The argument about web-page loading is a fine one, if that's all you do and there's really no difference. In fact, the reason most pages load so slowly is not your bandwidth, but that of the site you are downloading from.
That aside, the value of broadband (pseudo-static high-speed) and increased bandwidth isn't loading web-pages, but all the other nifty things possible: hosting your own services from home, point-to-point video conference/chat with friends and family, finally being able to share video -- even publish it as channels a la Broadcast Machine or video podcasts.
Obviously, the entertainment industry and ISPs don't want you to distribute your own content (for that matter, government might not be keen on citizens publishing their own stuff on the net either), but therein lies the promise of broadband.
OK, I'm a computational biologist by profession, so it goes without saying that I use gobs of Perl. I also use gobs of PHP, Java, R, Python, and to a lesser extent C++ and C.
I end up using all of those languages of course, because all of them have their strengths and weaknesses. Perl is not the best performer, but much of my work is working ad hoc problems and Perl is very simple and concise for many common problems. It also is a great alternative to shell programming. I love it for those things.
However, I hate writing web-based stuff in Perl because the ease of use and clarity (basically speed of me getting somethign done tempered by the chance that I can figure out what I did later when I need to) are not as high as, say, when using PHP. It pains me to see awfully written Perl code when thigns could more clearly and easily be solved using something else -- in which case I hate it. I frequently get legacy stuff that is over engineered or fanatastically complicated because someone didn't recognize or didn't know how to use something that would have been simpler; doubly an issue since this also tends to produce more opportunities for bugs.
I could go on, but I've been doing this for some time now and have a very good feel for which language is the best tool for a specific aspect of my job and I use that (because the language used to implement a solution is NEVER a concern for those whom I'm providing solutions to).
I'm really interested in Perl6 -- the new VM (looks like.Net has some serious competition) and the greatly improved performance, but more importantly the language features allow grammars and rules for natural language processing in a very clean and efficient style. I've a number of projects analyzing literature where this would be a boon and there's nothing comparable in other general purpose languages...
First, the argument that an attack is disciplined thus it must be the national military is just plain stupid -- and I frequently agree with Bruce S.
Even then, how is this not anticipated? Governments spy on each other (and their own citizens) prolificly, even their allies. We do it, they do it. European countries and the US are constantly one-upping each other in government sponsored corporate espionage. The Internet's done nothing but created a new medium. We steal corporate and military secrets from them, and they from us. Big deal.
The fact is that this means nothing. We know how to prevent this from being a problem, we do it, and we even disseminate disinformation this way.
The Iraq boondoggle aside, countries are actually very good about researching each other. There's a level of transparency between nations that is completely hidden to the average citizen. I think that everyone understands that at some level. The problem is, of course, that the public understanding of geopolitics is quite different than that of world leaders and the intelligence community. China could be an invasion threat, or on the verge of a dramatic shift to democracy and becoming our (USA) 51st state -- but, honestly, how many people are privileged enough to have access to sufficient information to make that call? Almost certainly not you.
By avoiding transparency, governments can avoid accountability to their citizens and other nations. That lack of accountability makes people easy to assuage, makes governments appear artificially effective, etc. In the US we demand little transparency because making information available puts us at risk (so the logic goes). Thus, by simply augmenting the perception of risk (nwes about terrorists, spies, etc.), people will lower their accountability demands, enabling more flexibility for things probably not in the public interest.
Of the top 100 economic powers in the word, 52 are corporations, and 48 are countries. About 1/3rd of goods transferred over a national border are goods that don't transfer ownership because they stay within a multinational corporation that is internally transferring those goods). It seems that some good geopolitical FUD can make you richer than Croesus if you're an inside player in the game.
The damage is most likely done to those who are susceptible.
Anyway, the patch is a non-issue for Americans who are prohibitted by law from downloading or applying it. The patch issue only effects people in countries where it is not illegal to modify/remove/circumvent DRM software. In the States the solution is much simpler: just format the disk and reinstall the OS.
They have 728 people at the USPTO processing over a million patents a year. Figure in toilet breaks and vacation and that means they've got less than an hour TOTAL to spend on each patent -- soup-to-nuts as they say. That's not enough time to read the application, look up prior art, and judge the patentability of something; they know it and we know it. So, as it is now they spend more time on things that might raise a stink if it goes through, and rubber stamp anything that seems to silly to be worth agonizing over.
Now, where are they supposed to fit in fielding questions from the press? Maybe the reporter should ask the GAO... Someday they are bound to look at the USPTO and they could probably get that data for you...
The exact same issue exist in open and closed source products in this regard. In most cases, there's no indemnification, or it's limited to the product cost.
The only substantial difference is that with F/OSS software, it's easier to identify violations and remediate them. It's also easier to trace the responsible party.
The whole discussion highlights a travesty of US law -- that liability for patent violation can be extended beyond the violator to parties ignorant of the implementation. This is doubly idiotic since it's highly unlikely that any user or administrator is capable of evaluating a product they buy (or download) to determine if it's clear of patent encumberances. Hell, even when there's an allegation of a patent violation it's excruciating for a court and panel of experts to identify actual violations.
Oh well, so long as only the little guy gets screwed, I suppose it's OK. I mean, that's how the system is designed to work, right?
There are two big problems with IT security...
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Security's Shaky State
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· Score: 2, Insightful
First -- people don't value something until they think they need it; and that won't happen until they get burned.
Second -- it's excruiating to separate the wheat from the chaff; there would appear to be a glut of IT security "professionals" out there if their resumes were to be believed, but in practice there are only a few gems to be found in that buzzword-compliant heap.
I'm a computational biologist by profession, but on occasion have had to deal with various projects that involved some sort of security (be it in establishing secure external collaborations, or securing proprietary data in various analytical pipelines). I've seen IT security heads come and go and I've yet to meet one that I felt knew more than me -- and they should know MUCH more than me!
I've met several true IT security professionals -- people that reeked of healthy paranoia and a truly fundamental knowledge of how things worked and interoperated. But, I've yet to see one in the wild looking for a job, much less hired by any company I've worked for.
I think you're simply seeing blissful ignorance exacerbated by a confusing pool of self-proclaimed security professionals and a dearth of truly competent personnel. It's hard work, and the value of it simply isn't clear until it's too late.
You'll have to excuse me, I just dropped in from an alternate timeline where cable customers got broadband service and shows are listed on RSS feeds -- sometimes presented like a restaurant menu. You tell the provider what you want and it's downloaded to your home hub via P2P for $0.75/hour (shows go on sale periodically, and there are "live" streams for special events that are generally $0.90/hour). You can even get D2 and low-bandwidth stuff (like cartoons) cheaper.
I guess a channel is like an RSS feed of available shows then?
The price difference is after I got both down in price. Basically, after a few hours negotiating I got both care below invoice with about a $1400 difference.
I bought both cars a few years ago -- just before hybrid cars became the hot new gadget. Back in the day people looked at it and would ask "where do you plug it in?" and "the engine isn't making any noise, did you stall the car?"
Actually, the analysis is based on MSRP, but I doubt anyone pays MSRP anymore. In fact, I've two Honda civics, one standard (for my wife), and one hybrid. The hybrid came with more options standard and ultimately I argued the price down to about $1400 of the normal Civic. I've made that up between tax breaks and gas savings, but better still it's ULEV that can go 600 miles on a tank of gas. That's pretty good.
As far as maintenance costs -- both have been excellent.
The problem with these things is the government executes so poorly on them. The wiretap system put in place to meet CALEA was literally accessible remotely by anyone on the Internet -- yet they were surprised that various non-government and non-US people were accessing the system. As far as I know, they've altered some of the protocols to make it more difficult, but most US wiretaps are executed subvertly by non-affiliated parties.
Carnivore? Even if you trusted the government to use it properly, how about everyone else that new how it operated and took advnatage of it?
Now we have something capable of rooting Windows systems to gather information. That's just great. I suppose it will take a couple of weeks to develop a honeypot that could capture it and maybe a week or two more to dissect and retask it. Sounds wonderful.
You know, I don't know what this does for terrorists, but I'm increasingly of the impression that industrial espionage is now a 5 hour per week job that you can do out of your basement.
While I don't consider myself evangelical, I do consider myself non-denominational -- though I currently am a member of a Presbyterian Church.
I would consider myself non-denominational in the sense that the term "denomination" refers to the administration of a church and to its policies. Short of any constructive administrative role, a denomination does little more than distract from message about which the church was formed. Presbyterians seem to be a pretty good lot without a terribly obtrusive denominational dogma; but I'm not picky.
The problem comes with "value-added" religion, where you start with a traditional religious message and then BAM! you kick it up a notch with a feedback loop chock full of co-dependent self-righteousness, reactive politics, maybe even some paranoia, and you've got yourself a born-again rabble.
In the 4th century, the book of Revelation was nearly rejected as part of the Christian canon. The reason? Too many felt that the book might be taken literally, not as an allegory as was the understanding of the leaders of the early church. Yet, today, their fears are realized in fire-and-brimstone sermons spewed forth like half-digested chutneyby quasi-gnostic evangelicals.
Mind you, evangelical is typically used as a pejorative, but I think it's safe to say that there are evangelical Christians that most wouldn't lump together with so-called fundamentalists.
Complain to the Hearst Corporation and King Features Syndicate about it. In 2004 they sued Mandrake over the name of the company and Linux distribution because it collided with that of Mandrake the Magician (and, admittedly, used some names and graphics alluding to the character).
As a result, Mandrake was forced to rename itself. It selected the name "Mandriva".
It affects you becuase they also had to rename all of their servers and directories on file mirrors. The result, if your configuration has repositories listed with the Mandrake name, they no longer work.
The solution is simply to locate a new mirror (listed at the Mandriva site and various other places), and go to the Mandrake Control Center's Software Management tab, click on the Media Managment button and update the URLs to point to a valid mirror. Ta-da!
There's not much Mandrake could have done about that.
I'd pay $20 for a movie that is free of "DRM", has no "platform dependencies", has no region locking, and can be conveniently backed up / transcoded / burned to the prevailing media format of the day.
I'd fully expect the movie to contain watermarks that contained transaction information (i.e., showing I'm the licensee of the content).
However, for each nuisance "feature", I would deduct 90% of the value of the product. A movie with DRM: $2, that is dependent on a codec that I can't license for my "VideoWidget 6000", $0.20, that I can't watch at my in-laws house in Western Europe, $0.02... You get the idea.
As a consumer, the Fair-Use Circumvention Kits and and Digital Restricted Media really torpedo the value of media products. I don't deny the right of vendors to ship their products with it -- but if in the process they spend millions of dollars on developing and implementing technology that is functionally obsolete / cracked days after release and then expect me to pay for the reduced quality and utility of the product through higher costs, well, I won't.
My kids get DVDs as gifts from people all the time (many from family overseas, so I had to modify the firmware in my player to let me kids watch foreign-language cartoons and puppet shows), but I don't buy them.
Heck, nowadays you almost have to RIP DVDs to make them watchable. Anyone buy "Robots" for their kids? There's a 5 minute propaganda film at the beginning blaring house music and showing this filthy alleyway with a seedy "pirate" selling bootlegs of a table and showing people shoplifting from a store. It scares the hell out of the kids -- the images themselves, they don't understand the meaning. One of my kids asked what it was supposed to mean, and what am I to say? Ever try to explain propaganda to a little kid? These people are lying to you, but they hope if they lie long enough people will accept it as truth? To top it off, there are previews for 4 movies that you can't skip over.
Solution? RIP and burn a "consumer edition" DVD that has the propaganda film and offending ads removed. Now, I've got a homespun DVD and a backup that the kids can toss in their and the movie starts right away, just like I would expect it to if I was the one that bought it for the kids.
... for stuff like this. If you care enough to REALLY do something about it, there are really only two things to do:
File a tip with the US Department of Homeland Security
Intentionally or otherwise, what the program is exploiting a flaw in a popular operating system in a way that not only enables them to control access to the data on the CD -- which itself is illegal, but fat chance the government will help you with that -- but it in so doing opens up the machine to facile infection with illicit software which it will then actively cover up and make detectable only to very knowledgable users. If DHS is serious about cyber terrorism, they shouldn't be letting companies subvert the already weak security of the predominant operating system and prime them for becoming unwitting pawns in terrorist activity.
Develop a SafeDupe campaign.
Make a simple flyer explaining what's happened and the implications and see if local record stores would be amenable to helping out. This could be as little as having them stuff an info packet in their bags, to leaving a stack of Live Linux CDs that do nothing but permit a user to duplicate a CD to CD-R without the offending software, or even have a "SafeDupe" day where a few people setup a table where purchasers can show proof of purchase and bring a blank CD to have it "SafeDuped" for them. Obviously, most record stores won't want to rock the boat, but a well-spoken and sincere person (armed with copies of coverage from the mainstream media talking about the problem) ought to be able to find at least one or two store managers with an ethical streak.
It's perfectly legal to make such copies, and if you don't believe me, ask a lawyer or download the Bern Convention on Copyright and read it yourself.
And remember kids, calm, cool, and collected. No name calling, no vitriole. Attribute not malice where stupidty is explanation enough, etc. And do make sure that whatever you do is entirely on the up-and-up, transparent to everyone involved, and that the press and SonyMusic are well informed on the subject.
Re:There is not enough data...
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FWIW, in 2004 the GAO cited a 95% increase in the number of government documents classfied as secret compared to the preceding 5 years. The same report also cites unprecedented levels of the executive branch refusing to provide requested documentation to congress and to withold information from the GAO itself including hundreds of instances of refusing to provide requested documents to the 9-11 commission including copies of presidential briefings on the subject.
The rate of FOIA challenges and denials has also skyrocketed.
Hmmm... Government getting more secret, AG writing memos about how torture is justifiable, enacting laws that permit indefinite incarceration without being charged, end to judicial oversight of wire-taps, congress considering a shield law for that would make it so only certain people can report government wrongdoing without threat of legal action... At this rate, how long will it be before the bill of rights falls into desuetude?
It's a symbolic effort, nothing more. All that they are doing is using a CSS key specific to a particular player. They already know that CSS is worthless as an encryption method. It costs money and involves effort to make encryption that's "precocious-norwegian-teen-proof".
A much more sensible solution, given the very small targeted audience for these copies is to ship them letter boxed with dark grey text in the letter-box area that says something like: "fyo screener Joe Schmoe, disk F00-84R" and maybe encode a hidden identifier in the audio or video stream on top of that.
Even then, there's simply no practical way to prevent a determined individual from duplicating the film.
US law explicitly grants broad exemptions to patent laws both to the government and companies contracted by the government when related to matters of national security or public health.
As a matter of fact, the governemt grants a patent in the interest of the public good and should it find that doing so has caused more harm than good, action can be taken to rescind it outright.
Report the software to the FBI and FTC. Make sure to press them about it. DRM is okay, but software of that nature installing itself without your explicit consent violates several federal laws.
In the meantime, you could simply use something other than Windows to rip the tracks. After all, Microsoft is intentionally complicit with the recording industries efforts in this area. If you don't like it now, just you wait.
How can you tell? Well, for starters, you can buy the same system with a hard disk twice the size with a 17" LCD monitor and Windows Media Center Edition for the same price.
More importantly, the 510n comes with an ATI card that will be difficult to get to work properly with X.org (dunno if Xi Graphics is still in business), whereas the 510 uses an Intel chipset that, while not great, will probably work better.
And why not simply install a popular Linux distribution on it from the get go? They could "brand" it simply by adding a package with Dell-logo wallpapers, themes, and icon sets.
This is not true. The DMCA implements something outside copyright law: access restriction. The law doesn't say anything about copyright holders being able to circumvent DRM in order to access to grant access to works for others.
In fact, there's already precedent that copyright holders cannot circumvent access controls applied to their own works. The logic is that if it were permitted, one would need only apply content scrambling to a video you produce, and by doing so grant yourself license to own and distribute technology to circumvent the access control on all DVDs.
Stephen King pointed out the irony of being locked out of e-Editions of his own novels because the publisher released them in a format accessible only via a Windows-based reader application (and he uses a Mac).
So, no. If Sony does distribute instruction on how to circumvent the DRM, that would violate the DMCA and they'd be open to prosecution.
Even if the copyright would be considered valid, there is significant precendent which would indicate that this would constitute fair use under current law.
... that "Enterprise Class Product" refers to the license cost, not quality or features. SSH Communications is right. OpenSSH doesn't cost enough to be "Enterprise Class".
Slashdot Mirror
The argument about web-page loading is a fine one, if that's all you do and there's really no difference. In fact, the reason most pages load so slowly is not your bandwidth, but that of the site you are downloading from.
That aside, the value of broadband (pseudo-static high-speed) and increased bandwidth isn't loading web-pages, but all the other nifty things possible: hosting your own services from home, point-to-point video conference/chat with friends and family, finally being able to share video -- even publish it as channels a la Broadcast Machine or video podcasts.
Obviously, the entertainment industry and ISPs don't want you to distribute your own content (for that matter, government might not be keen on citizens publishing their own stuff on the net either), but therein lies the promise of broadband.
How is that a myth?
OK, I'm a computational biologist by profession, so it goes without saying that I use gobs of Perl. I also use gobs of PHP, Java, R, Python, and to a lesser extent C++ and C.
.Net has some serious competition) and the greatly improved performance, but more importantly the language features allow grammars and rules for natural language processing in a very clean and efficient style. I've a number of projects analyzing literature where this would be a boon and there's nothing comparable in other general purpose languages...
I end up using all of those languages of course, because all of them have their strengths and weaknesses. Perl is not the best performer, but much of my work is working ad hoc problems and Perl is very simple and concise for many common problems. It also is a great alternative to shell programming. I love it for those things.
However, I hate writing web-based stuff in Perl because the ease of use and clarity (basically speed of me getting somethign done tempered by the chance that I can figure out what I did later when I need to) are not as high as, say, when using PHP. It pains me to see awfully written Perl code when thigns could more clearly and easily be solved using something else -- in which case I hate it. I frequently get legacy stuff that is over engineered or fanatastically complicated because someone didn't recognize or didn't know how to use something that would have been simpler; doubly an issue since this also tends to produce more opportunities for bugs.
I could go on, but I've been doing this for some time now and have a very good feel for which language is the best tool for a specific aspect of my job and I use that (because the language used to implement a solution is NEVER a concern for those whom I'm providing solutions to).
I'm really interested in Perl6 -- the new VM (looks like
First, the argument that an attack is disciplined thus it must be the national military is just plain stupid -- and I frequently agree with Bruce S.
Even then, how is this not anticipated? Governments spy on each other (and their own citizens) prolificly, even their allies. We do it, they do it. European countries and the US are constantly one-upping each other in government sponsored corporate espionage. The Internet's done nothing but created a new medium. We steal corporate and military secrets from them, and they from us. Big deal.
The fact is that this means nothing. We know how to prevent this from being a problem, we do it, and we even disseminate disinformation this way.
The Iraq boondoggle aside, countries are actually very good about researching each other. There's a level of transparency between nations that is completely hidden to the average citizen. I think that everyone understands that at some level. The problem is, of course, that the public understanding of geopolitics is quite different than that of world leaders and the intelligence community. China could be an invasion threat, or on the verge of a dramatic shift to democracy and becoming our (USA) 51st state -- but, honestly, how many people are privileged enough to have access to sufficient information to make that call? Almost certainly not you.
By avoiding transparency, governments can avoid accountability to their citizens and other nations. That lack of accountability makes people easy to assuage, makes governments appear artificially effective, etc. In the US we demand little transparency because making information available puts us at risk (so the logic goes). Thus, by simply augmenting the perception of risk (nwes about terrorists, spies, etc.), people will lower their accountability demands, enabling more flexibility for things probably not in the public interest.
Of the top 100 economic powers in the word, 52 are corporations, and 48 are countries. About 1/3rd of goods transferred over a national border are goods that don't transfer ownership because they stay within a multinational corporation that is internally transferring those goods). It seems that some good geopolitical FUD can make you richer than Croesus if you're an inside player in the game.
The damage is most likely done to those who are susceptible.
Anyway, the patch is a non-issue for Americans who are prohibitted by law from downloading or applying it. The patch issue only effects people in countries where it is not illegal to modify/remove/circumvent DRM software. In the States the solution is much simpler: just format the disk and reinstall the OS.
They have 728 people at the USPTO processing over a million patents a year. Figure in toilet breaks and vacation and that means they've got less than an hour TOTAL to spend on each patent -- soup-to-nuts as they say. That's not enough time to read the application, look up prior art, and judge the patentability of something; they know it and we know it. So, as it is now they spend more time on things that might raise a stink if it goes through, and rubber stamp anything that seems to silly to be worth agonizing over. Now, where are they supposed to fit in fielding questions from the press? Maybe the reporter should ask the GAO... Someday they are bound to look at the USPTO and they could probably get that data for you...
The exact same issue exist in open and closed source products in this regard. In most cases, there's no indemnification, or it's limited to the product cost.
The only substantial difference is that with F/OSS software, it's easier to identify violations and remediate them. It's also easier to trace the responsible party.
The whole discussion highlights a travesty of US law -- that liability for patent violation can be extended beyond the violator to parties ignorant of the implementation. This is doubly idiotic since it's highly unlikely that any user or administrator is capable of evaluating a product they buy (or download) to determine if it's clear of patent encumberances. Hell, even when there's an allegation of a patent violation it's excruciating for a court and panel of experts to identify actual violations.
Oh well, so long as only the little guy gets screwed, I suppose it's OK. I mean, that's how the system is designed to work, right?
First -- people don't value something until they think they need it; and that won't happen until they get burned.
Second -- it's excruiating to separate the wheat from the chaff; there would appear to be a glut of IT security "professionals" out there if their resumes were to be believed, but in practice there are only a few gems to be found in that buzzword-compliant heap.
I'm a computational biologist by profession, but on occasion have had to deal with various projects that involved some sort of security (be it in establishing secure external collaborations, or securing proprietary data in various analytical pipelines). I've seen IT security heads come and go and I've yet to meet one that I felt knew more than me -- and they should know MUCH more than me!
I've met several true IT security professionals -- people that reeked of healthy paranoia and a truly fundamental knowledge of how things worked and interoperated. But, I've yet to see one in the wild looking for a job, much less hired by any company I've worked for.
I think you're simply seeing blissful ignorance exacerbated by a confusing pool of self-proclaimed security professionals and a dearth of truly competent personnel. It's hard work, and the value of it simply isn't clear until it's too late.
You'll have to excuse me, I just dropped in from an alternate timeline where cable customers got broadband service and shows are listed on RSS feeds -- sometimes presented like a restaurant menu. You tell the provider what you want and it's downloaded to your home hub via P2P for $0.75/hour (shows go on sale periodically, and there are "live" streams for special events that are generally $0.90/hour). You can even get D2 and low-bandwidth stuff (like cartoons) cheaper.
I guess a channel is like an RSS feed of available shows then?
It devalues Windows while increasing the value of alternatives. It's fantastic.
The price difference is after I got both down in price. Basically, after a few hours negotiating I got both care below invoice with about a $1400 difference.
I bought both cars a few years ago -- just before hybrid cars became the hot new gadget. Back in the day people looked at it and would ask "where do you plug it in?" and "the engine isn't making any noise, did you stall the car?"
Actually, the analysis is based on MSRP, but I doubt anyone pays MSRP anymore. In fact, I've two Honda civics, one standard (for my wife), and one hybrid. The hybrid came with more options standard and ultimately I argued the price down to about $1400 of the normal Civic. I've made that up between tax breaks and gas savings, but better still it's ULEV that can go 600 miles on a tank of gas. That's pretty good.
As far as maintenance costs -- both have been excellent.
The problem with these things is the government executes so poorly on them. The wiretap system put in place to meet CALEA was literally accessible remotely by anyone on the Internet -- yet they were surprised that various non-government and non-US people were accessing the system. As far as I know, they've altered some of the protocols to make it more difficult, but most US wiretaps are executed subvertly by non-affiliated parties. Carnivore? Even if you trusted the government to use it properly, how about everyone else that new how it operated and took advnatage of it? Now we have something capable of rooting Windows systems to gather information. That's just great. I suppose it will take a couple of weeks to develop a honeypot that could capture it and maybe a week or two more to dissect and retask it. Sounds wonderful. You know, I don't know what this does for terrorists, but I'm increasingly of the impression that industrial espionage is now a 5 hour per week job that you can do out of your basement.
While I don't consider myself evangelical, I do consider myself non-denominational -- though I currently am a member of a Presbyterian Church.
I would consider myself non-denominational in the sense that the term "denomination" refers to the administration of a church and to its policies. Short of any constructive administrative role, a denomination does little more than distract from message about which the church was formed. Presbyterians seem to be a pretty good lot without a terribly obtrusive denominational dogma; but I'm not picky.
The problem comes with "value-added" religion, where you start with a traditional religious message and then BAM! you kick it up a notch with a feedback loop chock full of co-dependent self-righteousness, reactive politics, maybe even some paranoia, and you've got yourself a born-again rabble.
In the 4th century, the book of Revelation was nearly rejected as part of the Christian canon. The reason? Too many felt that the book might be taken literally, not as an allegory as was the understanding of the leaders of the early church. Yet, today, their fears are realized in fire-and-brimstone sermons spewed forth like half-digested chutneyby quasi-gnostic evangelicals.
Mind you, evangelical is typically used as a pejorative, but I think it's safe to say that there are evangelical Christians that most wouldn't lump together with so-called fundamentalists.
Complain to the Hearst Corporation and King Features Syndicate about it. In 2004 they sued Mandrake over the name of the company and Linux distribution because it collided with that of Mandrake the Magician (and, admittedly, used some names and graphics alluding to the character).
As a result, Mandrake was forced to rename itself. It selected the name "Mandriva".
It affects you becuase they also had to rename all of their servers and directories on file mirrors. The result, if your configuration has repositories listed with the Mandrake name, they no longer work.
The solution is simply to locate a new mirror (listed at the Mandriva site and various other places), and go to the Mandrake Control Center's Software Management tab, click on the Media Managment button and update the URLs to point to a valid mirror. Ta-da!
There's not much Mandrake could have done about that.
I'd pay $20 for a movie that is free of "DRM", has no "platform dependencies", has no region locking, and can be conveniently backed up / transcoded / burned to the prevailing media format of the day.
I'd fully expect the movie to contain watermarks that contained transaction information (i.e., showing I'm the licensee of the content).
However, for each nuisance "feature", I would deduct 90% of the value of the product. A movie with DRM: $2, that is dependent on a codec that I can't license for my "VideoWidget 6000", $0.20, that I can't watch at my in-laws house in Western Europe, $0.02... You get the idea.
As a consumer, the Fair-Use Circumvention Kits and and Digital Restricted Media really torpedo the value of media products. I don't deny the right of vendors to ship their products with it -- but if in the process they spend millions of dollars on developing and implementing technology that is functionally obsolete / cracked days after release and then expect me to pay for the reduced quality and utility of the product through higher costs, well, I won't.
My kids get DVDs as gifts from people all the time (many from family overseas, so I had to modify the firmware in my player to let me kids watch foreign-language cartoons and puppet shows), but I don't buy them.
Heck, nowadays you almost have to RIP DVDs to make them watchable. Anyone buy "Robots" for their kids? There's a 5 minute propaganda film at the beginning blaring house music and showing this filthy alleyway with a seedy "pirate" selling bootlegs of a table and showing people shoplifting from a store. It scares the hell out of the kids -- the images themselves, they don't understand the meaning. One of my kids asked what it was supposed to mean, and what am I to say? Ever try to explain propaganda to a little kid? These people are lying to you, but they hope if they lie long enough people will accept it as truth? To top it off, there are previews for 4 movies that you can't skip over.
Solution? RIP and burn a "consumer edition" DVD that has the propaganda film and offending ads removed. Now, I've got a homespun DVD and a backup that the kids can toss in their and the movie starts right away, just like I would expect it to if I was the one that bought it for the kids.
MPAA member companies -- get a clue!
... for stuff like this. If you care enough to REALLY do something about it, there are really only two things to do:
Intentionally or otherwise, what the program is exploiting a flaw in a popular operating system in a way that not only enables them to control access to the data on the CD -- which itself is illegal, but fat chance the government will help you with that -- but it in so doing opens up the machine to facile infection with illicit software which it will then actively cover up and make detectable only to very knowledgable users. If DHS is serious about cyber terrorism, they shouldn't be letting companies subvert the already weak security of the predominant operating system and prime them for becoming unwitting pawns in terrorist activity.
Make a simple flyer explaining what's happened and the implications and see if local record stores would be amenable to helping out. This could be as little as having them stuff an info packet in their bags, to leaving a stack of Live Linux CDs that do nothing but permit a user to duplicate a CD to CD-R without the offending software, or even have a "SafeDupe" day where a few people setup a table where purchasers can show proof of purchase and bring a blank CD to have it "SafeDuped" for them. Obviously, most record stores won't want to rock the boat, but a well-spoken and sincere person (armed with copies of coverage from the mainstream media talking about the problem) ought to be able to find at least one or two store managers with an ethical streak.
It's perfectly legal to make such copies, and if you don't believe me, ask a lawyer or download the Bern Convention on Copyright and read it yourself.
And remember kids, calm, cool, and collected. No name calling, no vitriole. Attribute not malice where stupidty is explanation enough, etc. And do make sure that whatever you do is entirely on the up-and-up, transparent to everyone involved, and that the press and SonyMusic are well informed on the subject.
FWIW, in 2004 the GAO cited a 95% increase in the number of government documents classfied as secret compared to the preceding 5 years. The same report also cites unprecedented levels of the executive branch refusing to provide requested documentation to congress and to withold information from the GAO itself including hundreds of instances of refusing to provide requested documents to the 9-11 commission including copies of presidential briefings on the subject.
The rate of FOIA challenges and denials has also skyrocketed.
Hmmm... Government getting more secret, AG writing memos about how torture is justifiable, enacting laws that permit indefinite incarceration without being charged, end to judicial oversight of wire-taps, congress considering a shield law for that would make it so only certain people can report government wrongdoing without threat of legal action... At this rate, how long will it be before the bill of rights falls into desuetude?
It's a symbolic effort, nothing more. All that they are doing is using a CSS key specific to a particular player. They already know that CSS is worthless as an encryption method. It costs money and involves effort to make encryption that's "precocious-norwegian-teen-proof". A much more sensible solution, given the very small targeted audience for these copies is to ship them letter boxed with dark grey text in the letter-box area that says something like: "fyo screener Joe Schmoe, disk F00-84R" and maybe encode a hidden identifier in the audio or video stream on top of that. Even then, there's simply no practical way to prevent a determined individual from duplicating the film.
US law explicitly grants broad exemptions to patent laws both to the government and companies contracted by the government when related to matters of national security or public health.
As a matter of fact, the governemt grants a patent in the interest of the public good and should it find that doing so has caused more harm than good, action can be taken to rescind it outright.
Report the software to the FBI and FTC. Make sure to press them about it. DRM is okay, but software of that nature installing itself without your explicit consent violates several federal laws.
In the meantime, you could simply use something other than Windows to rip the tracks. After all, Microsoft is intentionally complicit with the recording industries efforts in this area. If you don't like it now, just you wait.
How can you tell? Well, for starters, you can buy the same system with a hard disk twice the size with a 17" LCD monitor and Windows Media Center Edition for the same price.
More importantly, the 510n comes with an ATI card that will be difficult to get to work properly with X.org (dunno if Xi Graphics is still in business), whereas the 510 uses an Intel chipset that, while not great, will probably work better.
And why not simply install a popular Linux distribution on it from the get go? They could "brand" it simply by adding a package with Dell-logo wallpapers, themes, and icon sets.
Dell's just grubbing for some positive press.
This is not true. The DMCA implements something outside copyright law: access restriction. The law doesn't say anything about copyright holders being able to circumvent DRM in order to access to grant access to works for others.
In fact, there's already precedent that copyright holders cannot circumvent access controls applied to their own works. The logic is that if it were permitted, one would need only apply content scrambling to a video you produce, and by doing so grant yourself license to own and distribute technology to circumvent the access control on all DVDs.
Stephen King pointed out the irony of being locked out of e-Editions of his own novels because the publisher released them in a format accessible only via a Windows-based reader application (and he uses a Mac).
So, no. If Sony does distribute instruction on how to circumvent the DRM, that would violate the DMCA and they'd be open to prosecution.
Even if the copyright would be considered valid, there is significant precendent which would indicate that this would constitute fair use under current law.
... that "Enterprise Class Product" refers to the license cost, not quality or features. SSH Communications is right. OpenSSH doesn't cost enough to be "Enterprise Class".