It will be a peaceful coup. It will happen anytime China decides to make it happen. But it won't be an invasion.
I almost agree with everything you said. I don't agree with any of it.
We can't afford to call their bluff now.
Sure we could. We just don't want to do that. We are not a nation that can handle short-term instability for the sake of long-term stability. But we could afford to call their bluff.
or change the channel on the wireless radio
I'm pretty sure the cable modem doesn't have a built-in firewall, but I didn't know that was even a feature, so I'll look into it. Thanks.
Just think about it for a second. A Windows XP computer is infected within 12 minutes because of unpatched exploits that need to be updated from Microsoft. It's worms getting through open ports that infect the computer once it's plugged into the internet. A hardware firewall takes care of that worm traffic.
But theoretically, those ports should be closed on Fedora already. And since most internet attacks are meant for Windows anyways, I should be safe not using the hardware router. But the truth is I don't know enough about the innards of Fedora 4 to know if it's a safe move or not.
That's why I asked. Because Windows problems != Fedora problems necessarily.