Contrary to what people think, even though corporations influence politicians, the vote still counts (because that's how the prez gets elected, go figure), so they still pay a lot of attention to what the public considers acceptable.
Actually, just a nitpick - but the president gets chosen by the electoral college, which may not be in line with the popular vote. How do you think Clinton got into office?
On a couple occasions, I've written well-thought out emails to congressmen. In particular, I remember receiving an exceptional snail mail response from Rep Sensenbrenner (WI) about the U.S. policy towards Mir. I've also received a good response from Senator Gorton (WA).
Neither of these responses were form letters. I still agree that snail mail can make a more "physical" impression. If you have the time I recommend it. But don't assume that all the members of Congress are technically inept. A lot of them do get it, and enjoy the advantages of email as much as the rest of us. Sending them a thoughtful email is certainly better than no feedback at all.
Luckily for us, the most popular players and encoders have used fairly extensible architectures. Adding a new codec is almost trivial. Cdex already has a beta out using the Ogg Vorbis encoder, and the Ogg boys have already created plugins for Winamp and several other players.
Back when Fraunhofer was looking the other way and not grabbing for royalties, the players and encoders really didn't have this type of architecture, nor did Ogg exist. I'm sure Fraunhofer realized these things would eventually happen but I bet they are surprised how quickly they developed.
All in all, it works out better for the consumer, but no thanks to the patent system. I'm willing to bet even the hardware manufacturers will start supporting the ogg format once it's finalized, since it is free (LGPL for the libraries).
The next couple years will be interesting. You'll have SDMI if they ever finish it, with all the popular music released in that format being its edge. MP3 has the advantage of being a defacto standard. And then there's Ogg Vorbis which is free, and arguably a better codec than MP3.
Apparently you can not patent material from working with a standards body. Dell was smacked down on this in 1996
If this is true, then why wasn't Fraunhofer smacked down on their MP3 patent? As I recall, it was originally submitted as an ISO standard. Several free players and encoders (Blade, 8hz, and more...) based their work on the ISO source.
Nah I don't really have a PHB. I work for a game company so I get deadlines from our publisher's milestones. Long hours but at least I'm having fun for the most part.
I can think of better things to be doing on a Friday night, though. Tradeoffs... *sigh*.
Well, perhaps in this case, "encourage" is a better word than "facilitate".
Without emulators, people don't warez EQ. Why? Because each CD that is sold has a key, and only one instance of each key is allowed on the Verant servers. Additionally, Verant knows who you are if you play on their servers (since you are paying them). So warezing doesn't make sense.
With an EQ emulator to play on, it becomes much more attractive to make a copy of a friend's CD, rather than paying for your own.
Agreed. Except that we're not helping corporations get their way. They've had their way for ages now. The reason they do, is that an Average Joe like you or me can no longer hope to defend himself in court without extraordinary funds.
I'd love to see a court system where a cap was placed on attorney fees spent by EITHER side. Of course the lawyers in this country would shit a brick but oh well. At least there'd be some semblance of a fair trial.
Give me a system like that and I'll show all the civil disobedience you want.
The problem extends to GPG, which also uses DH keys. It doesn't automatically generate them, but like the newer versions of PGP, it fails to detect when ADKs have been appended.
So in this case, the newest Free OSS is also vulnerable.
Naturally occuring uranium is slightly enriched, to 3% U235, for use in reactors.
Actually that's not entirely true. Heavy water reactors, such as the ones used in Canada, only require roughly 1% U-235.
But this whole discussion is rather silly. A terrorist could just as easily cause massive damage by using a device to scatter radioactive material all over a populated area. He wouldn't even need a fission reaction, although that is much more spectacular...
It's really hard to tell what happened, but I seriously doubt a torpedo detonation was responsible for the initial explosion. Two explosions were heard by Norway and the U.S. The first one was (relatively) small - smaller than a sub torpedo. It was followed by a second larger blast - more powerful than a single torpedo.
Submarine torpedos are designed to arm after they've travelled some distance from the boat. I can't imagine a scenario where one would detonate in the tube.
More likely, there was some other cause for the initial explosion. This could be any number of things -- buildup and ignition of hazardous gas or torpedo fuel, hydrogen exploding in the battery compartment, or perhaps even hitting a mine. Whatever happened, it seemed to have set off the rest of the torpedo room.
I wanted to comment on this small part. Judge Kaplan previously worked at a firm who was representing Warner Bros. And he worked in a capacity that is relevant to the current DVD proceedings, thus indicating a conflict of interest. He also had dealt with Martin Garbus (2600's defense attorney) before and displayed a negative bias towards him.
The point is that it was illegal to crack the encryption, and illegal to distribute the tool for doing so
Some of what you're saying is true, but some of it is way off base. Let me try to cut through some of the mindless babbling.
1) 2600 didn't create the tool to bypass the encryption. Someone else did. Regardless, that's not the core issue of this case.
2) The judge has now prevented 2600 from linking to DeCSS. That in itself is pretty questionable.
3) The judge should be interpreting the law. So is his ruling correct? Perhaps so -- the DMCA may not be palatable to us, but it is there. However, he is still a judge. He should be setting aside his personal biases towards 2600's reputation.
4) The basis for appeal will probably be on First Amendment grounds, regarding the distribution of source code. As others have already pointed out, other cases have already succeeded in this area. That's 2600's goal, and if it works, it is likely that the DMCA or portions of it will be ruled unconstitutional.
Their few defenses were bullshit. Development of a Linux player?
Yes, and as you pointed out already, there is a clause in the DMCA which specifically allows reverse engineering for interoperability purposes.
Well besides the fact that developing an Open Source Linux player would be drastically violating DVD-CCA's intellectual property, (they spend money developing CSS, and they get that money back through licensing)
The encryption was a trade secret which is more or less fair game once the cat's out of the bag.
First of all, Judge Kaplan should've disqualified himself since he has professional ties to the MPAA.
But apart from that - it's shit like this that really emphasizes the need for a jury. The only ways Kaplan could spout off with such a poor ruling are either: a) prejudice against 2600, b) ties to the MPAA, c) plain stupidity, or a combination of the above.
A jury would've eliminated a and b. And as for stupidity -- well that's where you hope for a jury of your peers (in this case, hackers).
Ahh well... I think I better give up my romantic notion of a just justice system.
Sadly enough, I'm dead serious. That damn thing taunting me over and over. I couldn't take it anymore. I went to that site with a vengeance and whooped his ass first try.
I now have a nice treeloot.com stuffed monkey, complete with boxing gloves, sitting on top of one of my speakers at work. Yes I feel better now:-)
Regardless of any perceived faults in the DMCA, the fact remains that it was voted into law by Congress. Now, it casts a large shadow over the DeCSS case.
Since a judge's primary job is to interpret the law, it seems like the DMCA is going to cause the defense quite a headache. I'm not a lawyer so my question may be overly simplistic. But in a nutshell: what angles are being pursued by the defense to win the case, and is it possible that some of these could convince a judge to overturn some provisions of the DMCA?
It's too bad it had to be so goddamn important to use the MPL or the GPL for this project. GPLing Mozilla isn't agreeable to Netscape, and portions of the Linux crowd seem to dislike the MPL.
So the best solution they can come up with is dual licensing?
Maybe when they decided to open source Netscape, they should've BSD-licensed the whole friggin thing. Of course doing that now is probably impossible due to GPL portions that have been integrated. But it sure would've simplified things. Keep the commercial people happy, and keep the software free.
The GPL has caused a backlash, creating this license quagmire that we see today. I understand the objective of the GPL - somewhat akin to fighting fire with fire when stacked against commercial vendors. The BSD guys more-or-less try to say "can't we all just get along?"
I used to strongly favor the GPL. Lately, though I've seen instances like this where it tends to bite everyone in the rear, including the free software developers.
Anyhow - the moral of the story is: think carefully about the objective of your software before choosing a license.
I think it's pretty much assumed that Fermat didn't have a proof... partly because (as best as we can tell) he made that note several years before his death, and he had a proof in the case n=4. The generally accepted theory is that he thought this proof would work for the general case, and so he made that note in the margin. When he realized it didn't work, he didn't go back and scratch out that note...
Actually, he wrote that note in the margin of Arithmetica by Diophantus. In that book, the problem posed by Diophantus was to express a square rational number (a fraction), as the sum of 2 other square numbers.
Fermat's note stated that he had a marvellous proof of a related problem but that the margin was too small to contain it. I find it hard to believe that a mathemetician such as Fermat would make that sort of reference based on a specific case (n=4). More likely, he had a general case worked out which never saw the light of day. Considering the difficulty of the proof by Wiles, it is unlikely that Fermat's would have held up under scrutiny. But that is something which will probably remain a mystery:)
I don't know where you get these ideas but let's see if you can follow along.
Software is written and sold, with some reasonable expectation of some degree of support, EULA's notwhithstanding.
Wrong. The level of support is completely up to the author. If you don't like what he offers, then don't use the software. It's the exact same thing for the non-software sector. E.g. if I sell you a snowboard and you don't know how to ride it, I'm under no obligation to teach you.
If the software is abandoned by the author or assigns, what is the recourse of the poor saps still using it.
Don't use the software.
With source, ultimately I am responsible for what the program does, particularly if I mess with anything. Without source, ultimately the author has to be responsible, since I am not really in any position to correct the problem.
Once again, though, it is the author's CHOICE whether or not he wants to release the source or support his software. The rest of your post is simply arguing the benefits of open source. But that's beside the point. If you're feeling shafted because some program you use turned into abandonware, then find a vendor more to your liking. But there's no default degree of support offered or implied with software as a whole. Expecting that is asking to get burned.
Authorship IS equal to ownership. If I create something, you damn well better believe it belongs to me. But once I sell or give away a copy to a person, things change. I now own the ORIGINAL.
The core problem with software is that it can be copied. So once it has been distributed, whether by sale or for free, it is "out there". There's not much that can stop people from copying it. Copyright is designed to classify the author differently from recipients.
As you pointed out, the only issue here, is whether or not the author should be able to prevent other people from sharing. He certainly SHOULD be able to, otherwise he couldn't sell his creation. The main problem I have with the copyright system is the length of time these things stay in effect (thanks Disney!)
But the sentiment I'm seeing here on Slashdot is more like: "you're not using it anymore, so you should just give out the binary and source code to anyone who wants it".
Well, guess what - the author wrote it, and he is under no obligation to do anything else. I get so sick of the crowd that thinks they are entitled to everything. Go create something of your own.
This is just my personal experience... but stay away from teamwork, except, perhaps for the final bot war at the end of the project.
I've taken so many courses where they wanted the hands-on work done in teams. I absolutely hated group work. Inevitably, one or two people on the team understand and do the work because they don't want to get a bad grade. The others on the team NEVER learn it and sit back and do nothing.
Anyhow, make each student work on his/her own bot until you are done presenting new material. That way if someone is really having trouble, you can get in there and help them out. Yes there will always be a few inclined to copy the work of others but you'll know who's really learning the material if you have occasional tests or quizzes.
I bring it up because that's part of what I do for a living in the "real world";)
The instructor could create some sort of networked game arena, or use an existing one. Then let the students create bots to perform specific tasks, fight each other, or whatever.
You bring out a lot of creativity as they get their programs to react to various stimuli. With AI, I usually break their functionality down into a couple categories.
Senses: to detect what's going on around them. Brain: to select a mood. Movement: to handle going from A to B and avoiding obstacles Tasks: each one is a specific goal / objective. Usually activated by the current mood.
Also, since this is an AP class, I wouldn't worry about the students ability -- they'll rise to the challenge. Go into detail, teaching them how to use trees and various algorithms. Pathfinding is a great way to learn different tree traversals and heuristics (A*, etc), without the boredom of your standard theory lecture.
You'll also be able to teach about stacks, queues, priority queues, and that sort of thing. But make sure you start really simple and teach the students a new element every couple days or week (day or 2 to teach, and a day or 2 to let them try implementing it). Then move on to the next algorithm or whatever.
Towards the end of the course, give them a couple weeks to put it all together and make a kickass bot. Then put their bots into a competitive arena and see how they fare:)
... but I could live with it. Consider this: if the US Postal Service offered this email service to mass marketers, and required them to use it for solicitation instead of snail mail, maybe things wouldn't be so bad.
At least I can filter email spam much more efficiently than snail mail. Nothing pisses me off more than a box full of junk mail causing me to nearly miss an important letter.
But switch it for email? That's a tradeoff I'd make in a heartbeat. Ideally there'd be NO spam but I doubt that'll ever happen.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, just a nitpick - but the president gets chosen by the electoral college, which may not be in line with the popular vote. How do you think Clinton got into office?
On a couple occasions, I've written well-thought out emails to congressmen. In particular, I remember receiving an exceptional snail mail response from Rep Sensenbrenner (WI) about the U.S. policy towards Mir. I've also received a good response from Senator Gorton (WA).
Neither of these responses were form letters. I still agree that snail mail can make a more "physical" impression. If you have the time I recommend it. But don't assume that all the members of Congress are technically inept. A lot of them do get it, and enjoy the advantages of email as much as the rest of us. Sending them a thoughtful email is certainly better than no feedback at all.
Best regards,
SEAL
Trailing WAY off topic, but...
Luckily for us, the most popular players and encoders have used fairly extensible architectures. Adding a new codec is almost trivial. Cdex already has a beta out using the Ogg Vorbis encoder, and the Ogg boys have already created plugins for Winamp and several other players.
Back when Fraunhofer was looking the other way and not grabbing for royalties, the players and encoders really didn't have this type of architecture, nor did Ogg exist. I'm sure Fraunhofer realized these things would eventually happen but I bet they are surprised how quickly they developed.
All in all, it works out better for the consumer, but no thanks to the patent system. I'm willing to bet even the hardware manufacturers will start supporting the ogg format once it's finalized, since it is free (LGPL for the libraries).
The next couple years will be interesting. You'll have SDMI if they ever finish it, with all the popular music released in that format being its edge. MP3 has the advantage of being a defacto standard. And then there's Ogg Vorbis which is free, and arguably a better codec than MP3.
Best regards,
SEAL
If this is true, then why wasn't Fraunhofer smacked down on their MP3 patent? As I recall, it was originally submitted as an ISO standard. Several free players and encoders (Blade, 8hz, and more...) based their work on the ISO source.
and we don't WANT them too (which is the real point). That's the whole reason they were granted this type of temporary visa.
Nah I don't really have a PHB. I work for a game company so I get deadlines from our publisher's milestones. Long hours but at least I'm having fun for the most part.
I can think of better things to be doing on a Friday night, though. Tradeoffs... *sigh*.
SEAL
Just online? Shit... I'm still at work ;P
Well, perhaps in this case, "encourage" is a better word than "facilitate".
Without emulators, people don't warez EQ. Why? Because each CD that is sold has a key, and only one instance of each key is allowed on the Verant servers. Additionally, Verant knows who you are if you play on their servers (since you are paying them). So warezing doesn't make sense.
With an EQ emulator to play on, it becomes much more attractive to make a copy of a friend's CD, rather than paying for your own.
Agreed. Except that we're not helping corporations get their way. They've had their way for ages now. The reason they do, is that an Average Joe like you or me can no longer hope to defend himself in court without extraordinary funds.
I'd love to see a court system where a cap was placed on attorney fees spent by EITHER side. Of course the lawyers in this country would shit a brick but oh well. At least there'd be some semblance of a fair trial.
Give me a system like that and I'll show all the civil disobedience you want.
The problem extends to GPG, which also uses DH keys. It doesn't automatically generate them, but like the newer versions of PGP, it fails to detect when ADKs have been appended. So in this case, the newest Free OSS is also vulnerable.
Actually that's not entirely true. Heavy water reactors, such as the ones used in Canada, only require roughly 1% U-235.
But this whole discussion is rather silly. A terrorist could just as easily cause massive damage by using a device to scatter radioactive material all over a populated area. He wouldn't even need a fission reaction, although that is much more spectacular...
It's really hard to tell what happened, but I seriously doubt a torpedo detonation was responsible for the initial explosion. Two explosions were heard by Norway and the U.S. The first one was (relatively) small - smaller than a sub torpedo. It was followed by a second larger blast - more powerful than a single torpedo.
;)
Submarine torpedos are designed to arm after they've travelled some distance from the boat. I can't imagine a scenario where one would detonate in the tube.
More likely, there was some other cause for the initial explosion. This could be any number of things -- buildup and ignition of hazardous gas or torpedo fuel, hydrogen exploding in the battery compartment, or perhaps even hitting a mine. Whatever happened, it seemed to have set off the rest of the torpedo room.
Not that I know anything about subs
Best regards,
SEAL
We had to develop our own tools to get 64 or more outstanding commands to a disk drive to measure re-ordering performance gains.
Did "we" ever consider releasing this tool to Linux developers? Maybe they could find a way to integrate it into the kernel.
Just a thought...
I wanted to comment on this small part. Judge Kaplan previously worked at a firm who was representing Warner Bros. And he worked in a capacity that is relevant to the current DVD proceedings, thus indicating a conflict of interest. He also had dealt with Martin Garbus (2600's defense attorney) before and displayed a negative bias towards him.
You can read about it here .
- SEAL
Some of what you're saying is true, but some of it is way off base. Let me try to cut through some of the mindless babbling.
1) 2600 didn't create the tool to bypass the encryption. Someone else did. Regardless, that's not the core issue of this case.
2) The judge has now prevented 2600 from linking to DeCSS. That in itself is pretty questionable.
3) The judge should be interpreting the law. So is his ruling correct? Perhaps so -- the DMCA may not be palatable to us, but it is there. However, he is still a judge. He should be setting aside his personal biases towards 2600's reputation.
4) The basis for appeal will probably be on First Amendment grounds, regarding the distribution of source code. As others have already pointed out, other cases have already succeeded in this area. That's 2600's goal, and if it works, it is likely that the DMCA or portions of it will be ruled unconstitutional.
Their few defenses were bullshit. Development of a Linux player?
Yes, and as you pointed out already, there is a clause in the DMCA which specifically allows reverse engineering for interoperability purposes.
Well besides the fact that developing an Open Source Linux player would be drastically violating DVD-CCA's intellectual property, (they spend money developing CSS, and they get that money back through licensing)
The encryption was a trade secret which is more or less fair game once the cat's out of the bag.
Best regards,
SEAL
First of all, Judge Kaplan should've disqualified himself since he has professional ties to the MPAA.
But apart from that - it's shit like this that really emphasizes the need for a jury. The only ways Kaplan could spout off with such a poor ruling are either: a) prejudice against 2600, b) ties to the MPAA, c) plain stupidity, or a combination of the above.
A jury would've eliminated a and b. And as for stupidity -- well that's where you hope for a jury of your peers (in this case, hackers).
Ahh well... I think I better give up my romantic notion of a just justice system.
SEAL
Sadly enough, I'm dead serious. That damn thing taunting me over and over. I couldn't take it anymore. I went to that site with a vengeance and whooped his ass first try.
:-)
I now have a nice treeloot.com stuffed monkey, complete with boxing gloves, sitting on top of one of my speakers at work. Yes I feel better now
Since a judge's primary job is to interpret the law, it seems like the DMCA is going to cause the defense quite a headache. I'm not a lawyer so my question may be overly simplistic. But in a nutshell: what angles are being pursued by the defense to win the case, and is it possible that some of these could convince a judge to overturn some provisions of the DMCA?
Best regards,
SEAL
It's too bad it had to be so goddamn important to use the MPL or the GPL for this project. GPLing Mozilla isn't agreeable to Netscape, and portions of the Linux crowd seem to dislike the MPL.
So the best solution they can come up with is dual licensing?
Maybe when they decided to open source Netscape, they should've BSD-licensed the whole friggin thing. Of course doing that now is probably impossible due to GPL portions that have been integrated. But it sure would've simplified things. Keep the commercial people happy, and keep the software free.
The GPL has caused a backlash, creating this license quagmire that we see today. I understand the objective of the GPL - somewhat akin to fighting fire with fire when stacked against commercial vendors. The BSD guys more-or-less try to say "can't we all just get along?"
I used to strongly favor the GPL. Lately, though I've seen instances like this where it tends to bite everyone in the rear, including the free software developers.
Anyhow - the moral of the story is: think carefully about the objective of your software before choosing a license.
Best regards,
SEAL
Actually, he wrote that note in the margin of Arithmetica by Diophantus. In that book, the problem posed by Diophantus was to express a square rational number (a fraction), as the sum of 2 other square numbers.
Fermat's note stated that he had a marvellous proof of a related problem but that the margin was too small to contain it. I find it hard to believe that a mathemetician such as Fermat would make that sort of reference based on a specific case (n=4). More likely, he had a general case worked out which never saw the light of day. Considering the difficulty of the proof by Wiles, it is unlikely that Fermat's would have held up under scrutiny. But that is something which will probably remain a mystery :)
Best regards,
SEAL
Software is written and sold, with some reasonable expectation of some degree of support, EULA's notwhithstanding.
Wrong. The level of support is completely up to the author. If you don't like what he offers, then don't use the software. It's the exact same thing for the non-software sector. E.g. if I sell you a snowboard and you don't know how to ride it, I'm under no obligation to teach you.
If the software is abandoned by the author or assigns, what is the recourse of the poor saps still using it.
Don't use the software.
With source, ultimately I am responsible for what the program does, particularly if I mess with anything. Without source, ultimately the author has to be responsible, since I am not really in any position to correct the problem.
Once again, though, it is the author's CHOICE whether or not he wants to release the source or support his software. The rest of your post is simply arguing the benefits of open source. But that's beside the point. If you're feeling shafted because some program you use turned into abandonware, then find a vendor more to your liking. But there's no default degree of support offered or implied with software as a whole. Expecting that is asking to get burned.
Best regards,
SEAL
Authorship IS equal to ownership. If I create something, you damn well better believe it belongs to me. But once I sell or give away a copy to a person, things change. I now own the ORIGINAL.
The core problem with software is that it can be copied. So once it has been distributed, whether by sale or for free, it is "out there". There's not much that can stop people from copying it. Copyright is designed to classify the author differently from recipients.
As you pointed out, the only issue here, is whether or not the author should be able to prevent other people from sharing. He certainly SHOULD be able to, otherwise he couldn't sell his creation. The main problem I have with the copyright system is the length of time these things stay in effect (thanks Disney!)
But the sentiment I'm seeing here on Slashdot is more like: "you're not using it anymore, so you should just give out the binary and source code to anyone who wants it".
Well, guess what - the author wrote it, and he is under no obligation to do anything else. I get so sick of the crowd that thinks they are entitled to everything. Go create something of your own.
SEAL
This is just my personal experience... but stay away from teamwork, except, perhaps for the final bot war at the end of the project.
I've taken so many courses where they wanted the hands-on work done in teams. I absolutely hated group work. Inevitably, one or two people on the team understand and do the work because they don't want to get a bad grade. The others on the team NEVER learn it and sit back and do nothing.
Anyhow, make each student work on his/her own bot until you are done presenting new material. That way if someone is really having trouble, you can get in there and help them out. Yes there will always be a few inclined to copy the work of others but you'll know who's really learning the material if you have occasional tests or quizzes.
SEAL
I bring it up because that's part of what I do for a living in the "real world" ;)
:)
The instructor could create some sort of networked game arena, or use an existing one. Then let the students create bots to perform specific tasks, fight each other, or whatever.
You bring out a lot of creativity as they get their programs to react to various stimuli. With AI, I usually break their functionality down into a couple categories.
Senses: to detect what's going on around them.
Brain: to select a mood.
Movement: to handle going from A to B and avoiding obstacles
Tasks: each one is a specific goal / objective. Usually activated by the current mood.
Also, since this is an AP class, I wouldn't worry about the students ability -- they'll rise to the challenge. Go into detail, teaching them how to use trees and various algorithms. Pathfinding is a great way to learn different tree traversals and heuristics (A*, etc), without the boredom of your standard theory lecture.
You'll also be able to teach about stacks, queues, priority queues, and that sort of thing. But make sure you start really simple and teach the students a new element every couple days or week (day or 2 to teach, and a day or 2 to let them try implementing it). Then move on to the next algorithm or whatever.
Towards the end of the course, give them a couple weeks to put it all together and make a kickass bot. Then put their bots into a competitive arena and see how they fare
Best regards,
SEAL
I DON'T LIKE SPAM!
... but I could live with it. Consider this: if the US Postal Service offered this email service to mass marketers, and required them to use it for solicitation instead of snail mail, maybe things wouldn't be so bad.
At least I can filter email spam much more efficiently than snail mail. Nothing pisses me off more than a box full of junk mail causing me to nearly miss an important letter.
But switch it for email? That's a tradeoff I'd make in a heartbeat. Ideally there'd be NO spam but I doubt that'll ever happen.
SEAL