I hate to reply to a sig, but I'm curious as to what it does. I've studied really basic assembly (enough to crack some silly shareware apps, not enough to do anything useful with it yet).
I suspect it crashes, but I'm not sure. Why are the NOPs needed?
There are 2 ways to do region checking. One is by specifying the region, and letting the drive deal with it. This is the difference between RPC-1 (region free) and RPC-2 drives.
The other way (RCE) is to have the disk say it is compatible with all regions, and use the abilities of DVD menus to check regions. This method has the advantage of 1) making it harder for "universal" dvd players determine which region to work on, 2) working on RPC-1 drives, 3) being harder to bypass on hardware DVD players.
If your disk is of the second type (RCE), Linux players will work just fine. If the disk is of the first type, and of a different region, the drive will not give you the data to decrypt in the first place.
It's called a gcf - it's in \Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps (your path may vary). Have your friend install the game, then copy the gcf from your computer to his (torrent, DVD-R, etc).
It's pseudocode! Let's define is_prime as a function, taking a string as an imput, and using GMP or some other arbitrary precision library to run the number through sieves to determine if it's prime.
The job was to explain, not to give actual code. Hence, the pseudocode comment.
Keep fiddling with it; It worked the first time I tried it, then gave me errors. I went back into steam, screwed around, quit, and it started working again.
Google logs it just fine. The page uses frames, which your browser does not display due to the google-added header. Your browser also does not display the noframes content, as it does support frames.
It's all there, your browser just doesn't display it.
Besides the fact that they are greedy corporate bastards, the purpose of this is to keep the money away from greedy government bastards.
Our laws are based losely off those of england, and include the simple concept of "all things belong to the government, you simply pay taxes so you can use them". As such, "unclaimed property" is an oxymoron.
It's not encrypted (despite what they say), if you fire up GCFScape, you can open and extract all the files.
The true protection lies in that they aren't preloading Half-Life 2.gcf (the filename is in the ClientRegistry.blob file), which contains the client dlls, nor are they releasing the maps yet.
So, they have a web site which provides information to the public, and which is open, even when the library is closed.
They have a phone system, which provides information to the public, even when the library is closed.
They have a wireless access point, which provides access to the public, even when the library is closed.
How about, instead of trying to legislate, or figure out what the library meant, we let the library decide. Turning off the AP when you close is trivial, as would be shutting off the web site or turning off the answering machine. They don't do so.
Access should be considered open, until the owner says otherwise. This is like your front door. Having a front door is invitation to trespasslong enough to state your business. Trespassing laws keep getting applied to the internet anyway, and actually make sense in this case.
You connect to the web site, it gives you information and does not ask for authentication. Having a web site available is in invitation to state what you want. If the system gives it to you, fine. If not, and you persist, it's tresspass. See?
Now lets try the phone system. Having a phone is an open invitation to call it. You call it up, and it answers. A voice prompt says "press 1 for our hours", and you press it. You state your business. It gives you the information. If you try to access a debug mode to make free phone calls, it's tresspass.
Now, on to the AP. Having an AP is an open invitation to tresspass, at least long enough to state what you want. The AP can ignore you, or it can give you an IP and redirect you to a ToS or payment page, or it can simply let you through. If you attempt to violate it's access controls, it's tresspass. If it broadcasts its existance, it is an open invitation to at least state your business.
In all 3 cases, providing services on a publicly accessable system (radio, telephone, internet) automatically grants permission for those with access to the network to at least say hello, and see if the system wants to provide you access. Are you trying to say that you should have written permission to call a phone number? Or that you shouldn't call a company when they are closed? Or how about companies that want to provide paid or unpaid hotspot access? Should they have to give something to you in writing before you can use the network? Of course not.
"We want airtravel [sic] to be safe or else we wouldn't do it."
No, we want air travel to be safe enough for us to justify at the price we pay. Safety has a certain value to people, as does the experience (customer service, wait times, etc). As long as flying has more value to people than the money it costs to do so, people will continue to fly.
Few things in life are _safe_ - it's just a question of how much risk you are willing to take, and how much you are willing to pay to reduce that risk.
Somehow, it seems appropriate that while I'm writing this, the Microsoft TCO of Linux ad keeps showing.
What I think is most unfortunate is when a company hypes a product, with features people actually want, delays it, then finally releases it, but not as good as promised. Microsoft has done this in the past, but it looks like they may be taking the time to get Longhorn up to snuff.
The legal aspect is why this was so popular. Timeshifting is legal, the music is licensed, and you are authorized to listen to it. As such, you can legally store, and replay the music as you see fit. Needless to say, the RIAA dislikes this.
The system I refer to cannot be used to "circumvent" the voter. The barcode is nothing more than a small checksum. The vote is still read optically, perhaps using the same optical scanners we have today. The difference is that it is ran through an algorithm, to make sure that what was printed matches the barcode. The voter can see the part of the ballot that gets counted. If the checksum fails, it's simply counted by hand. No less secure than the punch card system we have today, and less room for error.
Printing out a seperate piece of paper lets the voter walk away with proof of who he voted for. Forcing him to turn it in on the way out makes it harder, but abuses can (and have) happened in the past.
Also, it doesn't technically _need_ to be punched. It could also be printed on (like a Scantron).
Why is having a voter-verified ballot so hard? Here is how to do right:
1) Voter selects what to vote for 2) Computer punches holes in a paper ballot, _and_ prints a barcode representing the votes on the ballot. 3) Counting machine reads optically, and checks barcode.
See? It's simple! The person can't walk out with the audit trail; if the ballot isn't presented on the way out, it's not counted. We already have optical reading systems; the barcode removes any reasonable chance of error.
100% accurate, can be checked by hand, can be done [relativly] cheaply, you can fall back on paper if the computers go down. Why aren't we doing this?!?!
Ok, I know the answer, but I don't have to like it.
Actually, selling free software is fine. This guy is simply saying that if it bugs an author, he will remove that authors code, even though he is by no means required to.
To fix your analogy, "This is on the same level as me imitating the landscaping and archetecture my neighbor has. I enjoy the designs, and I hope he doesn't mind. If it bothers him, I will re-do my yard to try to make him feel better, even though I am not legally required to do so".
Gee, isn't that evil. Using someone else's code, under the terms of license he released it under, and even offering to re-do it if the author doesn't like the way he does things.
"Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible -- just enough to cover the cost.
Actually we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If this seems surprising to you, please read on."
They also say, "Except for one special situation, the GNU General Public License (20k characters) (GNU GPL) has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. It's up to you, and the marketplace, so don't complain to us if nobody wants to pay a billion dollars for a copy."
They have no problem with you charging whatever the market will bear, provided you provide the source code, at cost to transmit it, to anyone you give the binary to.
"not being able to conveniently contact the contributing GPL authors doesn't immunize him from having to do so before he can charge money."
READ THE GPL!!!!!
Sorry, had to get that out of my system. Anyhow, you most certainly can sell GPL software, and you don't need anyone's extra permission to do so. The GPL is itself permission enough. Free software has to do with freedom, not price. As such, charging money does not make it less free.
Here you go, from the FSF itself: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.htm l
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Thank you. Firefox's exe handling has always bugged me.
I hate to reply to a sig, but I'm curious as to what it does. I've studied really basic assembly (enough to crack some silly shareware apps, not enough to do anything useful with it yet).
I suspect it crashes, but I'm not sure. Why are the NOPs needed?
Ok, I'll bite here.
There are 2 ways to do region checking. One is by specifying the region, and letting the drive deal with it. This is the difference between RPC-1 (region free) and RPC-2 drives.
The other way (RCE) is to have the disk say it is compatible with all regions, and use the abilities of DVD menus to check regions. This method has the advantage of 1) making it harder for "universal" dvd players determine which region to work on, 2) working on RPC-1 drives, 3) being harder to bypass on hardware DVD players.
If your disk is of the second type (RCE), Linux players will work just fine. If the disk is of the first type, and of a different region, the drive will not give you the data to decrypt in the first place.
Given that the region encoding is checked by the drive itself, IN FIRMWARE, how is using linux going to help you?
Tmda?
It's called a gcf - it's in \Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps (your path may vary). Have your friend install the game, then copy the gcf from your computer to his (torrent, DVD-R, etc).
It's pseudocode! Let's define is_prime as a function, taking a string as an imput, and using GMP or some other arbitrary precision library to run the number through sieves to determine if it's prime.
The job was to explain, not to give actual code. Hence, the pseudocode comment.
Yeah, your missing something.
// here is your answer
Pseudocode:
e = [large precision e, perhaps as a string];
// Actually, it doesn't have to be that large
for ( int i = 0; i < strlen ( e ); i++ )
if ( is_prime ( substr ( e, i, 10 ) ) )
MSN Tried it, and even used to allow short calls for free. They discontinued service for some reason.
Keep fiddling with it; It worked the first time I tried it, then gave me errors. I went back into steam, screwed around, quit, and it started working again.
Google logs it just fine. The page uses frames, which your browser does not display due to the google-added header. Your browser also does not display the noframes content, as it does support frames.
It's all there, your browser just doesn't display it.
Try This.
Besides the fact that they are greedy corporate bastards, the purpose of this is to keep the money away from greedy government bastards.
Our laws are based losely off those of england, and include the simple concept of "all things belong to the government, you simply pay taxes so you can use them". As such, "unclaimed property" is an oxymoron.
Many states have what are known as "eschew" laws. If a giftcard expires, all of the money goes to the state. These service fees allow them to take money from the card, without having it expire and go to the government.
--
The next two people to complete an offer get up to 3 gmail invites, an orkut invite, and a $5 ebay gift certificate
It's not encrypted (despite what they say), if you fire up GCFScape, you can open and extract all the files.
The true protection lies in that they aren't preloading Half-Life 2.gcf (the filename is in the ClientRegistry.blob file), which contains the client dlls, nor are they releasing the maps yet.
It's actually _not_ encrypted, just fire up gcfscape, and you can extract the files just fine.
So, they have a web site which provides information to the public, and which is open, even when the library is closed.
They have a phone system, which provides information to the public, even when the library is closed.
They have a wireless access point, which provides access to the public, even when the library is closed.
How about, instead of trying to legislate, or figure out what the library meant, we let the library decide. Turning off the AP when you close is trivial, as would be shutting off the web site or turning off the answering machine. They don't do so.
Access should be considered open, until the owner says otherwise. This is like your front door. Having a front door is invitation to trespasslong enough to state your business. Trespassing laws keep getting applied to the internet anyway, and actually make sense in this case.
You connect to the web site, it gives you information and does not ask for authentication. Having a web site available is in invitation to state what you want. If the system gives it to you, fine. If not, and you persist, it's tresspass. See?
Now lets try the phone system. Having a phone is an open invitation to call it. You call it up, and it answers. A voice prompt says "press 1 for our hours", and you press it. You state your business. It gives you the information. If you try to access a debug mode to make free phone calls, it's tresspass.
Now, on to the AP. Having an AP is an open invitation to tresspass, at least long enough to state what you want. The AP can ignore you, or it can give you an IP and redirect you to a ToS or payment page, or it can simply let you through. If you attempt to violate it's access controls, it's tresspass. If it broadcasts its existance, it is an open invitation to at least state your business.
In all 3 cases, providing services on a publicly accessable system (radio, telephone, internet) automatically grants permission for those with access to the network to at least say hello, and see if the system wants to provide you access. Are you trying to say that you should have written permission to call a phone number? Or that you shouldn't call a company when they are closed? Or how about companies that want to provide paid or unpaid hotspot access? Should they have to give something to you in writing before you can use the network? Of course not.
"We want airtravel [sic] to be safe or else we wouldn't do it."
No, we want air travel to be safe enough for us to justify at the price we pay. Safety has a certain value to people, as does the experience (customer service, wait times, etc). As long as flying has more value to people than the money it costs to do so, people will continue to fly.
Few things in life are _safe_ - it's just a question of how much risk you are willing to take, and how much you are willing to pay to reduce that risk.
Somehow, it seems appropriate that while I'm writing this, the Microsoft TCO of Linux ad keeps showing.
What I think is most unfortunate is when a company hypes a product, with features people actually want, delays it, then finally releases it, but not as good as promised. Microsoft has done this in the past, but it looks like they may be taking the time to get Longhorn up to snuff.
It will be interesting to see if Half-Life 2 lives up to the hype.
--
Complete an offer, get a free Orkut invite, Gmail invite, and a copy of The Core Media Player Pro, to boot!
The legal aspect is why this was so popular. Timeshifting is legal, the music is licensed, and you are authorized to listen to it. As such, you can legally store, and replay the music as you see fit. Needless to say, the RIAA dislikes this.
The system I refer to cannot be used to "circumvent" the voter. The barcode is nothing more than a small checksum. The vote is still read optically, perhaps using the same optical scanners we have today. The difference is that it is ran through an algorithm, to make sure that what was printed matches the barcode. The voter can see the part of the ballot that gets counted. If the checksum fails, it's simply counted by hand. No less secure than the punch card system we have today, and less room for error.
Printing out a seperate piece of paper lets the voter walk away with proof of who he voted for. Forcing him to turn it in on the way out makes it harder, but abuses can (and have) happened in the past.
Also, it doesn't technically _need_ to be punched. It could also be printed on (like a Scantron).
Complete an offer, get a free Orkut invite, Gmail invite, and a copy of The Core Media Player Pro, to boot!
Why is having a voter-verified ballot so hard? Here is how to do right:
1) Voter selects what to vote for
2) Computer punches holes in a paper ballot, _and_ prints a barcode representing the votes on the ballot.
3) Counting machine reads optically, and checks barcode.
See? It's simple! The person can't walk out with the audit trail; if the ballot isn't presented on the way out, it's not counted. We already have optical reading systems; the barcode removes any reasonable chance of error.
100% accurate, can be checked by hand, can be done [relativly] cheaply, you can fall back on paper if the computers go down. Why aren't we doing this?!?!
Ok, I know the answer, but I don't have to like it.
--
Complete an offer, get a free Orkut invite, Gmail invite, and a copy of The Core Media Player Pro, to boot!
Well, if he provides the source to anyone who gets a binary, for that binary (at cost), he should be fine.
Actually, selling free software is fine. This guy is simply saying that if it bugs an author, he will remove that authors code, even though he is by no means required to.
To fix your analogy,
"This is on the same level as me imitating the landscaping and archetecture my neighbor has. I enjoy the designs, and I hope he doesn't mind. If it bothers him, I will re-do my yard to try to make him feel better, even though I am not legally required to do so".
Gee, isn't that evil. Using someone else's code, under the terms of license he released it under, and even offering to re-do it if the author doesn't like the way he does things.
Why would the FSF step in at all? To quote from their "Selling Free software" page,
"Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible -- just enough to cover the cost.
Actually we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If this seems surprising to you, please read on."
They also say, "Except for one special situation, the GNU General Public License (20k characters) (GNU GPL) has no requirements about how much you can charge for distributing a copy of free software. You can charge nothing, a penny, a dollar, or a billion dollars. It's up to you, and the marketplace, so don't complain to us if nobody wants to pay a billion dollars for a copy."
They have no problem with you charging whatever the market will bear, provided you provide the source code, at cost to transmit it, to anyone you give the binary to.
"not being able to conveniently contact the contributing GPL authors doesn't immunize him from having to do so before he can charge money."
m l
READ THE GPL!!!!!
Sorry, had to get that out of my system. Anyhow, you most certainly can sell GPL software, and you don't need anyone's extra permission to do so. The GPL is itself permission enough. Free software has to do with freedom, not price. As such, charging money does not make it less free.
Here you go, from the FSF itself:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.ht
Huh?!?!
I have placed a total of _one_ "free ipod" messages in _one_ of my post.
How the heck is this mass spamming? Check the stupid referral IDs. Find _one_ other post of that has the same id.