They're copying things and selling them when they have no right to do that. They don't have the rights to any of the 77 games that were copied and included in the sale of the Xbox.
Did these guys pay Microsoft or the game distributers the retail price for each game that was copied every time it was sold?
Something tells me that taking a piece of software (or in this case, 77 pieces of software), copying them from a physical disk to another medium, and including them in a sale without compensating the manufacturer of the software is stealing.
Perhaps I am missing the distinction here. Isn't there "Free Software" that is closed source? And isn't there Open Source Software that you have to pay for?
On a small scale, you're right. Some of this stuff is out of the reach of most ordinary attackers. Social engineering, especially on the scale that would be required to reach "secure" government, industry, or criminal computers, would be an enormous undertaking for most groups looking to get this information.
However, I think that organizations like the CIA, KGB, Mossad, and other big-time intelligence agencies would go through that kind of effort to socially engineer access to systems.
If you can get physical access to the secure computer, chances are you know about the BIOS passwords and somehow acquired them.
As for decrypting the drive once the image is on the IPOD, I'm not sure how you would do that. It would take a lot of computing power to do it, so I'm guessing that unless you can get it to the NSA, you'll be spending a long time trying to read the drive.
1) Social Engineering can get around any encryption or local software security. If a person can get to the restricted machine, chances are they also got all the information they need to access the system.
2) Unless the machine has no floppy drives, USB ports, or CD-ROMs, a live CD would allow an attacker with physical access to the machine to boot, image the hard drive to an external device (like an IPOD) and decrypt it later.
There are ways around any security. Sometimes, it is just a little more time consuming.
So basically, you're arguing that because our mansion has a leaky faucet and running toilet, we can't help the neighbor down the street put a better roof on his little thatch hut??
The problem is that the RIAA is going after the wrong target. I'm sure the Kazaa network was designed to allow users to share files, particularly music, but the company that runs the network is A)not providing the content, and B)not charging you for the content that users might recieve on the network.
I remember when the courts ordered Napster to block all copyrighted content on their networks. It didn't take longer than a day for all that material to reappear in ways that got around the program's content filters. Technically savvy people will get around those limits, and there is very little you can do to stop them besides banning them outright. Even then, you're not likely to keep them off the network for long.
The problem with the RIAA/MPAA is that they started off by going after the wrong targets. Instead of going after the networks, they should have gone after the individuals who provided the content. It wouldn't have been too hard to track down those individuals who were sharing massive amounts of files and sue them into oblivion, and then it would have made people think twice about sharing over the Internet.
Now, becuase they allowed this situation to develop, it seems like the **AA has to sue indiscriminately, seeking punitive damages in each case. They don't show any discretion, which causes them to lose many cases in the court of public opinion.
While there are very few people who would argue that a file trader with 5000+ songs freely available on Kazaa has a lawsuit coming to him, most people think that suing a grandma who accidentally downloads a modern rendition of Glenn Miller's Moonlight Serenade is absolutely nuts. The file trader deserves to be sued into oblivion while the Grandma should just be forced to buy a legal copy of the offending material and be told not to be more careful next time.
Before anyone attacks my example, I will admit that it is extreme. My point, however, is that the **AAs don't appear to consider anything but their business model when filing lawsuits.
I can access my access point up to a block away from my apartment building, and when I visit my parents, I can get see my neighbor's access point several houses away. Again, this is not conclusive by any means.
I don't get how anyone can draw any conclusions off of this article. Its too succinct to give anything more than a basic "who, what, where, when, and why."
Maybe this guy is smart enough to upload the movie, wipe his files, and then claim it was a drive-by uploading. Or maybe he really is innocent. All that we know right now is that this man is being sued for a buttload of money on some circumstantial evidence.
Working as a user is getting easier in Windows now. With XP SP2, the "run as..." command has been added to the right click context menu, so you can be logged in as user and still install or run software that requires administrator priviledges. Its not perfect, but its better than running in root/administrator and getting infected by all sorts of nastiness.
And then people and companies will buy older hardware on Ebay instead of investing in brand new servers. When sales start to fall, computer makers will realize their folly and open things up again.
So if I post my blog in a manner that doesn't use any of their network resources, such as from an off-campus broadband connection, and I host it on a private server, they can't get me for violations of the AUP?
Often times, a university will offer the woman a sweet deal to try the crime in front of the University court or no court at all. While I haven't seen this first hand at my college, I have heard about this from the campus security force. There have been a few reported rapes that were quickly hushed up by the administration because they didn't want the school's name in the paper.
But, indirectly, they are funded by the government in some way. Almost every school in the United States accepts Federal dollars, either in the form of research grants and/or Federal Student Aid.
Accepting this money requires them to abide by a number of conditions, one of which protects the students from reprisal if they speak their mind. Unless they slander or libel someone, the school has very limited recourse.
Or it should cut other services. Or not spend money on foolishly rebuilding a city that exists below sea-level. Or not start a war. I can think of a million things that they shouldn't do.
If the government has to start tracking my movements under the guise of collecting money to pay for the roads, then I think its high time we started working to replace the current government.
Dear Boss,
In your shortsighted views on security, you decided ignore the warnings of your IT staff and not authorize a project. Because of that, we now face a huge, company-wide problem.
There is no need to panic, however. We have gone around you to your superior, and he has already authorized the project plus additional funds to clean up the mess your decision has caused.
Hmm...that's different. About five years ago, when I was in high school, I worked at one of the largest libraries in Illinois. We had 36 computers that were available for public access to the Internet, and in order to use the computers, you had to sign in at the desk. These records were kept for about one month, and weekly/monthly usage statistics were kept for longer.
When I went back there a few weeks ago while passing through town, the system had become more automated and recorded even more info. Library patrons had to use their card to sign in, and guests still had to sign in at the desk. I would guess that all this information would be kept on hand since several members have been banned for looking up pornography or using the computers to commit crimes.
I'm tyring to figure out what you're bitter about. For one, there is plenty of help available to "underprividged" children in the United States from both the government and private entities. Whether those services are utilized is up to the individual child's parents.
Another thing...you keep railing about the plight of people in the United States, but the poor here are better off than some of the rich people in other places of the world.
Slashdot Mirror
Piracy is more than murdering people. It also commonly has a theft component, which I suspect is acted upon more than the murderous rampages.
All these posts and not one single mention of Battletech?? What is Slashdot coming to?
They're copying things and selling them when they have no right to do that. They don't have the rights to any of the 77 games that were copied and included in the sale of the Xbox.
Did these guys pay Microsoft or the game distributers the retail price for each game that was copied every time it was sold?
Something tells me that taking a piece of software (or in this case, 77 pieces of software), copying them from a physical disk to another medium, and including them in a sale without compensating the manufacturer of the software is stealing.
Perhaps I am missing the distinction here. Isn't there "Free Software" that is closed source? And isn't there Open Source Software that you have to pay for?
On a small scale, you're right. Some of this stuff is out of the reach of most ordinary attackers. Social engineering, especially on the scale that would be required to reach "secure" government, industry, or criminal computers, would be an enormous undertaking for most groups looking to get this information.
However, I think that organizations like the CIA, KGB, Mossad, and other big-time intelligence agencies would go through that kind of effort to socially engineer access to systems.
If you can get physical access to the secure computer, chances are you know about the BIOS passwords and somehow acquired them.
As for decrypting the drive once the image is on the IPOD, I'm not sure how you would do that. It would take a lot of computing power to do it, so I'm guessing that unless you can get it to the NSA, you'll be spending a long time trying to read the drive.
1) Social Engineering can get around any encryption or local software security. If a person can get to the restricted machine, chances are they also got all the information they need to access the system.
2) Unless the machine has no floppy drives, USB ports, or CD-ROMs, a live CD would allow an attacker with physical access to the machine to boot, image the hard drive to an external device (like an IPOD) and decrypt it later.
There are ways around any security. Sometimes, it is just a little more time consuming.
So basically, you're arguing that because our mansion has a leaky faucet and running toilet, we can't help the neighbor down the street put a better roof on his little thatch hut??
The problem is that the RIAA is going after the wrong target. I'm sure the Kazaa network was designed to allow users to share files, particularly music, but the company that runs the network is A)not providing the content, and B)not charging you for the content that users might recieve on the network.
I remember when the courts ordered Napster to block all copyrighted content on their networks. It didn't take longer than a day for all that material to reappear in ways that got around the program's content filters. Technically savvy people will get around those limits, and there is very little you can do to stop them besides banning them outright. Even then, you're not likely to keep them off the network for long.
The problem with the RIAA/MPAA is that they started off by going after the wrong targets. Instead of going after the networks, they should have gone after the individuals who provided the content. It wouldn't have been too hard to track down those individuals who were sharing massive amounts of files and sue them into oblivion, and then it would have made people think twice about sharing over the Internet.
Now, becuase they allowed this situation to develop, it seems like the **AA has to sue indiscriminately, seeking punitive damages in each case. They don't show any discretion, which causes them to lose many cases in the court of public opinion.
While there are very few people who would argue that a file trader with 5000+ songs freely available on Kazaa has a lawsuit coming to him, most people think that suing a grandma who accidentally downloads a modern rendition of Glenn Miller's Moonlight Serenade is absolutely nuts. The file trader deserves to be sued into oblivion while the Grandma should just be forced to buy a legal copy of the offending material and be told not to be more careful next time.
Before anyone attacks my example, I will admit that it is extreme. My point, however, is that the **AAs don't appear to consider anything but their business model when filing lawsuits.
Why hasn't someone patented the business model that allows you to sue your customers?
I can access my access point up to a block away from my apartment building, and when I visit my parents, I can get see my neighbor's access point several houses away. Again, this is not conclusive by any means.
I don't get how anyone can draw any conclusions off of this article. Its too succinct to give anything more than a basic "who, what, where, when, and why."
Maybe this guy is smart enough to upload the movie, wipe his files, and then claim it was a drive-by uploading. Or maybe he really is innocent. All that we know right now is that this man is being sued for a buttload of money on some circumstantial evidence.
Working as a user is getting easier in Windows now. With XP SP2, the "run as..." command has been added to the right click context menu, so you can be logged in as user and still install or run software that requires administrator priviledges. Its not perfect, but its better than running in root/administrator and getting infected by all sorts of nastiness.
And then people and companies will buy older hardware on Ebay instead of investing in brand new servers. When sales start to fall, computer makers will realize their folly and open things up again.
Now imagine something like that on a much, much grander scale. What if that was done with New York in each tunnel and bridge to Manhattan Island?
Sounds like a good idea for a season of 24.
Wow. That's impressive. I will admit that it is possible, and that a college can actually do it without accepting any federal aid.
However, a great majority of private colleges do accept federal aid.
Find me a college that does not accept any Federal Student Aid in the United States and I'll believe you.
So if I post my blog in a manner that doesn't use any of their network resources, such as from an off-campus broadband connection, and I host it on a private server, they can't get me for violations of the AUP?
Often times, a university will offer the woman a sweet deal to try the crime in front of the University court or no court at all. While I haven't seen this first hand at my college, I have heard about this from the campus security force. There have been a few reported rapes that were quickly hushed up by the administration because they didn't want the school's name in the paper.
But, indirectly, they are funded by the government in some way. Almost every school in the United States accepts Federal dollars, either in the form of research grants and/or Federal Student Aid.
Accepting this money requires them to abide by a number of conditions, one of which protects the students from reprisal if they speak their mind. Unless they slander or libel someone, the school has very limited recourse.
Or it should cut other services. Or not spend money on foolishly rebuilding a city that exists below sea-level. Or not start a war. I can think of a million things that they shouldn't do.
If the government has to start tracking my movements under the guise of collecting money to pay for the roads, then I think its high time we started working to replace the current government.
Its very easy to explain.
Dear Boss,
In your shortsighted views on security, you decided ignore the warnings of your IT staff and not authorize a project. Because of that, we now face a huge, company-wide problem.
There is no need to panic, however. We have gone around you to your superior, and he has already authorized the project plus additional funds to clean up the mess your decision has caused.
Sincerly,
Your IT Staff
Hmm...that's different. About five years ago, when I was in high school, I worked at one of the largest libraries in Illinois. We had 36 computers that were available for public access to the Internet, and in order to use the computers, you had to sign in at the desk. These records were kept for about one month, and weekly/monthly usage statistics were kept for longer.
When I went back there a few weeks ago while passing through town, the system had become more automated and recorded even more info. Library patrons had to use their card to sign in, and guests still had to sign in at the desk. I would guess that all this information would be kept on hand since several members have been banned for looking up pornography or using the computers to commit crimes.
So then a virus with an anti-circumvention device can invade my computer, illegally, and I can't act in defense of my property?
I'm tyring to figure out what you're bitter about. For one, there is plenty of help available to "underprividged" children in the United States from both the government and private entities. Whether those services are utilized is up to the individual child's parents.
Another thing...you keep railing about the plight of people in the United States, but the poor here are better off than some of the rich people in other places of the world.