You said the article summary was incorrect. The article summary talked about how DRM screwed Spielberg. This is not incorrect, as region coding is DRM. The title is incorrect (it mentions encryption).
This is where I feel you went wrong.
As to my second comment, you seemed to understand all the words, but completely missed the point.
If they had not used special encrypted discs, then as a backup plan, the screeners (academy members) could have used region-free DVD players to view the discs, and they wouldn't have had this "the intended audience couldn't view it" problem.
You get confused and say somehow that they used the special discs to prevent this scenario. This is incorrect. The scenario they used the special discs to prevent is to prevent UNAUTHORIZED people from viewing it. They tried to thwart someone else, they thwarted themselves. They were hoist from their own petard.
This is what the article is about, this is what the summary says, and neither the article nor the summary is wrong. Yes, the title is pretty much wrong.
Now, you, on the other hand, are wrong and you're getting awfully overwraught too.
Really, anything that convinces a player that is fully capable of playing a disc to not play it is DRM. So region coding qualifies.
Additionally, I feel that if they hadn't used these special disks, many people could have used regular region free players (common in Europe) to play them.
Slashdot is primarily about the stories, not the forum. If a good story should be published, publish it. Who cares if the forum becomes a cesspool?
I do have to say I've been unimpressed by the level of science and newsworthiness lately. At least when SCO was around the stories we got seemed relevant. Not just crappy slashvertisements for Xbox 360 liquid coolers or something.
That wouldn't surprise me one bit. You know, the world isn't fair. Does it guarantee somewhere in the slashdot charter that slashdot will be fair about approving submissions?
Or are you accusing that perhaps someone at/. is taking money to greenlight articles?
If so, just come out and say it.
Personally I think it's a stretch, I just don't hold slashdot in high enough esteem that it would be worth paying to get articles like this on it (unlike crappy "comparo" articles).
Why are you burning coal? Burning coal doesn't do much good for the environment.
As to filtering exhaust, if it were easy, I'm sure it would be done. But it is far from easy to separate radioactive uranium from other materials. Ask Iran about it. It is not cost effective to perform this process on the ash coming out of a coal plant, there's just too much of it to do so.
As to clean coal deposits, coal isn't manufactured, it is mined. Yes, different deposits will differ in what they are contaminated with, but it'd be very unusual to find a vein that was completely clean.
What you have to realize here is the amount of coal that is burned in a such a plant. If you have only 1 part of contaminant per million, then you burn 100,000 tons of coal a year, you have released 200lbs (or 100kg, depending on your definition) of contaminant. For most contaminants, 200lbs just isn't much to worry about. But 200lbs of Uranium is pretty serious, and does indeed emit far more radiation than a nuclear plant is allowed to emit.
Everyone used to sell those cards. Netgear sold a zillion of them. And many companies sold the same card (probably a reference design) under their own name. Apple did, for example. If you bought the 10/100 PCI add-on card for a Mac from Apple it was a 21142 ("tulip") reference card that was exactly the same as the others.
(I don't know the difference between the 21142 and the 21140, they even used the same drivers.)
Here's a link to a picutre of the most-common shape version of that card.
The first LDs were 30 mins per side (yes, the 12" ones), the later CLV ones were 60 mins per side.
So for most movies you had to flip once or twice and swap discs once.
Despite all of this, LD was a success. It was around for a long time. It was perhaps not a widespread success, but then again the discs cost $50 a piece or more, were huge (as you say) and so prone to warpage that renting them was an enormous risk.
As to VHS, most say VHS won because it recorded more time (4 hours initially, 6 later, Beta topped out at 4 3/4 hours for most of its life) and because Beta had no porn. The movies being on VHS format and not Beta was probably an effect, not a cause. Additionally, JVC was more aggressive in licensing VHS than Sony was with Beta, thus making more VHS players available at more competitive prices.
I don't know which HD format will win, but barring a case of over-DRM, I am sure one of them will succeed. There is demand for HD content, at much more than there was for LD content, and that survived for years.
I know I have stopped buying stuff on DVD because I know the quality just isn't high enough to want to own for long. Renting DVD is still fine, but I really don't do that either since if I just wait a few more months I can set my TiVo and get the show in HD off of HBO or Showtime and it'll look a ton better.
I don't buy TV series on DVD because I don't feel like owning them in a quality markedly inferior to what they were when I watched them for free.
So I do stay that there is a need for HD content on demand. That probably means on disc format, but perhaps PPV could substitute.
You link to some prototypes and say they've been used in trucks a long time?
Turbines are simply not used in trucks. They aren't used in large numbers, aren't use in small numbers. They aren't used.
The big 3 all looked at turbines in the 70s, and the problems they have (variable torque instead of variable speed) led to serious issues that transmissions would have to solve.
They were not solved (yet) and turbines are not used in trucks.
Turbines aren't even used in locomotives right now (or perhaps just very very recently). And trust me when I say locomotives (with their electric power transmission) will have them before cars do.
You speak of how DVD is miles ahead of VHS. By the same argument, LaserDisc was way ahead of VHS (no rewinding, digital 5.1 audio) and yet LD didn't take off.
You recognize DVD was helped by a picture advantage.
"DVD was introduced with CD quality sound and digital video significantly better than standard broadcast."
You then make a pretty big error when saying:
"Since common DVDs are better than commonly broadcast video quality, and since little HD content available, and since HD displays are not commonplace, there's hardly demand for a new HD media."
There's the rub: DVDs are VASTLY worse quality than the stuff I see on TV. DVD looks like crap next to HDTV. Why would I watch CSI in HDTV and then buy the DVD in a vastly inferior format? Answer, I wouldn't. Thus people with HDTV are far less inclinced to buy TV shows on DVD (which is a big market for DVDs right now).
Additionally, I may not have a lot of HDTV channels (only about 10, two of which are HBO and Showtime), I do have the opportunity to see virtually every movie in HD at some point. Many TV shows may not be shot in HD, but virtually all movies are at least HD resolution. If I choose not to see a movie in the theater, there's almost zero chance I'll buy it on DVD, because why would I want to own forever a movie in a quality that I'm already not happy with?
I'm not going to rent the DVD either, if I just wait a little longer I can set my HDTiVo and record it off HBO or Showtime in HD and see it in great quality.
As to your satellite TV comments, you are mistaken. Satellite TV providers do not have nearly enough bandwidth at hand to show a lot of channels in HD. DTV does have a new bird up and about ready to go, but without new antenna setups and receivers, it's unclear how this bandwidth will be delivered in the amount required. In order to deliver local HD channels, it appears DVT is rolling out MPEG-4 format channels (and thus new receivers). This will take time.
Really, that's going to be necessary, since Ku-band satellites can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth per satellite slot. Thus, even with optimal frequency allocation, DTV can only increase the bandwidth available to 3-satellite dish users about 50%. And if they don't switch away from MPEG-2, an HDTV channel will take up 8x as much bandwidth as a regular channel.
And even with new satellites people will likely need new antennas, and unless they start stacking frequencies or intermediate tuning at the antenna, more complex setups (anyone with a multiswitch) may have to rewire their entire setup including wiring in the walls!
So don't go thinking DTV and Dish just have to flip a switch to get lots of HDTV channels and just haven't done so because of some perceived lack of demand.
And I would also recommend that you don't go thinking that just because you don't demand HD prerecorded content that others don't want it either.
I do have to say I'm concerned about the DRM that will be on BluRay and HD-DVD, but I am all behind the concept of an HD disc format. And 25GB of writeable storage on my computer would be nice too.
hardware DEP does stop the exploit under certain conditions, but installing other (seemingly unrelated) code invalidates the protection (because they are binaries packed with some special software and MS turns off DEP for those binaries since they wouldn't work otherwise).
I'm surprised DEP worked at all on this, the flaw is a design flaw, not a buffer overflow exploit.
Honestly, I think it's a dynamite idea. Parents would love to give one to their parents and then update the pictures themselves. So instead of having to email pics of their grandkids to them, you just put them on a server and this thing gets them from time to time and updates what is being display on the frame (whereever it is).
One such product did this exactly (over a phone), others did 802.11. But anyway, none sold.
I've never actually had one. Maybe it's a gimmick that gets old too quickly?
You're right, it's probably less important with console hardware than software. But still, going by sell-through numbers is important. It prevents channel stuffing, for starters. You can stuff the channel (load up retailers with equipment) at the end of quarters so as to bring next quarters sales into this quarter. When you do this, it creates a misleading impression, especially because next quarter's true sales can't even begin until you sell off last quarter's stuffed stock.
Sometimes companies have been known to stuff the channel and take the product back in the next quarter! It's just a scam. Going by sell-through eliminates this.
Additionally note that going by shipped units also makes it possible to do other shenanigans like add new retailers to "increase sales". If you add a new retailer, you can count their shipments to fill inventory as sales, even if the units never sell at all. So you can again manipulate sales numbers, or at least the timing of them.
Additionally, you can update your model to get more sales (shipments). If they announced the new PSP with 802.11g or 15% longer battery life or something, they could make it a new model, and the retailers all have to order the new one to put it on the shelves, even if the old ones never sold. Eventually retailers do get tired of this, but they can do it occasionally to jump up the numbers.
Given that the name of the game in video games is to get an installed base out there to attract developers and make royalties from software sold, all these tricks can make the difference between success and failure for a console and so are likely employed by every company to varying degrees.
So it's great to be able to try to null those tricks out as much as possible. For example, with the Xbox 360 launch in Japan.
Yep. Honestly, GC has had a poor lineup of new games lately. Yeah, Mario Strikers is supposed to be good. And i think there was another Mario Party in there somewhere. But really, the GC has had little worth buying come out since Resident Evil 4 (which was a LONG time ago now). It doesn't even get many ports anymore.
It isn't odd for a platform to slow down at the end of its lifespan (although perhaps this is a bit extreme), and I'm sure things will be different when Revolution comes. I can't wait to get one.
2 years ago, there were 0 1" HDs in phones. 1 year ago, there were 0 1" HDs in phones. This year, there are 0 1" HDs in phones (so far).
I don't really see much to support "on the rise".
Perhaps this article is just a slashvertisement. That is, a company that makes 1" HDs is just trying to create a market by asserting that it is already here and growing.
Slashdot is pathetic. I was disappointed when news sources like CNN started to reprint press releases as "news". But at least I understand their profit motive. What is the reasoning on slashdot? Slow news day? I think I'd prefer dupes as filler over these blatant press releases.
I have friends with D1x, 20D, 300D, 350D, D100 and D70s. I've used most of those. dSLRs are nice. The noise levels are amazingly low.
But I stopped using SLRs. Why? Too large. The best shot isn't always the one with the lowest noise level, with the longest zoom or even the best composure. But it is always a SHOT YOU GOT. And I just found that an SLR was too large, I couldn't carry it often enough. I was getting great shots when I got shots, but I was missing tons of shots because I had to leave the SLR behind and I didn't get those shots at all.
As to delay when pressing the button, you need to investigate recent P&S cameras. Recent P&S cameras have shutter lags similar to dSLRs, and actually, there's no reason they can't do better than dSLRs. Because a dSLR has to raise the mirror before it can start the exposure, and a P&S doesn't. That's additional lag right there.
Sony has been making P&S cameras with up-to-date chips and thus virtually no lag for over a year now. They've rolled their entire line to use such chips a while back and some are on the 2nd generation of these chips. Canon, on the other hand still sells crap like the G5 which use old chips that are slow to start up, slow to take shots, slow to display shots.
Go to dpreview and read the reviews of recent good cameras like the Sony DSC-V3 or the Canon SD### (like 550) series. Shutter lag in P&S cameras is way down. And if the market demands it, it'll go even lower.
Oh, and Sony has near-full manual control on all their cameras and full manual control (minus setting manual white balance in degrees K) on the higher-end (typically larger) models. Again, the DSC-V3 is a great example. And most of the other manufacturers also have full manual controls on their high-end P&S cameras.
All digital cameras aren't alike any more than film cameras are.
If you find your camera needs to much light to take a picture, then you need to get a camera with larger glass. More glass means more light taken in. More light taken in means better picture without jacking the ISO.
People think they can buy a pocketable digital camera and take pics with it they would have tried to take with a 35mm camera which is much larger.
I don't have a problem with image stabilization, but it's not going to take the place of larger glass. Why? Because image stabilization only works on non-moving objects. Yeah, you can take a picture at 1/15th of a second instead of 1/60th and still have it turn out, if the subject isn't moving. But if it is, it'll be blurred, and IS won't fix it.
But, larger glass would let you get the same number of photons in 1/60th of a second as the other (IS) camera does in 1/15th of a second. And that's effective for both moving and non-moving objects.
Additionally, the larger glass makes your flash more effective, but IS does not, as no matter how long you keep the shutter open, the flash is only on for 1/000th of a second or something.
Big deal. If anything, that's part of the problem.
Again, what does this help?
As to being merely *hard* to detect, I would say otherwise, well, at least as a practical matter.
Perhaps you don't understand this exploit. This isn't a buffer overflow issue, it's a legitimate part of the file format. You can embed code in.wmfs. It just happens that the code in some cases might be evil. How do you analyze code to tell if it is evil? Answer, you cannot. There are literally infinite combinations of instructions that are evil.
So, you could just look for the use of this escape sequence (that says code follows), and flag that as problematic. You'll flag legitimate uses too, but do you have any choice? And given that this is the way you have to do it, how does making variants of code designed to be difficult to pattern match help you see this escape sequence?
Again, I just don't see how this helps anybody but the bad guys, 100% disclosure or no.
Some might even think M3 covers more stuff, but the additional stuff it covers does not include stuff under the US government's control. So I don't see why not reporting M3 frees up the government to do more bad things. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying our government isn't doing bad things, simply that this won't affect their ability to do them.
I do wish to say that if you really meant the total money supply (not M0), then the phrase "print more counterfeit money" should have been left out of your argument.
M3 seems like a rather difficult number to nail down. Additionally, the only stuff that is in the M3 that isn't in the M2 (still reported) is stuff that is outside the US government's control. So I don't see how not reporting it fits into area of allowing more US government wrongdoing.
To be honest, the area which really falls under the area of fiat currency nuttery is the cap between M1 and M0. It's the fractional reserve system that gold prohibits and it's the fractional reserve system that produces the gap between M0 and M1.
Given that you'll still be getting M0 and M1 (and indeed M2), why do you think this change in reporting will increase abuses by the US government? Why should it make our already fiat currency any more ephemeral?
Yes, the bad guys have apparently been exploiting this for a little while. That's something we can agree upon.
But why does releasing the most evil version of it possible help anything?
I can see how it hurts, it helps those with criminal intent but no brains in making versions of the exploit that can't be detected.
But how does it help? It doesn't help make scanners better, as scanners have to pattern match and this defeats pattern matching. It doesn't help pressure MS, as they surely have a fire lit under them already.
Again, I ask not why would the "good guys" write an exploit, but why would they need to write a version meant to be undetectable? They are good guys, they don't have anything to hide, so why hide? You don't need to hide to see how the exploit works.
But then again, when it was discovered that there was a simple way to get into Hondas using a pencil, did people go out and explain what it was? This actually happened in about 1994, and Honda fixed the problem once informed of it. But were the details widely publicized? No.
As to me offering "security through obscurity", you're trying to make a phrase fit that doesn't fit. Security through obscurity is to design a system where simply not knowing something is the security. Here I am merely speaking of not telling EVERYONE all the details of a security flaw while the company that is responsible fixes it. I didn't say you shouldn't tell Microsoft. I didn't say Microsoft shouldn't explain there is a vulnerability. I didn't even preclude details of the vulnerability being given out. I didn't even preclude someone writing an exploit to show it can be done.
What I did was condemn writing the most evil version of the exploit possible before the patch is even released, and then giving out the code so others can do it too!
You say it's to make virus scanners better. By making it bigger than an MTU, presumably to make sniffing firewalls better. Well, what about those of us who don't have sniffing firewalls? Am I well served by a metaexploit being written? And additionally, you say this will let people recognize the exploiters (worms) better. How are they supposed to do that? This program makes all the versions of its exploits look different. For that matter, how can someone even tell a legitmate user of this escape sequence from a worm? There are literally an infinite number of ways to write code that does identical things (exploit and propagate). So how can a program inspect code that is used with this escape command to tell if it propagates? Answer, it CANNOT. Even by running it you can't be sure, maybe you just didn't give it the right conditions under which to trigger.
The only thing that can be done is pattern matching, and this metaexploit defeats that.
Honestly, MS is just going to have to remove this feature and deal with the fallout. We just have to give them a little time to do it before handing weapons to those with criminal intent. It's like selling arms. It does increase fighting, even though in theory, people could already have made weapons to take out their greivances upon other.
Perhaps this flaw has been being used for years to get into machines. How does that excuse this? This metaexploit is neither going to undo that, nor is it likely to get MS to fix it faster. It just might get more people hurt before MS can write and test a fix.
In short, I do understand there are already some people who exploited this hole. But there's no reason to make the problem worse. And that's what releasing this code will do.
Additional note on "security through obscurity". The first major proponents of this were the people who decided that UNIX shouldn't hide passwords, instead just 1-way crypt them and store the results in a publically readable file (passwd). Well, guess what, they were wrong. UNIX got greatly boned by this decision. It was wrong for two reasons.
1. Because it allowed offline and parallel dictionary attacks on user passwords. 2. Because it meant that you couldn't use any "shared secret" type of authentication, because UNIX didn't know your password. It could recognize it if you sent your password to it, but it didn't actually know it. This led to a lot of difficulties with protocols like POP and FTP sending your password in the clear.
Take a look in your/etc/passwd file on a modern UNIX machine. Do you see your crypted password in there? No? Well, perhaps there's a lesson to be learned there about whether obscurity really does have some value.
Slashdot Mirror
You said the article summary was incorrect. The article summary talked about how DRM screwed Spielberg. This is not incorrect, as region coding is DRM. The title is incorrect (it mentions encryption).
This is where I feel you went wrong.
As to my second comment, you seemed to understand all the words, but completely missed the point.
If they had not used special encrypted discs, then as a backup plan, the screeners (academy members) could have used region-free DVD players to view the discs, and they wouldn't have had this "the intended audience couldn't view it" problem.
You get confused and say somehow that they used the special discs to prevent this scenario. This is incorrect. The scenario they used the special discs to prevent is to prevent UNAUTHORIZED people from viewing it. They tried to thwart someone else, they thwarted themselves. They were hoist from their own petard.
This is what the article is about, this is what the summary says, and neither the article nor the summary is wrong. Yes, the title is pretty much wrong.
Now, you, on the other hand, are wrong and you're getting awfully overwraught too.
Really, anything that convinces a player that is fully capable of playing a disc to not play it is DRM. So region coding qualifies.
Additionally, I feel that if they hadn't used these special disks, many people could have used regular region free players (common in Europe) to play them.
I have a couple HDTV channels:
NBC - 1080i
CBS - 1080i
ABC - 720p
FOX - 720p
UPN - 1080i
WB - 1080i
PBS - 1080i
HBO - 1080i
Showtime - 1080i
So 1080i is more popular in the US than 720p.
The 1360x768 mentioned is either the resolution of this person's HDTV (Plasma?) or because he's using a VGA adapter instead of an HDTV hookup.
720p may make more sense for games and such, but it just doesn't look nearly as good for TV content in general.
Slashdot is primarily about the stories, not the forum. If a good story should be published, publish it. Who cares if the forum becomes a cesspool?
I do have to say I've been unimpressed by the level of science and newsworthiness lately. At least when SCO was around the stories we got seemed relevant. Not just crappy slashvertisements for Xbox 360 liquid coolers or something.
What conclusion am I to draw?
/. plays favorites?
/. is taking money to greenlight articles?
That
That wouldn't surprise me one bit. You know, the world isn't fair. Does it guarantee somewhere in the slashdot charter that slashdot will be fair about approving submissions?
Or are you accusing that perhaps someone at
If so, just come out and say it.
Personally I think it's a stretch, I just don't hold slashdot in high enough esteem that it would be worth paying to get articles like this on it (unlike crappy "comparo" articles).
Why are you burning coal? Burning coal doesn't do much good for the environment.
As to filtering exhaust, if it were easy, I'm sure it would be done. But it is far from easy to separate radioactive uranium from other materials. Ask Iran about it. It is not cost effective to perform this process on the ash coming out of a coal plant, there's just too much of it to do so.
As to clean coal deposits, coal isn't manufactured, it is mined. Yes, different deposits will differ in what they are contaminated with, but it'd be very unusual to find a vein that was completely clean.
What you have to realize here is the amount of coal that is burned in a such a plant. If you have only 1 part of contaminant per million, then you burn 100,000 tons of coal a year, you have released 200lbs (or 100kg, depending on your definition) of contaminant. For most contaminants, 200lbs just isn't much to worry about. But 200lbs of Uranium is pretty serious, and does indeed emit far more radiation than a nuclear plant is allowed to emit.
Everyone used to sell those cards. Netgear sold a zillion of them. And many companies sold the same card (probably a reference design) under their own name. Apple did, for example. If you bought the 10/100 PCI add-on card for a Mac from Apple it was a 21142 ("tulip") reference card that was exactly the same as the others.
e /e0903230412m.jpg
(I don't know the difference between the 21142 and the 21140, they even used the same drivers.)
Here's a link to a picutre of the most-common shape version of that card.
http://fromto.cc/hosokawa/diary/2002/20020903-hom
and another
http://www.soho-jp.com/image/FE100D.jpg
There were other versions, that had square PROM sockets instead of DIP and such, but this was by far the most common.
The first LDs were 30 mins per side (yes, the 12" ones), the later CLV ones were 60 mins per side.
So for most movies you had to flip once or twice and swap discs once.
Despite all of this, LD was a success. It was around for a long time. It was perhaps not a widespread success, but then again the discs cost $50 a piece or more, were huge (as you say) and so prone to warpage that renting them was an enormous risk.
As to VHS, most say VHS won because it recorded more time (4 hours initially, 6 later, Beta topped out at 4 3/4 hours for most of its life) and because Beta had no porn. The movies being on VHS format and not Beta was probably an effect, not a cause. Additionally, JVC was more aggressive in licensing VHS than Sony was with Beta, thus making more VHS players available at more competitive prices.
I don't know which HD format will win, but barring a case of over-DRM, I am sure one of them will succeed. There is demand for HD content, at much more than there was for LD content, and that survived for years.
I know I have stopped buying stuff on DVD because I know the quality just isn't high enough to want to own for long. Renting DVD is still fine, but I really don't do that either since if I just wait a few more months I can set my TiVo and get the show in HD off of HBO or Showtime and it'll look a ton better.
I don't buy TV series on DVD because I don't feel like owning them in a quality markedly inferior to what they were when I watched them for free.
So I do stay that there is a need for HD content on demand. That probably means on disc format, but perhaps PPV could substitute.
You link to some prototypes and say they've been used in trucks a long time?
Turbines are simply not used in trucks. They aren't used in large numbers, aren't use in small numbers. They aren't used.
The big 3 all looked at turbines in the 70s, and the problems they have (variable torque instead of variable speed) led to serious issues that transmissions would have to solve.
They were not solved (yet) and turbines are not used in trucks.
Turbines aren't even used in locomotives right now (or perhaps just very very recently). And trust me when I say locomotives (with their electric power transmission) will have them before cars do.
In the US it's a cell phone. It parts of Europe, it's a mobile phone. In other parts of Europe (Germany?) it's sometimes called a "handy".
I see no reason to change what I'm saying, and I expect those who use other phrases don't plan on changing either.
You speak of how DVD is miles ahead of VHS. By the same argument, LaserDisc was way ahead of VHS (no rewinding, digital 5.1 audio) and yet LD didn't take off.
You recognize DVD was helped by a picture advantage.
"DVD was introduced with CD quality sound and digital video significantly better than standard broadcast."
You then make a pretty big error when saying:
"Since common DVDs are better than commonly broadcast video quality, and since little HD content available, and since HD displays are not commonplace, there's hardly demand for a new HD media."
There's the rub: DVDs are VASTLY worse quality than the stuff I see on TV. DVD looks like crap next to HDTV. Why would I watch CSI in HDTV and then buy the DVD in a vastly inferior format? Answer, I wouldn't. Thus people with HDTV are far less inclinced to buy TV shows on DVD (which is a big market for DVDs right now).
Additionally, I may not have a lot of HDTV channels (only about 10, two of which are HBO and Showtime), I do have the opportunity to see virtually every movie in HD at some point. Many TV shows may not be shot in HD, but virtually all movies are at least HD resolution. If I choose not to see a movie in the theater, there's almost zero chance I'll buy it on DVD, because why would I want to own forever a movie in a quality that I'm already not happy with?
I'm not going to rent the DVD either, if I just wait a little longer I can set my HDTiVo and record it off HBO or Showtime in HD and see it in great quality.
As to your satellite TV comments, you are mistaken. Satellite TV providers do not have nearly enough bandwidth at hand to show a lot of channels in HD. DTV does have a new bird up and about ready to go, but without new antenna setups and receivers, it's unclear how this bandwidth will be delivered in the amount required. In order to deliver local HD channels, it appears DVT is rolling out MPEG-4 format channels (and thus new receivers). This will take time.
Really, that's going to be necessary, since Ku-band satellites can only deliver a certain amount of bandwidth per satellite slot. Thus, even with optimal frequency allocation, DTV can only increase the bandwidth available to 3-satellite dish users about 50%. And if they don't switch away from MPEG-2, an HDTV channel will take up 8x as much bandwidth as a regular channel.
And even with new satellites people will likely need new antennas, and unless they start stacking frequencies or intermediate tuning at the antenna, more complex setups (anyone with a multiswitch) may have to rewire their entire setup including wiring in the walls!
So don't go thinking DTV and Dish just have to flip a switch to get lots of HDTV channels and just haven't done so because of some perceived lack of demand.
And I would also recommend that you don't go thinking that just because you don't demand HD prerecorded content that others don't want it either.
I do have to say I'm concerned about the DRM that will be on BluRay and HD-DVD, but I am all behind the concept of an HD disc format. And 25GB of writeable storage on my computer would be nice too.
When CBS will be giving away the NCAA basketball playoffs for free.
Look on kyeu.com forums (I think it was).
hardware DEP does stop the exploit under certain conditions, but installing other (seemingly unrelated) code invalidates the protection (because they are binaries packed with some special software and MS turns off DEP for those binaries since they wouldn't work otherwise).
I'm surprised DEP worked at all on this, the flaw is a design flaw, not a buffer overflow exploit.
Failed in the marketplace.
I'm not sure why. Price of LCD panels?
Honestly, I think it's a dynamite idea. Parents would love to give one to their parents and then update the pictures themselves. So instead of having to email pics of their grandkids to them, you just put them on a server and this thing gets them from time to time and updates what is being display on the frame (whereever it is).
One such product did this exactly (over a phone), others did 802.11. But anyway, none sold.
I've never actually had one. Maybe it's a gimmick that gets old too quickly?
You're right, it's probably less important with console hardware than software. But still, going by sell-through numbers is important. It prevents channel stuffing, for starters. You can stuff the channel (load up retailers with equipment) at the end of quarters so as to bring next quarters sales into this quarter. When you do this, it creates a misleading impression, especially because next quarter's true sales can't even begin until you sell off last quarter's stuffed stock.
Sometimes companies have been known to stuff the channel and take the product back in the next quarter! It's just a scam. Going by sell-through eliminates this.
Additionally note that going by shipped units also makes it possible to do other shenanigans like add new retailers to "increase sales". If you add a new retailer, you can count their shipments to fill inventory as sales, even if the units never sell at all. So you can again manipulate sales numbers, or at least the timing of them.
Additionally, you can update your model to get more sales (shipments). If they announced the new PSP with 802.11g or 15% longer battery life or something, they could make it a new model, and the retailers all have to order the new one to put it on the shelves, even if the old ones never sold. Eventually retailers do get tired of this, but they can do it occasionally to jump up the numbers.
Given that the name of the game in video games is to get an installed base out there to attract developers and make royalties from software sold, all these tricks can make the difference between success and failure for a console and so are likely employed by every company to varying degrees.
So it's great to be able to try to null those tricks out as much as possible. For example, with the Xbox 360 launch in Japan.
Yep. Honestly, GC has had a poor lineup of new games lately. Yeah, Mario Strikers is supposed to be good. And i think there was another Mario Party in there somewhere. But really, the GC has had little worth buying come out since Resident Evil 4 (which was a LONG time ago now). It doesn't even get many ports anymore.
It isn't odd for a platform to slow down at the end of its lifespan (although perhaps this is a bit extreme), and I'm sure things will be different when Revolution comes. I can't wait to get one.
Lets see...
2 years ago, there were 0 1" HDs in phones.
1 year ago, there were 0 1" HDs in phones.
This year, there are 0 1" HDs in phones (so far).
I don't really see much to support "on the rise".
Perhaps this article is just a slashvertisement. That is, a company that makes 1" HDs is just trying to create a market by asserting that it is already here and growing.
Slashdot is pathetic. I was disappointed when news sources like CNN started to reprint press releases as "news". But at least I understand their profit motive. What is the reasoning on slashdot? Slow news day? I think I'd prefer dupes as filler over these blatant press releases.
I have friends with D1x, 20D, 300D, 350D, D100 and D70s. I've used most of those. dSLRs are nice. The noise levels are amazingly low.
But I stopped using SLRs. Why? Too large. The best shot isn't always the one with the lowest noise level, with the longest zoom or even the best composure. But it is always a SHOT YOU GOT. And I just found that an SLR was too large, I couldn't carry it often enough. I was getting great shots when I got shots, but I was missing tons of shots because I had to leave the SLR behind and I didn't get those shots at all.
As to delay when pressing the button, you need to investigate recent P&S cameras. Recent P&S cameras have shutter lags similar to dSLRs, and actually, there's no reason they can't do better than dSLRs. Because a dSLR has to raise the mirror before it can start the exposure, and a P&S doesn't. That's additional lag right there.
Sony has been making P&S cameras with up-to-date chips and thus virtually no lag for over a year now. They've rolled their entire line to use such chips a while back and some are on the 2nd generation of these chips. Canon, on the other hand still sells crap like the G5 which use old chips that are slow to start up, slow to take shots, slow to display shots.
Go to dpreview and read the reviews of recent good cameras like the Sony DSC-V3 or the Canon SD### (like 550) series. Shutter lag in P&S cameras is way down. And if the market demands it, it'll go even lower.
Oh, and Sony has near-full manual control on all their cameras and full manual control (minus setting manual white balance in degrees K) on the higher-end (typically larger) models. Again, the DSC-V3 is a great example. And most of the other manufacturers also have full manual controls on their high-end P&S cameras.
All digital cameras aren't alike any more than film cameras are.
If you find your camera needs to much light to take a picture, then you need to get a camera with larger glass. More glass means more light taken in. More light taken in means better picture without jacking the ISO.
People think they can buy a pocketable digital camera and take pics with it they would have tried to take with a 35mm camera which is much larger.
I don't have a problem with image stabilization, but it's not going to take the place of larger glass. Why? Because image stabilization only works on non-moving objects. Yeah, you can take a picture at 1/15th of a second instead of 1/60th and still have it turn out, if the subject isn't moving. But if it is, it'll be blurred, and IS won't fix it.
But, larger glass would let you get the same number of photons in 1/60th of a second as the other (IS) camera does in 1/15th of a second. And that's effective for both moving and non-moving objects.
Additionally, the larger glass makes your flash more effective, but IS does not, as no matter how long you keep the shutter open, the flash is only on for 1/000th of a second or something.
Big deal. If anything, that's part of the problem.
.wmfs. It just happens that the code in some cases might be evil. How do you analyze code to tell if it is evil? Answer, you cannot. There are literally infinite combinations of instructions that are evil.
Again, what does this help?
As to being merely *hard* to detect, I would say otherwise, well, at least as a practical matter.
Perhaps you don't understand this exploit. This isn't a buffer overflow issue, it's a legitimate part of the file format. You can embed code in
So, you could just look for the use of this escape sequence (that says code follows), and flag that as problematic. You'll flag legitimate uses too, but do you have any choice? And given that this is the way you have to do it, how does making variants of code designed to be difficult to pattern match help you see this escape sequence?
Again, I just don't see how this helps anybody but the bad guys, 100% disclosure or no.
I think M2 is a better measure.
Some might even think M3 covers more stuff, but the additional stuff it covers does not include stuff under the US government's control. So I don't see why not reporting M3 frees up the government to do more bad things. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying our government isn't doing bad things, simply that this won't affect their ability to do them.
I do wish to say that if you really meant the total money supply (not M0), then the phrase "print more counterfeit money" should have been left out of your argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply
M0 is the currency in circulation.
M3 seems like a rather difficult number to nail down. Additionally, the only stuff that is in the M3 that isn't in the M2 (still reported) is stuff that is outside the US government's control. So I don't see how not reporting it fits into area of allowing more US government wrongdoing.
To be honest, the area which really falls under the area of fiat currency nuttery is the cap between M1 and M0. It's the fractional reserve system that gold prohibits and it's the fractional reserve system that produces the gap between M0 and M1.
Given that you'll still be getting M0 and M1 (and indeed M2), why do you think this change in reporting will increase abuses by the US government? Why should it make our already fiat currency any more ephemeral?
Yes, the bad guys have apparently been exploiting this for a little while. That's something we can agree upon.
But why does releasing the most evil version of it possible help anything?
I can see how it hurts, it helps those with criminal intent but no brains in making versions of the exploit that can't be detected.
But how does it help? It doesn't help make scanners better, as scanners have to pattern match and this defeats pattern matching. It doesn't help pressure MS, as they surely have a fire lit under them already.
Again, I ask not why would the "good guys" write an exploit, but why would they need to write a version meant to be undetectable? They are good guys, they don't have anything to hide, so why hide? You don't need to hide to see how the exploit works.
But then again, when it was discovered that there was a simple way to get into Hondas using a pencil, did people go out and explain what it was? This actually happened in about 1994, and Honda fixed the problem once informed of it. But were the details widely publicized? No.
/etc/passwd file on a modern UNIX machine. Do you see your crypted password in there? No? Well, perhaps there's a lesson to be learned there about whether obscurity really does have some value.
As to me offering "security through obscurity", you're trying to make a phrase fit that doesn't fit. Security through obscurity is to design a system where simply not knowing something is the security. Here I am merely speaking of not telling EVERYONE all the details of a security flaw while the company that is responsible fixes it. I didn't say you shouldn't tell Microsoft. I didn't say Microsoft shouldn't explain there is a vulnerability. I didn't even preclude details of the vulnerability being given out. I didn't even preclude someone writing an exploit to show it can be done.
What I did was condemn writing the most evil version of the exploit possible before the patch is even released, and then giving out the code so others can do it too!
You say it's to make virus scanners better. By making it bigger than an MTU, presumably to make sniffing firewalls better. Well, what about those of us who don't have sniffing firewalls? Am I well served by a metaexploit being written? And additionally, you say this will let people recognize the exploiters (worms) better. How are they supposed to do that? This program makes all the versions of its exploits look different. For that matter, how can someone even tell a legitmate user of this escape sequence from a worm? There are literally an infinite number of ways to write code that does identical things (exploit and propagate). So how can a program inspect code that is used with this escape command to tell if it propagates? Answer, it CANNOT. Even by running it you can't be sure, maybe you just didn't give it the right conditions under which to trigger.
The only thing that can be done is pattern matching, and this metaexploit defeats that.
Honestly, MS is just going to have to remove this feature and deal with the fallout. We just have to give them a little time to do it before handing weapons to those with criminal intent. It's like selling arms. It does increase fighting, even though in theory, people could already have made weapons to take out their greivances upon other.
Perhaps this flaw has been being used for years to get into machines. How does that excuse this? This metaexploit is neither going to undo that, nor is it likely to get MS to fix it faster. It just might get more people hurt before MS can write and test a fix.
In short, I do understand there are already some people who exploited this hole. But there's no reason to make the problem worse. And that's what releasing this code will do.
Additional note on "security through obscurity". The first major proponents of this were the people who decided that UNIX shouldn't hide passwords, instead just 1-way crypt them and store the results in a publically readable file (passwd). Well, guess what, they were wrong. UNIX got greatly boned by this decision. It was wrong for two reasons.
1. Because it allowed offline and parallel dictionary attacks on user passwords.
2. Because it meant that you couldn't use any "shared secret" type of authentication, because UNIX didn't know your password. It could recognize it if you sent your password to it, but it didn't actually know it. This led to a lot of difficulties with protocols like POP and FTP sending your password in the clear.
Take a look in your
I defininitely meant to type "wouldn't" instead of "would".