Hmm, seems pretty bad to me. That means it misses a significant number of know viruses. Why would it miss known viruses? I mean everyone knows about them, surely they tested their solution against all known viruses as well as some new ones just made in the lab, right? I'd accept a 80% failure rate for unknown viruses, they're hard. A.09% failure rate for known viruses though, I have a hard time understanding.
visio has no decent OSS version and none that will read its format. It would be useful if Google created even a web app of it and perhaps release a library for reading/writing the format.
On OS X, Omnigraffle by the Omnigroup seems to win a lot of Visio users over. It can import and export to the Visio XML format and in fact stores info natively in XML. I know one engineering manager who switched to OS X after trying it out on one of his engineer's machines and realizing how much better it was for certain tasks, than Visio. It is not an OSS application or free, but it is another option.
Apple is locking their software to particular hardware. This sounds like DRM to me.
I suppose it depends upon what you consider DRM. If you do consider this DRM, at least in the US it only restricts a person who is knowingly using their machine in a way that violates their licensing agreement. We'd all rather we had the option to buy a copy of OS X licensed to run on generic hardware, but since that would put Apple out of business and we'd soon have to switch to Linux or Windows anyway, I don't see that as a good long-term option. Break up the Windows monopoly and Apple will ship on generic hardware because they won't have a choice. Until then, I don't see how their "DRM" is an issue unless you're a criminal.
Remember his player is in the dominant position. So how would taking the dominant player with a strong bundling and putting it on equal footing be the greedy option.
His player is in the dominant position, but his DRM is less common than PlaysForSure. Most music is ripped from CD or downloaded from P2P. A lot of the music ripped from CD had PlaysForSure added by Windows Media Player. Realistically, DRM bundling is probably costing Apple more sales than it gives them. Also, we're not looking at banning DRM or not banning DRM as the only two options. Several governments and lawsuits are pushing for defanging only FairPlay DRM and not PlaysForSure since they are concerned about the iPod tying in, but not the Windows bundling. Making this statement pulls all DRM in and makes politicians who argue against one and not the other a lot less noble looking and a lot more like greedy politicos paid off by one corporation to attack another.
Jobs isn't concerned about that because he genuinely believes that even if the playing field is leveled, his attention to overall experience will win out.
Oh I agree Apple is willing to fight on level ground. I suspect their DRM was a counter to MS's in the first place. That doesn't mean, however, that this is not the best business move for Apple as well. Note, this is not Job's first statement about DRM and I think this lines up with his personal opinions. The fact that it is being widely publicized right now, however, makes a lot of business sense for Apple.
I'm guessing the best way to enact change is to write to your representatives in government and governing body and tell them about Job's statement and that both the industry and the people want DRM banned. Maybe they'll pass a law if they think people care enough to vote based upon the issue.
I have WMP 10 installed on my XP VM, It has not automatically updated to a new version and I have never touched the settings, as I never use it. I just looked and it rips to PlaysForSure by default. If you haven't changed the defaults and just keep your XP machine up to date without a re-install (like I do) it seems to add DRM by default.
Is that really true? And if so, does it mean that a Windows user that ripped a bunch of CD's to the default format can't import those songs even to their Zune? Somehow, I doubt it - though I wouldn't put it past Microsoft's brain-dead Zune DRM switcheroo.
I haven't tested the newest version of WMP that ships with Vista, but it is true for the version of WMP that is on my XP install. Also, I've read that the Zune plays some PlaysForSure music, although I have not seen an authoritative write-up on what plays and what doesn't.
The previous poster said "near monopoly." From a practical standpoint, by the way, it is not necessary that they have a complete monopoly, they need only wield disproportionate enough influence in the market to allow them to undermine the normal market forces. From both an economics standpoint and a legal standpoint, it is this influence that is important. Most legal systems look at a market share between 70% and 85% as a good point to start investigating the level of influence. Most estimates put Apple's market share in portable digital players around 70%.
I do not blame Microsoft for DRM in media files. Clearly the music companies and movie studios have demanded this.
The music companies can refuse to license music to stores run by Microsoft unless they comply with demands. Well, that makes sense, but MS started employing DRM long before they had a store. Moreover, how exactly is it that the music companies are forcing Microsoft to have Windows Media player default to adding DRM, when iTunes does not? I mean MS has a lot more leverage here than Apple, but somehow MS is forced to add more DRM than Apple? I'm not buying that.
The music companies are certainly pushing DRM on everyone, but MS sees it as an opportunity to lock people in to yet more proprietary file formats that only work with MS products. MS is paid for every PlaysForSure implementation and profit directly. Every person who rips their CD collection then realizes WMP added DRM and they can't move to mac easily and they can't move to Linux easily and they have to buy a portable player that pays MS a licensing fee benfits MS directly and they are all about that. I certainly blame MS for their part in this.
If Steve Jobs is so eager to provide DRM-free music, why does Apple slap on DRM on even indie music and labels that don't mind selling DRM-free music.
That's a good question, and one that can probably answered by someone with standing subpoenaing the confidential trade secret contracts Apple has with the RIAA members. I'll bet you $20 that one of the conditions an RIAA member placed in the contract was that all music sold had to have DRM, not just music from the RIAA.
It's all very fine to say that they are being forced to put DRM when they benefit from it themselves by creating a vendor lock-in.
Apple runs the ITMS as a break-even operation to promote iPod sales. Almost all music on iPods is from P2P networks and ripped CDs. Apple's lock-in probably loses them more sales due to bad press than it makes them from lock-in. I think you are mistaken about how much benefit it brings Apple. They got into the music and DRM business to stop Microsoft from taking it over and disadvantaging Macs.
Apple needs to give record labels the choice of whether they want their music to be sold with or without DRM on the iTunes Store.
It is entirely probable that one of the conditions placed by a given music publisher, contingent on their licensing of music to Apple, was that all music sold from the store has DRM on it, to prevent indy music from undercutting them by being just as available, but more functional. I'm pretty sure Apple would love to sell DRMless music, since the lock-in is not really useful to them. If this is indeed the case, Apple might be able to bring it up as a cartel abuse issue, but doing so is a very big risk as if the courts are slow or ineffective Apple is dead in that business and MS controls all DRM for the foreseeable future. Now that the indy labels are organizing into a single pseudo-label for purposes of negotiations, maybe they can bring some pressure to bear. Assuming such a contract exists (which I think is probable) it will likely only be made public if someone with legal standing subpoenas it.
Is it also the record companies that force Steve to sell OS X with DRM? Do not forget that OS X is tied to Mac hardware by a "Trusted Computing Module".
Have you considered checking your facts? The most recent Macs don't even have a TPM module and no version of OS X ever used it, although some third party utilities did, in order to do more secure encryption. Macintosh computers do check the motherboard to insure it is an Apple one, but no "DRM" is in use and if you look at the code that does that it contains a "please don't violate our license by installing on other hardware" message.
In this case, Jobs demonstrated that common sense CAN dominate over greed, even in a corporate environment.
I disagree. Oh, I think banning DRM from media companies is good for everyone, but I think in this particular instance getting rid of it benefits Apple more than keeping it. Right now Apple faces the possibility that they will no longer be able to leverage the iPod to promote FairPlay. Since MS can still leverage Windows to promote PlayForSure, that means if Apple is forced to take this action Apple will lose (as will consumers) as MS eventually monopolizes that market segment as well. Job's press statement capitalizes upon all the bad press they have been getting lately and turns it from a liability to a benefit. Instead of looking like a greedy exec, he takes the people's side against DRM in general, which would leave a relatively level playing field and the iPod and macintosh computer could both compete on their merits (something Apple is not afraid of). Considering a likely alternative is Apple being forced to license FairPlay, while MS is not forced to allow any given party to license PlaysForSure or whatever they decide to bundle, this is not common sense over greed, but common sense that happens to coincide with greed.
Jobs is trying to convince people that the reason their shiny new iTune won't play on their polished brown Zune is the music company's fault, not iTMS, and that the music companies need to change how they allow iTMS to sell their music, rather than governments forcing Apple to let competitors use their DRM.
Actually, Jobs provides several alternatives, but says that banning DRM altogether is in the best interests of the consumer. Here's a question for you, what DRM scheme is used to protect most songs on people's computer's? Answer: PlaysForSure. There is only one reason for this, Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop OS's, with which they bundle Windows Media Player which adds that DRM when it rips CDs by default. Has any government stopped this illegal bundling? Nope. Now, however, there have been several governments trying to stop Apple from leveraging their near monopoly (possible monopoly) on portable digital music players, to promote their own DRM scheme, Fairplay, and keep it the second most common DRM scheme. Does anything about that seem odd to you? I mean MS was actually convicted in the EU of bundling this, but not stopped or punished in any meaningful way. Apple might have enough market to have a monopoly and government officials are making public statements about legislation and legal action.
Apple is the reason MS does not control the DRM market and use it to intentionally promote incompatibility. Apple's main concern was making sure this was not used to disadvantage macintosh computers. Now they have their iPod to defend as well. Making DRM go away results in a free market and both these products get to compete on their own merits in this market. Defanging Apple's ability to leverage the success of the iPod, while not doing the same for MS's ability to leverage the success of Windows has only one likely result and it is not good for anyone.
I completely understand why getting rid of DRM is good for both Apple and consumers. What I don't understand is why anyone would quibble about this and try to imly that just opening up Fairplay would do the same thing.
What is amazing to me is that Jobs/Apple have a near monopoly on digital music downloads/players that would only be hurt by a lack of DRM lock-in and yet Jobs is still advocating for the change. Would any other company or CEO do this?
Most iPods are still filled primarily with P2P downloads and ripped CDs. The lock-in they have is not all that valuable and probably not worth the bad press they receive as a result of it. I have long said the ITMS and Fairplay were just there to sell iPods not make money and the Fairplay was the least intrusive DRM they could get the studios to buy in on. Jobs stated long ago that DRM does not work for stopping piracy. He knows the score. DRM exists to promote incompatibility such that the media companies can get people to buy the same music for different uses (ring tone, in the car, portable, home stereo, etc.)
Apple saw this use coming an stepped in to make sure the Mac line of computers was not destroyed by it once Microsoft controlled DRM using their OS monopoly. The fact that they succeeded as well as they have is somewhat miraculous and I suspect surprised even them. They set out to stop macs from being third class media citizens and ended up the big kid in the portable player market. Don't get too excited though. Windows Media Format - PlaysForSure is still the most common DRM scheme in use since so many people accidentally rip their CDs to that format with WMP's default settings. Now Apple is being attacked through legal channels and several companies have a vested interest in making sure Fairplay is defanged, while PlaysForSure and the Zune DRM formats are not. Jobs is doing the right thing here by turning their press attacks against them and asking for no DRM, rather than a situation that will inevitably lead to MS owning the space.
I would have thought that the password authentication method was the part that needed to be secured.
Lets see for today a given/24 has on average 57 ongoing SSH login/password dictionary attacks ongoing making it the 4th most common type of network attack. The obscurity part of this defense is essential, but I'm certainly going to restrict my boxes to allowing SSH attempts from couple of specific IPs as well. Security through obscurity is a time tested and vital part of security, but at the same time it better not be your only security. To get this back on topic (sort of) closed source versus open source is not a question of "is obscurity useful" it is a question of "does that obscurity to some people lead to greater or lesser security than the many eyes approach?"
If an artist is so upset over the deal he gets with a record company then he doesn't have to sign the contract.
Sometimes you have poor choices all around. You can either sign a contract and give up your rights, or not reach any appreciable audience and get a different job. Why do you think it is okay for the law to provide artists with this lousy choice, given that the law exists only for the purpose of benefitting society? Can you show me how copyright law is benefitting society in this instance?
The two free entities signed into a contract with each other.
So if a law is passed saying all commercial enterprises building houses must pay me a psychic inspection fee and people can choose either to build houses and pay me the fee or not build houses and do something else, you think the fact that we are both free entities somehow makes a difference?
Obviously each entity thinks that they are getting a good deal or else they wouldn't sign the contract.
Maybe they think it is the least bad deal, given our crappy, crappy laws.
In the case of your grandmother, why does she have to sign the rights to her book away at all?
If she wants to be paid and if she wants anyone to have a chance at reading them she does. No contract means no way to get books into all the major stores.
Would you like it if a stranger came to your job and told you how you should do your job and handle your personal life? My guess is no, so why are you trying to dictate what artists do with theirs?
Your analogy is crap. Other people do have an influence into my life and work, especially in areas where that conflicts with their natural human rights. Copyright law is a restriction on natural rights and as such is only justified in its benefits to society. If you can't demonstrate the benefit for a given aspect of copyright, then it should not exist. Your infantile argument is like claiming, a law making it illegal to teach blacks is okay, because you don't want me coming and telling you how to do your job, so why should we tell police? It makes no sense. When a law is restricting human rights, the onus is on advocates of that law to show the real benefit to society, not upon individuals to show why that law needs to be removed in a given instance.
You haven't even addressed the issue of our rapidly vanishing artistic heritage, lost to the ages because the copyright is owned forever by some company or by an individual that does not even know they own it.
think that copyright should exist for 14 years and 14 years renewable(if the owners are still alive), but saying the solution is to abolish all copyright is myopic at best.
Jump to conclusions much? I never said I thought copyright should be abolished and I strongly implied otherwise by saying we should take DRM into account in reforming copyright. Why 14 years? Did you pull that out of your ass? Cannot a lot of damage be done in 14 years? How about if we pick times that benefit society the most?
I see absolutely no justification for maintaining copyright on works that are not available for sale to the general public at a normal market price. Why should it be 10 years after the last printed copy of a book is sold off, before that book becomes public domain? What is the justification? If it is not for sale and thus not making money and motivating artists, why should it not go out of copyright immediately? What about different types of works? For example, console video games may well not be playable at all on any existing hardware and no good copy may exist after 14 years. Should those works simply vanish entirely because their nature makes them useless after a time if they don't reach the public domain? And what about DRM, the issue that brought this up. If a work enters the public domain after 14 years, but strong DRM prevents anyone from making copies of that public domain work, how is that any better than indefinite DRM?
First, mercenaries, like soylent green, are people. A certain kind of people: people whose loyalty can be bought with money.
True, but if you hire that type of people you need to be aware that more money (such as an offer from a competitor or which they can make by stealing the customer database and reselling it) is likely to change their loyalties. A good manager wants to avoid ever putting their workers into the mindset that it is all a cold business calculation because in reality, employees can make more money screwing the company over.
And honestly? I didn't join the company to make friends, thanks. I joined the company to do business. I treat my boss and other co-workers with dignity and respect. As long as they do the same, and as long as they pay me generously for the work I do, I have no complaints.
You would never work here. We simply would not pay you enough upfront cash, which seems to be the only important job characteristic to you. As an aside, making friends can be a big part of doing business. It's not what you know, but who you know that is most likely to get you employed somewhere.
'm just here to earn money to fund my lifestyle. My job is not that lifestyle.... I get paid. Then I go home and enjoy the fruits of my labor.
This seems tragic to me. You're spending 1/3 of your life at work and you aren't enjoying yourself there and making friends and living life. A person who takes a job they do not enjoy and lives for when they get out of work is likely to lead a pretty unhappy life. We have people here that could easily earn half again as much if they moved on to a bigger company. Those people aren't staying because of the stock options. They're staying because the work is interested, the people are fun, the atmosphere is relaxed, and if your kid has a school play some day you don't have to make up excuses about being sick. They're here because their boss wants to go to the pub for lunch and talk about the latest breakthrough, or about guitar hero or something.
And the flip side of all this is, I'm being paid to do a job, and that job does not include crafting security breaches for my own personal benefit.
Why not? If your company will fire you to save money, while giving the CEO a huge raise and signing off on his expensed trips to the strip club, why shouldn't you use your insider knowledge to steal millions from them? If it is just business, you can grab all that money and never have to go to work again to fund your lifestyle. Why should I, as a potential employer, hire you? Why should I trust you won't screw me over? I mean, from a purely business perspective, it is not worthwhile to hire you and then spend a lot of time and money making sure you aren't ripping me off, when I can hire someone else who demonstrates personal loyalty and who I feel I can trust.
So why should I care what surveillance they have in place to catch malicious hackers?
Maybe you've heard of the science of psychology? Trust is an interesting subject. If you take actions that demonstrate you do not trust a person, they will feel no obligation to not take actions that justify that trust. In fact, studies have shown that people who feel they do not have justification for a crime are much less likely to commit a crime. It is a stronger motivation even than the fear of being caught and punished. As such, motivating your employees to not steal, can provide more benefit for less cost than making them afraid they might be caught. When motivating employees into feeling they are treated well, it is also usually orders of magnitude cheaper than other security measures.
If I'm being a malicious hacker, I'm not doing my job, and all the consequences that follow are my own damn fault.
This misses the point by a nautical mile. This isn't about whose fault it is if you hack your employer. It is about whether or not you feel it is ethical for you to hack your employer and the resulting probable affect upon your
I know I am going against the groupthink here and will be modded accordingly, but how are you "giving" the culture to the company that created a movie/song/whatever?
For the most part the studios and artists that create works do not retain the copyright for those works because it is the distribution channels that have been taken over by monopolists and cartels. To equate the person who owns the copyright with the creator of a work is misguided. Do you know how much an average musician makes from the copyright on their songs? Less than nothing. In exchange for making songs and transferring the copyright to a label, most musicians sign a contract that puts them in debt. It is the only way to get their music widely distributed. Most of them make money selling trademarked t-shirts, and doing live performances. If copyright disappeared tomorrow most musicians would probably make more money.
If you want to, you create the culture and give it away.
Yeah, and have basically no chance of reaching the mainstream audience.
The world does not exist to entertain you, I know that is hard to swallow, but it is true. If you don't like the MPAA or RIAA then go outside to do something, read one of the huge number of public domain books, actually talk to other human beings instead of being glued to the screen cursing the same MPAA who finances the movies you like.
Books are an interesting example. Do you know how many books make a profit after the first 3 years? Less than 1%. If my grandmother wrote a book 40 years ago and died 20 years ago, the chances are the copyright for that book would be owned by a publishing house who would intentionally bury it, so that the work could not be freely printed and it did not compete with current offerings. The vast majority of books, TV shows, and songs are intentionally being held by companies who do not offer them for sale, effectively erasing them from public. You mention public domain books, but most books written since the 70s will likely never, ever enter the public domain and of those that do, most will be DRM'd in some way so no usable copy may ever exist.
Some of those are probably the greatest works of literature of those decades, but were too progressive for their time and were tossed in a bin. What is copyright and why does it exist? My natural human right to free speech means that if you sing a song and I hear it, I have the right to sing that song too. Copyright is an artificial restriction on that right, designed to motivate the creation and archival of more works. If the works are no longer archived and no one can see or read them and they are not for sale so no additional revenue is motivating the author's to create, why are works still copyrighted? What is the justification for restricting my free speech?
Anyone who takes the time to see how many and what artistic works are vanishing, the last copies rotting away, becomes concerned about the issue. Our artistic heritage is being buried for about 1% increase in profit. We need reform and that reform should take DRM into account.
We have a policy of paying for cabs, rather than risking someone driving home. Besides, people will maybe have a beer at lunch, or one after work, then grab some dinner and head home. Anyone likely to get drunk probably went to a bar after work anyway.
Every few months someone writes and article or publishes something talking about how insider threats are the largest avenue for security breaches. Usually, they are trying to sell some new "spy on your employees" device. My company even makes a device that tracks employee internet usage and finds abnormalities. We have one deployed internally and anyone can look at it to see what other people have been doing. Sometimes we'll make fun of someone for being the most frequent visitor to Slashdot this month, or some-such. That said, we have deployed an incredibly effective system for stopping insider threats. Such a system used to be commonplace in many companies, but has since fallen into disuse due to modern business strategies and short-term money saving concerns. This fabulous system is called, "beer in the fridge."
By spending a small amount of money to keep the kitchen fridge stocked with free beer for all employees, the company has cheaply bought all our loyalty. Sure we could perform extensive audits and spend time spying on potential insider threats and implement physical security to stop people from bringing in portable drives they could use to steal our customer databases, but really the beer is a lot cheaper. It has added benefits too. If an employee is gets a job offer elsewhere they often ask about the free beer situation. I think it is worth about 20K of salary in most people's comparisons. If people are moving on, they stay in touch with people here and recommend us to work for and to buy products and services from. People give lots of notice and will stay on to finish a project or train someone else. People are a lot more likely to stay late or come in on the weekends to work on something because of the free beer.
Yes, the fabulous "beer in the fridge" system has many advantages.
Treat employees well, like people instead of mercenaries. Be their friend as well as their boss. If they can't come in some day because they have something come up, or an old friend comes into town, let them take a day off. Make sure people don't fear they will be fired because management needs better numbers for the year. Make sure they know they are valued as employees and people. Take them out to lunch now and again or order a pizza, or get free donuts. Well treated people almost never betray their employer and tend to treat their boss well in return. This isn't rocket science.
Citizens are far more likely to know their US Senator than their state senator, just as they are far more likely to know the president's name than their governor's.
True, but they are entirely responsible for electing their governor, whereas they may have no real impact on electing the president. In general, I am unconvinced that people don't care as much about local issues as national ones.
I think you would be remarkably hard-pressed to find a large group of people who could name any Secretary of Transportation unless it affected them personally.
Federal issues do affect people personally, but local issues are more likely to affect them directly. People know the secretary of transportation for their state, because their name is on the driver's license renewal form, or license plate tag, or whatever.
As someone who has worked in a state legislature, I can personally vouch for the zero media presence when session convened at 1pm.
What the media covers as filler is not the same thing as what people are interested in. People care if their property taxes are going up and if the potholes on main st. will be fixed and if the mayor is sleeping with prostitutes. They don't care about most of the laws passed, but they do care about the major issues and what affects them, which is mostly local.
States have a free pass when it comes to accountability, so long as they don't step on the wrong toes, causing them to exact revenge by exposing scandal.
People care about scandal and love to hear dirt about local politicians. People care more as the abuses of the local government increase. You may think the state governments can get away with anything, but they can only do so until it pisses off the locals, then they are out because people can and do effect change based upon a few issues. This is quite different from national politics.
You would be shocked at how a typical state government is actually run...
I doubt it. I live in a state where technically I can be sentenced to life in jail for sleeping with a married woman. The state governments are no less corrupt than the feds, it is just that the corruption can be checked by the people if it goes to far or by the feds if it goes to far. Checks and balances can bring a state back from totally corrupt and owned to normal moderately corrupt in ways that don't bother most people. That has happened in the past. The federal government is unlikely to ever recover from such a state, which is why it is important to keep as much power decentralized as possible to keep that from happening.
Just out of curiosity, how does someone with a nick like "lonechicken" get a date with a pro cheerleader?
Perhaps a person who chooses a handle like, "lonechicken" is a person who is not afraid of criticism? I don't want to speak for the previous poster since I don't know them, but on a related topic, when I left home and went to school at a huge engineering university I was amazed by how many guys there did not talk to women and yet complained about having trouble meeting people. There were three women for every guy at that school, but I never had problems meeting women, because 80% of the guys were too scared to talk to them. Just being confident enough to approach some girl is the largest hurdle many people face.
Then why don't the states each print their own currency?
They used to, but it lead to a lot of divisiveness, so the constitution was written to allow the federal government to print the money, and very nearly to create a federal banking system that probably would have lead to the government to collapse in 50 years.
Why doesn't each state have its own Social Security card?
I'm all in favor of making social security a state run institution. Its constitutionality is pretty arguable.
Are the FCC and FAA overreaching their bounds by demanding broadcast and flight standards nationwide?
Perhaps, but these are items that naturally cross state boundaries constantly. Abuses by the FAA and FCC are both numerous and threatening to our democracy. One performs searches of people without any probable cause that they may have committed a crime, while the other has been found censoring free speech numerous times. How many such abuses can our democracy survive before it is completely taken over by authoritarian special interests?
What about the fact that cars have to be built to national standards?
Actually you can build any kind of car you want and ignore standards.
Why do all the states use the same power connector for wall outlets?
Because the industry standardized for convenience, independent of the government.
Hell, why are all the 50 states even IN a union if things like that are so bad? Why don't all of them go it alone on their own terms?
There is strength in unity, but according to the constitution each state has the right to secede (although the south was illegally prevented from so doing). The point isn't that things are "so bad" it is that the risk to centralization of power is very, very real. By creating a divided centralized government and limiting their power to very specific items, and restricting them from acting in any other way we gain the lion's share of the benefits of a central government, while minimizing the risks to the freedom of the people such a government poses. Jefferson thought the system created could keep from becoming tyrannical for 20-40 years. It has been several hundred years now and we still haven't gone completely off the deep end. It is, however, almost inevitable that eventually the central government will become a tyranny and we are commanded to remain ever vigilant against that day and against the central government gathering too much power to itself. One of the central tenants of our government's creation was that the central government itself is the largest threat to freedom in the US. That has not changed, although people's awareness of it has.
Is that completely unreasonable? You wouldn't have to centralise authority, it would just be a design standardisation.
Power attracts more power. So the central government claims the authority to standardize the design of IDs and mandate their use in certain situations (air travel, alcohol purchases). Can the feds then mandate that all of them contain a thumbprint? Hmm, suddenly we have mandatory thumb-printing for the entire US. If they can claim an arbitrary power from the states, a power granted to the states by the constitution, what other powers can they claim? Can they mandate retinal scans be encoded on the ID, and political party affiliation? Can they mandate health records and genetic code be added? Can they mandate your phone number be added? Can they then verify your location every time you use it and build a profile of where you go and who else is there?
All powers not granted the feds are given to the states because otherwise they gradually claim all power in one central authority, which will eventually be subverted. Even the power to mandate a format can be abused and lead to greater abuse. We must resist all consolidation of power because individually these powers may not mean much, but together they add up to a lot. The government enforcing only one maker for crayons is not a risk. The government enforcing who makes what for the entire economy almost guarantees a totalitarian regime within a decade. I don't know which powers will lead to that and neither do you. It makes sense to me to be very conservative about this.
If you want the states to have the same format for all ID cards why not get a couple of state legislatures together and form a standard? Then try to get other states to adopt it. This is a lot less risky than handing arbitrary powers to the feds, or worse yet not doing anything when they unconstitutionally claim those powers.
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A 99.91% success rate isn't exactly horrible.
Hmm, seems pretty bad to me. That means it misses a significant number of know viruses. Why would it miss known viruses? I mean everyone knows about them, surely they tested their solution against all known viruses as well as some new ones just made in the lab, right? I'd accept a 80% failure rate for unknown viruses, they're hard. A .09% failure rate for known viruses though, I have a hard time understanding.
visio has no decent OSS version and none that will read its format. It would be useful if Google created even a web app of it and perhaps release a library for reading/writing the format.
On OS X, Omnigraffle by the Omnigroup seems to win a lot of Visio users over. It can import and export to the Visio XML format and in fact stores info natively in XML. I know one engineering manager who switched to OS X after trying it out on one of his engineer's machines and realizing how much better it was for certain tasks, than Visio. It is not an OSS application or free, but it is another option.
Apple is locking their software to particular hardware. This sounds like DRM to me.
I suppose it depends upon what you consider DRM. If you do consider this DRM, at least in the US it only restricts a person who is knowingly using their machine in a way that violates their licensing agreement. We'd all rather we had the option to buy a copy of OS X licensed to run on generic hardware, but since that would put Apple out of business and we'd soon have to switch to Linux or Windows anyway, I don't see that as a good long-term option. Break up the Windows monopoly and Apple will ship on generic hardware because they won't have a choice. Until then, I don't see how their "DRM" is an issue unless you're a criminal.
Remember his player is in the dominant position. So how would taking the dominant player with a strong bundling and putting it on equal footing be the greedy option.
His player is in the dominant position, but his DRM is less common than PlaysForSure. Most music is ripped from CD or downloaded from P2P. A lot of the music ripped from CD had PlaysForSure added by Windows Media Player. Realistically, DRM bundling is probably costing Apple more sales than it gives them. Also, we're not looking at banning DRM or not banning DRM as the only two options. Several governments and lawsuits are pushing for defanging only FairPlay DRM and not PlaysForSure since they are concerned about the iPod tying in, but not the Windows bundling. Making this statement pulls all DRM in and makes politicians who argue against one and not the other a lot less noble looking and a lot more like greedy politicos paid off by one corporation to attack another.
Jobs isn't concerned about that because he genuinely believes that even if the playing field is leveled, his attention to overall experience will win out.
Oh I agree Apple is willing to fight on level ground. I suspect their DRM was a counter to MS's in the first place. That doesn't mean, however, that this is not the best business move for Apple as well. Note, this is not Job's first statement about DRM and I think this lines up with his personal opinions. The fact that it is being widely publicized right now, however, makes a lot of business sense for Apple.
I'm guessing the best way to enact change is to write to your representatives in government and governing body and tell them about Job's statement and that both the industry and the people want DRM banned. Maybe they'll pass a law if they think people care enough to vote based upon the issue.
I have WMP 10 installed on my XP VM, It has not automatically updated to a new version and I have never touched the settings, as I never use it. I just looked and it rips to PlaysForSure by default. If you haven't changed the defaults and just keep your XP machine up to date without a re-install (like I do) it seems to add DRM by default.
Is that really true? And if so, does it mean that a Windows user that ripped a bunch of CD's to the default format can't import those songs even to their Zune? Somehow, I doubt it - though I wouldn't put it past Microsoft's brain-dead Zune DRM switcheroo.
I haven't tested the newest version of WMP that ships with Vista, but it is true for the version of WMP that is on my XP install. Also, I've read that the Zune plays some PlaysForSure music, although I have not seen an authoritative write-up on what plays and what doesn't.
The previous poster said "near monopoly." From a practical standpoint, by the way, it is not necessary that they have a complete monopoly, they need only wield disproportionate enough influence in the market to allow them to undermine the normal market forces. From both an economics standpoint and a legal standpoint, it is this influence that is important. Most legal systems look at a market share between 70% and 85% as a good point to start investigating the level of influence. Most estimates put Apple's market share in portable digital players around 70%.
I do not blame Microsoft for DRM in media files. Clearly the music companies and movie studios have demanded this.
The music companies can refuse to license music to stores run by Microsoft unless they comply with demands. Well, that makes sense, but MS started employing DRM long before they had a store. Moreover, how exactly is it that the music companies are forcing Microsoft to have Windows Media player default to adding DRM, when iTunes does not? I mean MS has a lot more leverage here than Apple, but somehow MS is forced to add more DRM than Apple? I'm not buying that.
The music companies are certainly pushing DRM on everyone, but MS sees it as an opportunity to lock people in to yet more proprietary file formats that only work with MS products. MS is paid for every PlaysForSure implementation and profit directly. Every person who rips their CD collection then realizes WMP added DRM and they can't move to mac easily and they can't move to Linux easily and they have to buy a portable player that pays MS a licensing fee benfits MS directly and they are all about that. I certainly blame MS for their part in this.
If Steve Jobs is so eager to provide DRM-free music, why does Apple slap on DRM on even indie music and labels that don't mind selling DRM-free music.
That's a good question, and one that can probably answered by someone with standing subpoenaing the confidential trade secret contracts Apple has with the RIAA members. I'll bet you $20 that one of the conditions an RIAA member placed in the contract was that all music sold had to have DRM, not just music from the RIAA.
It's all very fine to say that they are being forced to put DRM when they benefit from it themselves by creating a vendor lock-in.
Apple runs the ITMS as a break-even operation to promote iPod sales. Almost all music on iPods is from P2P networks and ripped CDs. Apple's lock-in probably loses them more sales due to bad press than it makes them from lock-in. I think you are mistaken about how much benefit it brings Apple. They got into the music and DRM business to stop Microsoft from taking it over and disadvantaging Macs.
Apple needs to give record labels the choice of whether they want their music to be sold with or without DRM on the iTunes Store.
It is entirely probable that one of the conditions placed by a given music publisher, contingent on their licensing of music to Apple, was that all music sold from the store has DRM on it, to prevent indy music from undercutting them by being just as available, but more functional. I'm pretty sure Apple would love to sell DRMless music, since the lock-in is not really useful to them. If this is indeed the case, Apple might be able to bring it up as a cartel abuse issue, but doing so is a very big risk as if the courts are slow or ineffective Apple is dead in that business and MS controls all DRM for the foreseeable future. Now that the indy labels are organizing into a single pseudo-label for purposes of negotiations, maybe they can bring some pressure to bear. Assuming such a contract exists (which I think is probable) it will likely only be made public if someone with legal standing subpoenas it.
Is it also the record companies that force Steve to sell OS X with DRM? Do not forget that OS X is tied to Mac hardware by a "Trusted Computing Module".
Have you considered checking your facts? The most recent Macs don't even have a TPM module and no version of OS X ever used it, although some third party utilities did, in order to do more secure encryption. Macintosh computers do check the motherboard to insure it is an Apple one, but no "DRM" is in use and if you look at the code that does that it contains a "please don't violate our license by installing on other hardware" message.
In this case, Jobs demonstrated that common sense CAN dominate over greed, even in a corporate environment.
I disagree. Oh, I think banning DRM from media companies is good for everyone, but I think in this particular instance getting rid of it benefits Apple more than keeping it. Right now Apple faces the possibility that they will no longer be able to leverage the iPod to promote FairPlay. Since MS can still leverage Windows to promote PlayForSure, that means if Apple is forced to take this action Apple will lose (as will consumers) as MS eventually monopolizes that market segment as well. Job's press statement capitalizes upon all the bad press they have been getting lately and turns it from a liability to a benefit. Instead of looking like a greedy exec, he takes the people's side against DRM in general, which would leave a relatively level playing field and the iPod and macintosh computer could both compete on their merits (something Apple is not afraid of). Considering a likely alternative is Apple being forced to license FairPlay, while MS is not forced to allow any given party to license PlaysForSure or whatever they decide to bundle, this is not common sense over greed, but common sense that happens to coincide with greed.
Jobs is trying to convince people that the reason their shiny new iTune won't play on their polished brown Zune is the music company's fault, not iTMS, and that the music companies need to change how they allow iTMS to sell their music, rather than governments forcing Apple to let competitors use their DRM.
Actually, Jobs provides several alternatives, but says that banning DRM altogether is in the best interests of the consumer. Here's a question for you, what DRM scheme is used to protect most songs on people's computer's? Answer: PlaysForSure. There is only one reason for this, Microsoft has a monopoly on desktop OS's, with which they bundle Windows Media Player which adds that DRM when it rips CDs by default. Has any government stopped this illegal bundling? Nope. Now, however, there have been several governments trying to stop Apple from leveraging their near monopoly (possible monopoly) on portable digital music players, to promote their own DRM scheme, Fairplay, and keep it the second most common DRM scheme. Does anything about that seem odd to you? I mean MS was actually convicted in the EU of bundling this, but not stopped or punished in any meaningful way. Apple might have enough market to have a monopoly and government officials are making public statements about legislation and legal action.
Apple is the reason MS does not control the DRM market and use it to intentionally promote incompatibility. Apple's main concern was making sure this was not used to disadvantage macintosh computers. Now they have their iPod to defend as well. Making DRM go away results in a free market and both these products get to compete on their own merits in this market. Defanging Apple's ability to leverage the success of the iPod, while not doing the same for MS's ability to leverage the success of Windows has only one likely result and it is not good for anyone.
I completely understand why getting rid of DRM is good for both Apple and consumers. What I don't understand is why anyone would quibble about this and try to imly that just opening up Fairplay would do the same thing.
What is amazing to me is that Jobs/Apple have a near monopoly on digital music downloads/players that would only be hurt by a lack of DRM lock-in and yet Jobs is still advocating for the change. Would any other company or CEO do this?
Most iPods are still filled primarily with P2P downloads and ripped CDs. The lock-in they have is not all that valuable and probably not worth the bad press they receive as a result of it. I have long said the ITMS and Fairplay were just there to sell iPods not make money and the Fairplay was the least intrusive DRM they could get the studios to buy in on. Jobs stated long ago that DRM does not work for stopping piracy. He knows the score. DRM exists to promote incompatibility such that the media companies can get people to buy the same music for different uses (ring tone, in the car, portable, home stereo, etc.)
Apple saw this use coming an stepped in to make sure the Mac line of computers was not destroyed by it once Microsoft controlled DRM using their OS monopoly. The fact that they succeeded as well as they have is somewhat miraculous and I suspect surprised even them. They set out to stop macs from being third class media citizens and ended up the big kid in the portable player market. Don't get too excited though. Windows Media Format - PlaysForSure is still the most common DRM scheme in use since so many people accidentally rip their CDs to that format with WMP's default settings. Now Apple is being attacked through legal channels and several companies have a vested interest in making sure Fairplay is defanged, while PlaysForSure and the Zune DRM formats are not. Jobs is doing the right thing here by turning their press attacks against them and asking for no DRM, rather than a situation that will inevitably lead to MS owning the space.
I would have thought that the password authentication method was the part that needed to be secured.
Lets see for today a given /24 has on average 57 ongoing SSH login/password dictionary attacks ongoing making it the 4th most common type of network attack. The obscurity part of this defense is essential, but I'm certainly going to restrict my boxes to allowing SSH attempts from couple of specific IPs as well. Security through obscurity is a time tested and vital part of security, but at the same time it better not be your only security. To get this back on topic (sort of) closed source versus open source is not a question of "is obscurity useful" it is a question of "does that obscurity to some people lead to greater or lesser security than the many eyes approach?"
If an artist is so upset over the deal he gets with a record company then he doesn't have to sign the contract.
Sometimes you have poor choices all around. You can either sign a contract and give up your rights, or not reach any appreciable audience and get a different job. Why do you think it is okay for the law to provide artists with this lousy choice, given that the law exists only for the purpose of benefitting society? Can you show me how copyright law is benefitting society in this instance?
The two free entities signed into a contract with each other.
So if a law is passed saying all commercial enterprises building houses must pay me a psychic inspection fee and people can choose either to build houses and pay me the fee or not build houses and do something else, you think the fact that we are both free entities somehow makes a difference?
Obviously each entity thinks that they are getting a good deal or else they wouldn't sign the contract.
Maybe they think it is the least bad deal, given our crappy, crappy laws.
In the case of your grandmother, why does she have to sign the rights to her book away at all?
If she wants to be paid and if she wants anyone to have a chance at reading them she does. No contract means no way to get books into all the major stores.
Would you like it if a stranger came to your job and told you how you should do your job and handle your personal life? My guess is no, so why are you trying to dictate what artists do with theirs?
Your analogy is crap. Other people do have an influence into my life and work, especially in areas where that conflicts with their natural human rights. Copyright law is a restriction on natural rights and as such is only justified in its benefits to society. If you can't demonstrate the benefit for a given aspect of copyright, then it should not exist. Your infantile argument is like claiming, a law making it illegal to teach blacks is okay, because you don't want me coming and telling you how to do your job, so why should we tell police? It makes no sense. When a law is restricting human rights, the onus is on advocates of that law to show the real benefit to society, not upon individuals to show why that law needs to be removed in a given instance.
You haven't even addressed the issue of our rapidly vanishing artistic heritage, lost to the ages because the copyright is owned forever by some company or by an individual that does not even know they own it.
think that copyright should exist for 14 years and 14 years renewable(if the owners are still alive), but saying the solution is to abolish all copyright is myopic at best.
Jump to conclusions much? I never said I thought copyright should be abolished and I strongly implied otherwise by saying we should take DRM into account in reforming copyright. Why 14 years? Did you pull that out of your ass? Cannot a lot of damage be done in 14 years? How about if we pick times that benefit society the most?
I see absolutely no justification for maintaining copyright on works that are not available for sale to the general public at a normal market price. Why should it be 10 years after the last printed copy of a book is sold off, before that book becomes public domain? What is the justification? If it is not for sale and thus not making money and motivating artists, why should it not go out of copyright immediately? What about different types of works? For example, console video games may well not be playable at all on any existing hardware and no good copy may exist after 14 years. Should those works simply vanish entirely because their nature makes them useless after a time if they don't reach the public domain? And what about DRM, the issue that brought this up. If a work enters the public domain after 14 years, but strong DRM prevents anyone from making copies of that public domain work, how is that any better than indefinite DRM?
First, mercenaries, like soylent green, are people. A certain kind of people: people whose loyalty can be bought with money.
True, but if you hire that type of people you need to be aware that more money (such as an offer from a competitor or which they can make by stealing the customer database and reselling it) is likely to change their loyalties. A good manager wants to avoid ever putting their workers into the mindset that it is all a cold business calculation because in reality, employees can make more money screwing the company over.
And honestly? I didn't join the company to make friends, thanks. I joined the company to do business. I treat my boss and other co-workers with dignity and respect. As long as they do the same, and as long as they pay me generously for the work I do, I have no complaints.
You would never work here. We simply would not pay you enough upfront cash, which seems to be the only important job characteristic to you. As an aside, making friends can be a big part of doing business. It's not what you know, but who you know that is most likely to get you employed somewhere.
'm just here to earn money to fund my lifestyle. My job is not that lifestyle.... I get paid. Then I go home and enjoy the fruits of my labor.
This seems tragic to me. You're spending 1/3 of your life at work and you aren't enjoying yourself there and making friends and living life. A person who takes a job they do not enjoy and lives for when they get out of work is likely to lead a pretty unhappy life. We have people here that could easily earn half again as much if they moved on to a bigger company. Those people aren't staying because of the stock options. They're staying because the work is interested, the people are fun, the atmosphere is relaxed, and if your kid has a school play some day you don't have to make up excuses about being sick. They're here because their boss wants to go to the pub for lunch and talk about the latest breakthrough, or about guitar hero or something.
And the flip side of all this is, I'm being paid to do a job, and that job does not include crafting security breaches for my own personal benefit.
Why not? If your company will fire you to save money, while giving the CEO a huge raise and signing off on his expensed trips to the strip club, why shouldn't you use your insider knowledge to steal millions from them? If it is just business, you can grab all that money and never have to go to work again to fund your lifestyle. Why should I, as a potential employer, hire you? Why should I trust you won't screw me over? I mean, from a purely business perspective, it is not worthwhile to hire you and then spend a lot of time and money making sure you aren't ripping me off, when I can hire someone else who demonstrates personal loyalty and who I feel I can trust.
So why should I care what surveillance they have in place to catch malicious hackers?
Maybe you've heard of the science of psychology? Trust is an interesting subject. If you take actions that demonstrate you do not trust a person, they will feel no obligation to not take actions that justify that trust. In fact, studies have shown that people who feel they do not have justification for a crime are much less likely to commit a crime. It is a stronger motivation even than the fear of being caught and punished. As such, motivating your employees to not steal, can provide more benefit for less cost than making them afraid they might be caught. When motivating employees into feeling they are treated well, it is also usually orders of magnitude cheaper than other security measures.
If I'm being a malicious hacker, I'm not doing my job, and all the consequences that follow are my own damn fault.
This misses the point by a nautical mile. This isn't about whose fault it is if you hack your employer. It is about whether or not you feel it is ethical for you to hack your employer and the resulting probable affect upon your
I know I am going against the groupthink here and will be modded accordingly, but how are you "giving" the culture to the company that created a movie/song/whatever?
For the most part the studios and artists that create works do not retain the copyright for those works because it is the distribution channels that have been taken over by monopolists and cartels. To equate the person who owns the copyright with the creator of a work is misguided. Do you know how much an average musician makes from the copyright on their songs? Less than nothing. In exchange for making songs and transferring the copyright to a label, most musicians sign a contract that puts them in debt. It is the only way to get their music widely distributed. Most of them make money selling trademarked t-shirts, and doing live performances. If copyright disappeared tomorrow most musicians would probably make more money.
If you want to, you create the culture and give it away.
Yeah, and have basically no chance of reaching the mainstream audience.
The world does not exist to entertain you, I know that is hard to swallow, but it is true. If you don't like the MPAA or RIAA then go outside to do something, read one of the huge number of public domain books, actually talk to other human beings instead of being glued to the screen cursing the same MPAA who finances the movies you like.
Books are an interesting example. Do you know how many books make a profit after the first 3 years? Less than 1%. If my grandmother wrote a book 40 years ago and died 20 years ago, the chances are the copyright for that book would be owned by a publishing house who would intentionally bury it, so that the work could not be freely printed and it did not compete with current offerings. The vast majority of books, TV shows, and songs are intentionally being held by companies who do not offer them for sale, effectively erasing them from public. You mention public domain books, but most books written since the 70s will likely never, ever enter the public domain and of those that do, most will be DRM'd in some way so no usable copy may ever exist.
Some of those are probably the greatest works of literature of those decades, but were too progressive for their time and were tossed in a bin. What is copyright and why does it exist? My natural human right to free speech means that if you sing a song and I hear it, I have the right to sing that song too. Copyright is an artificial restriction on that right, designed to motivate the creation and archival of more works. If the works are no longer archived and no one can see or read them and they are not for sale so no additional revenue is motivating the author's to create, why are works still copyrighted? What is the justification for restricting my free speech?
Anyone who takes the time to see how many and what artistic works are vanishing, the last copies rotting away, becomes concerned about the issue. Our artistic heritage is being buried for about 1% increase in profit. We need reform and that reform should take DRM into account.
We have a policy of paying for cabs, rather than risking someone driving home. Besides, people will maybe have a beer at lunch, or one after work, then grab some dinner and head home. Anyone likely to get drunk probably went to a bar after work anyway.
Every few months someone writes and article or publishes something talking about how insider threats are the largest avenue for security breaches. Usually, they are trying to sell some new "spy on your employees" device. My company even makes a device that tracks employee internet usage and finds abnormalities. We have one deployed internally and anyone can look at it to see what other people have been doing. Sometimes we'll make fun of someone for being the most frequent visitor to Slashdot this month, or some-such. That said, we have deployed an incredibly effective system for stopping insider threats. Such a system used to be commonplace in many companies, but has since fallen into disuse due to modern business strategies and short-term money saving concerns. This fabulous system is called, "beer in the fridge."
By spending a small amount of money to keep the kitchen fridge stocked with free beer for all employees, the company has cheaply bought all our loyalty. Sure we could perform extensive audits and spend time spying on potential insider threats and implement physical security to stop people from bringing in portable drives they could use to steal our customer databases, but really the beer is a lot cheaper. It has added benefits too. If an employee is gets a job offer elsewhere they often ask about the free beer situation. I think it is worth about 20K of salary in most people's comparisons. If people are moving on, they stay in touch with people here and recommend us to work for and to buy products and services from. People give lots of notice and will stay on to finish a project or train someone else. People are a lot more likely to stay late or come in on the weekends to work on something because of the free beer.
Yes, the fabulous "beer in the fridge" system has many advantages.
Treat employees well, like people instead of mercenaries. Be their friend as well as their boss. If they can't come in some day because they have something come up, or an old friend comes into town, let them take a day off. Make sure people don't fear they will be fired because management needs better numbers for the year. Make sure they know they are valued as employees and people. Take them out to lunch now and again or order a pizza, or get free donuts. Well treated people almost never betray their employer and tend to treat their boss well in return. This isn't rocket science.
Citizens are far more likely to know their US Senator than their state senator, just as they are far more likely to know the president's name than their governor's.
True, but they are entirely responsible for electing their governor, whereas they may have no real impact on electing the president. In general, I am unconvinced that people don't care as much about local issues as national ones.
I think you would be remarkably hard-pressed to find a large group of people who could name any Secretary of Transportation unless it affected them personally.
Federal issues do affect people personally, but local issues are more likely to affect them directly. People know the secretary of transportation for their state, because their name is on the driver's license renewal form, or license plate tag, or whatever.
As someone who has worked in a state legislature, I can personally vouch for the zero media presence when session convened at 1pm.
What the media covers as filler is not the same thing as what people are interested in. People care if their property taxes are going up and if the potholes on main st. will be fixed and if the mayor is sleeping with prostitutes. They don't care about most of the laws passed, but they do care about the major issues and what affects them, which is mostly local.
States have a free pass when it comes to accountability, so long as they don't step on the wrong toes, causing them to exact revenge by exposing scandal.
People care about scandal and love to hear dirt about local politicians. People care more as the abuses of the local government increase. You may think the state governments can get away with anything, but they can only do so until it pisses off the locals, then they are out because people can and do effect change based upon a few issues. This is quite different from national politics.
You would be shocked at how a typical state government is actually run...
I doubt it. I live in a state where technically I can be sentenced to life in jail for sleeping with a married woman. The state governments are no less corrupt than the feds, it is just that the corruption can be checked by the people if it goes to far or by the feds if it goes to far. Checks and balances can bring a state back from totally corrupt and owned to normal moderately corrupt in ways that don't bother most people. That has happened in the past. The federal government is unlikely to ever recover from such a state, which is why it is important to keep as much power decentralized as possible to keep that from happening.
Just out of curiosity, how does someone with a nick like "lonechicken" get a date with a pro cheerleader?
Perhaps a person who chooses a handle like, "lonechicken" is a person who is not afraid of criticism? I don't want to speak for the previous poster since I don't know them, but on a related topic, when I left home and went to school at a huge engineering university I was amazed by how many guys there did not talk to women and yet complained about having trouble meeting people. There were three women for every guy at that school, but I never had problems meeting women, because 80% of the guys were too scared to talk to them. Just being confident enough to approach some girl is the largest hurdle many people face.
Then why don't the states each print their own currency?
They used to, but it lead to a lot of divisiveness, so the constitution was written to allow the federal government to print the money, and very nearly to create a federal banking system that probably would have lead to the government to collapse in 50 years.
Why doesn't each state have its own Social Security card?
I'm all in favor of making social security a state run institution. Its constitutionality is pretty arguable.
Are the FCC and FAA overreaching their bounds by demanding broadcast and flight standards nationwide?
Perhaps, but these are items that naturally cross state boundaries constantly. Abuses by the FAA and FCC are both numerous and threatening to our democracy. One performs searches of people without any probable cause that they may have committed a crime, while the other has been found censoring free speech numerous times. How many such abuses can our democracy survive before it is completely taken over by authoritarian special interests?
What about the fact that cars have to be built to national standards?
Actually you can build any kind of car you want and ignore standards.
Why do all the states use the same power connector for wall outlets?
Because the industry standardized for convenience, independent of the government.
Hell, why are all the 50 states even IN a union if things like that are so bad? Why don't all of them go it alone on their own terms?
There is strength in unity, but according to the constitution each state has the right to secede (although the south was illegally prevented from so doing). The point isn't that things are "so bad" it is that the risk to centralization of power is very, very real. By creating a divided centralized government and limiting their power to very specific items, and restricting them from acting in any other way we gain the lion's share of the benefits of a central government, while minimizing the risks to the freedom of the people such a government poses. Jefferson thought the system created could keep from becoming tyrannical for 20-40 years. It has been several hundred years now and we still haven't gone completely off the deep end. It is, however, almost inevitable that eventually the central government will become a tyranny and we are commanded to remain ever vigilant against that day and against the central government gathering too much power to itself. One of the central tenants of our government's creation was that the central government itself is the largest threat to freedom in the US. That has not changed, although people's awareness of it has.
Is that completely unreasonable? You wouldn't have to centralise authority, it would just be a design standardisation.
Power attracts more power. So the central government claims the authority to standardize the design of IDs and mandate their use in certain situations (air travel, alcohol purchases). Can the feds then mandate that all of them contain a thumbprint? Hmm, suddenly we have mandatory thumb-printing for the entire US. If they can claim an arbitrary power from the states, a power granted to the states by the constitution, what other powers can they claim? Can they mandate retinal scans be encoded on the ID, and political party affiliation? Can they mandate health records and genetic code be added? Can they mandate your phone number be added? Can they then verify your location every time you use it and build a profile of where you go and who else is there?
All powers not granted the feds are given to the states because otherwise they gradually claim all power in one central authority, which will eventually be subverted. Even the power to mandate a format can be abused and lead to greater abuse. We must resist all consolidation of power because individually these powers may not mean much, but together they add up to a lot. The government enforcing only one maker for crayons is not a risk. The government enforcing who makes what for the entire economy almost guarantees a totalitarian regime within a decade. I don't know which powers will lead to that and neither do you. It makes sense to me to be very conservative about this.
If you want the states to have the same format for all ID cards why not get a couple of state legislatures together and form a standard? Then try to get other states to adopt it. This is a lot less risky than handing arbitrary powers to the feds, or worse yet not doing anything when they unconstitutionally claim those powers.