You raise an interesting point which got me thinking along these lines
Record companies have costs associated with creating all the fanfare and pomp that goes into a CD. This costs them a lot of money. Let's imagine it is $100,000
They contract a distributor to sell CD's for them; they receive $10 per CD, of which they keep 100% until the costs of the CD have been recouped. This = 10,000 CDs. After that they still keep a certain amount and you get the remainder, a part of which is the physical distribution of the CD. Perhaps the problem here is that after the costs have been recouped the iTunes sales keep getting hit with the same percentage take that would usually account for physical distribution.
Before we start abusing Weird Al about his supposed complaints about not getting enough money, read what he said and realise he wasnt money grubbing.
Before we start abusing iTunes about stealing too much of Weird Al's Money, lets accept that they are providing a service that they set the price for
As for the Recording people, abuse away, they seem to be the main problem here. But again, that is perhaps not the best way. More investigation is needed and should be allowed to happen instead of randomly firing off abuse at any of the involved parties.
From reading this article and some of the other/.'ers comments I think the problem can be boiled down to this: The recording companies are treating all income for a certain album as a single income stream that can be used against all of the costs for all of that album's various activities including but not limited to CD art and CD creation, promotion and recording. This may or may be unfair depending on your point of view. I think legally it makes sense, but it might feel like you are getting ripped off
If you are going to say something like that, please actually read the article.
"Apple did work, and got paid for it. You did an arguably larger portion of the work, by creating something people wanted to buy in the first place, so Apple got a little money, and you got a good deal more."
He is saying here you did work, they sold your work, they take a cut and pass the rest back. Fair enough. However he goes on to say "Unfortunately, that's not how this version of the universe operates. So Apple sends the check to your record label."
And he then goes on to discuss where the money goes to the record label.
The conclusion he reaches is basically "If all of your fans bought through iTunes rather than buying CDs at the record store you'd be looking at an overall reduction in income of 85%!" however he is quite clear through the article that the record companies take a lions share of that money
Moving from fact into speculation, let's examine what's happening here
Case 1: Man records songs, Record label puts work into creating CD labeling, packaging, promoting and so on. Record label organizes with Distribution company to sell CD's and gets money in return. Cost of Final Product: $15-$20.
Case 2: Man records songs, Record label puts work into creating CD labeling, packaging, promoting and so on. Record label organizes with itunes to use all the fancy stuff they created for the CD and sell the product over Itunes. Cost of Final Product: $0.99 * songs or $10, whichever is less
The same costs are involved in doing both. Until artists only release online, the CD cost will have to be recouped as well anyway, so it shouldn't be a huge shock to anyone that the cheaper product provides a worse return on investment for the same work.
... That's me on their ipod That's me on i - tunes Losing my comission Trying to keep up with tech And I don't know if you can do it Oh no you took too much I haven't got enough I thought that I heard price-fixing I thought that I heard you steal I think I thought I got ripped off...
I much prefer that version, although the less snappy "Japanese Scientists Make Alzheimers Cure Progress" works as well (though I suppose could be interpreted as the scientists forcing Alzheimers to cure whatever the hell 'Progress' is).
Or perhaps "Japanese Scientists Cure Alzheimers (99% swelling free, may contain traces of nuts)"
Scientist One: "The outstanding results obtained from X-Tek's 3-D X-rays are allowing us to make a definitive investigation of the Mechanism. I do not believe it will ever be possible to do better." Scientist Two: "newly discovered text seems to confirm that the mechanism was used to track planetary bodies" Scientist One:"It's still up in the air, and there's plenty of work yet to be done.""
"'What was the device actually for?' Was it a used to predict calendars? Was it simply a teaching tool?"
The last questions seem more interesting. What it did is certainly important, but what they used it for is more important. If it was intended as an amusement it is of an entirely different significance to if it was intended as a navigation aid, and different again if it was a scientific tool intended for research.
Hypocrisy is the first thing that comes to mind here.
The closest physical manifestation of this situation is for a man to walk into a private meeting room such as a boardroom, then use the information he heard for personal gain.
Or someone wandering into a Lawyers office and listening in on a Lawyer-Client conversation and using that information against the client.
Its truly frightening that the US legal system supports such gross violation of privacy, so long as it is perpetrated by a company, not a person.
there are a lot more sophisticated ways of hiding and transferring secret information. including texts, images, video and audio streams, ssl, gpg, tunneling, etc. why would anyone bother with a child games like that?
Maybe if they were a child?
Or one of those people with one of those things, you know... A sense of humour.
Thats why the choice of VOIP is so odd, because although it does provide easy access, the prepaid account was emptied, meaning that its no longer accessible.
So its not the best way of doing it if you are really trying ot create a secure comms network. What would be better (though just as traceable) would be posting here, like first post said.
but the shortwave system still trumps it.
Lets analyse it: What do you want from a secure comms network aimed (as these are supposedly meant to be) at undercover agents 1. Untraceable to the sender 2. Untraceable to the reciever 3. Universally Accessible 4. Undecodable
So we need something that is hard to find, easy to access and secure but hard to trace. Using something as logged and monitored as the internet would probably be a bad decision unless you use something like a coin operated internet kiosk to post and to retrieve, making it less accessible (in the here and now sense, a radio can arguably recieve information anywhere).
So why leave shortwave? You wouldnt.
Thus this is probably a hobbyist, or a practical joker, or a viral marketing meme, or an elaborate hoax.
From one of the articles: "Update: Ryan Singel (of Wired) thinks it's just two young cryptanalysts in love, "sending love notes and taunting Mossad, the NSA and the phone phreakers at the same time." He also points to some links indicating those shortwave numbers stations are still around. Go take a listen."
Cool. Not everyday you learn about an international conspiracy to broadcast numbers. If it were me, I would set up one of these to broadcast from SEALAND!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealand
Excuse me, I just wondered if I could distract you from your presumptuous tirade to point out that just because I know all about the Drop Bears and Piecosts and everyone I know knows about them doesnt mean everyone else in the world does. It may be a common story among your social group, but not everyone will know about it.
I know its easy to assume the people who dont know the exact things you know are either ignorant or poorly read, but here is a novel concept for you. Perhaps not everyone knows the same things or the same people.
In the 17th century there were no scientific methods of calculating a ship's stability. It was not uncommon that warships heeled over and sank. Their cargo - the guns - were placed relatively high up in the ship, whereas merchant-vessels stored their cargo in the hold, ie in the bottom of the ship."... "However, the reckonings used in building the Vasa were intended for smaller ships with only one gundeck. The Vasa was built differently. She had two gundecks with heavy artillery (when the norm was to place lighter guns on the upper gundeck). The standard rules obviously did not apply here.
Deep down in the Vasa several tons of stone were stored as ballast. They were meant to give the ship stability. However, the main reason for the Vasa capsizing was that the ballast was not enough as counterweight to the guns, the upper hull, masts and sails of the ship. In the inquiries after the Vasa disaster it was revealed that a stability test had been performed prior to the maiden voyage."..." Present was Admiral Klas Fleming, one of the most influential men in the Navy. His only comment to the failed stability test was "If only His Majesty were at home!" After that he let the Vasa make her maiden voyage." - http://www.vasamuseet.se/Vasamuseet/Om/Skeppet/Dar for%20sjonk%20Vasa.aspx?lang=en
Lots of reasons for the sinking, but I wouldnt classify it as an engineering failure. Purely due to the non-existence of the engineering discipline. These people were craftsmen, granted, but they were not engineers in the current sense of the word
isn't so much with the people who unwittingly failed to be uber-1337 and erase and zero-fill and nonsense-fill their hard drive. They are non-technical people, its wrong to expect them to be able to predict this sort of occurence because they arent as paranoid (mostly because they dont know what could happen).
So yeah, they dont know what they are doing. But the situation still shouldnt have occurred because frankly, best buy should do better than that. And if its not the companies failing but instead an individual, then they should know better than that. I know its fairly proselytizing to say that out of the three entities involved, two are wrong and one is right, but look at the relationship. The people going to the store are paying for a service, they obviously cant or dont want to perform the task themselves, therefore they pay. In return the company has a responsiblity(?) or at least a vested interest in providing them with the service they have come for. Which in this case should have included (at the very least) some sort of fill.
The other possiblity of course is that someone dumpster dived the drive out of best-buy's trash. In which case, its still Best Buy's fault for not clearing the drive.
People Create Culture
I know the article was long, but if you go back and read all of it the crux of the matter is that the combination of rich and nerd in critical mass happens rarely, and where it has happens, startup's bloom.
Correct, but once we have a shortlist, we can start doing linked searches for that username and those realnames, somewhere else you may have slipped up, you might have a gmail account with your real full name linked to a forum account with the same username, or maybe you have posted a website under that pseudonym.
What I am saying is that there is a digital footprint left by your actions.
Especially if you have no idea what you are doing.
I am willing to bet most of the kids who fit into the category of "planning illegal activities in a public forum such as myspace" also fit into the "have no idea what they are doing" category
Of course you are correct, its not possible to convict on hearsay etc. But if we open your locker and there is more proof, we have got you.
Not everyone is susceptible to this obviously, but case in point: the first post, the parent, said "I am using an Alias"
His full name is on his website
Slashdot Mirror
Most people just dont give a damn about conmputer security.
This is the same old story over again, it shouldnt suprise you, why? Here's some links to get you started
You raise an interesting point which got me thinking along these lines
Record companies have costs associated with creating all the fanfare and pomp that goes into a CD. This costs them a lot of money. Let's imagine it is $100,000
They contract a distributor to sell CD's for them; they receive $10 per CD, of which they keep 100% until the costs of the CD have been recouped. This = 10,000 CDs. After that they still keep a certain amount and you get the remainder, a part of which is the physical distribution of the CD. Perhaps the problem here is that after the costs have been recouped the iTunes sales keep getting hit with the same percentage take that would usually account for physical distribution.
Before we start abusing Weird Al about his supposed complaints about not getting enough money, read what he said and realise he wasnt money grubbing. Before we start abusing iTunes about stealing too much of Weird Al's Money, lets accept that they are providing a service that they set the price for As for the Recording people, abuse away, they seem to be the main problem here. But again, that is perhaps not the best way. More investigation is needed and should be allowed to happen instead of randomly firing off abuse at any of the involved parties. From reading this article and some of the other /.'ers comments I think the problem can be boiled down to this: The recording companies are treating all income for a certain album as a single income stream that can be used against all of the costs for all of that album's various activities including but not limited to CD art and CD creation, promotion and recording. This may or may be unfair depending on your point of view. I think legally it makes sense, but it might feel like you are getting ripped off
If you are going to say something like that, please actually read the article.
"Apple did work, and got paid for it. You did an arguably larger portion of the work, by creating something people wanted to buy in the first place, so Apple got a little money, and you got a good deal more."
He is saying here you did work, they sold your work, they take a cut and pass the rest back. Fair enough. However he goes on to say "Unfortunately, that's not how this version of the universe operates. So Apple sends the check to your record label."
And he then goes on to discuss where the money goes to the record label.
The conclusion he reaches is basically "If all of your fans bought through iTunes rather than buying CDs at the record store you'd be looking at an overall reduction in income of 85%!" however he is quite clear through the article that the record companies take a lions share of that money
Moving from fact into speculation, let's examine what's happening here
Case 1:
Man records songs, Record label puts work into creating CD labeling, packaging, promoting and so on. Record label organizes with Distribution company to sell CD's and gets money in return.
Cost of Final Product: $15-$20.
Case 2: Man records songs, Record label puts work into creating CD labeling, packaging, promoting and so on. Record label organizes with itunes to use all the fancy stuff they created for the CD and sell the product over Itunes.
Cost of Final Product: $0.99 * songs or $10, whichever is less
The same costs are involved in doing both. Until artists only release online, the CD cost will have to be recouped as well anyway, so it shouldn't be a huge shock to anyone that the cheaper product provides a worse return on investment for the same work.
... ...
That's me on their ipod
That's me on i - tunes
Losing my comission
Trying to keep up with tech
And I don't know if you can do it
Oh no you took too much
I haven't got enough
I thought that I heard price-fixing
I thought that I heard you steal
I think I thought I got ripped off
I much prefer that version, although the less snappy "Japanese Scientists Make Alzheimers Cure Progress" works as well (though I suppose could be interpreted as the scientists forcing Alzheimers to cure whatever the hell 'Progress' is).
Or perhaps "Japanese Scientists Cure Alzheimers (99% swelling free, may contain traces of nuts)"
Anyone else read the headline and think: "why have the japanese made people's alzheimer's worse"
Scientist One:
"The outstanding results obtained from X-Tek's 3-D X-rays are allowing us to make a definitive investigation of the Mechanism. I do not believe it will ever be possible to do better."
Scientist Two: "newly discovered text seems to confirm that the mechanism was used to track planetary bodies"
Scientist One:"It's still up in the air, and there's plenty of work yet to be done.""
"'What was the device actually for?' Was it a used to predict calendars? Was it simply a teaching tool?"
The last questions seem more interesting. What it did is certainly important, but what they used it for is more important. If it was intended as an amusement it is of an entirely different significance to if it was intended as a navigation aid, and different again if it was a scientific tool intended for research.
More info on the actual examination here: http://www.xtekxray.com/antikythera.htm
Here, where it says: ""There were no surprises. Everything went smoothly," NASA spokeswoman June Malone said" (fta: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/06/08/space.shu ttle.reut/index.html)
They obviously meant to say, "Everything went smoothly, We were pleasantly suprised"
Sounds... Simple
Well son, you've gone and got yourself in for a battle.
/ theofficiaroc-20
p er&Itemid=53, and dont bother bringing that rolex, it will slow you down
s sors
Heres what you gotta do:
study up http://www.worldrps.com/ and get this http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743267516
You may want to get some fancy RPS gear, http://www.worldrps.com/index.php?option=com_wrap
Also, we knoe those who ignore history are doomed to repeat its mistakes, so why dont you read up on the history of the game too, could come in handy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock%2C_paper%2C_sci
Hypocrisy is the first thing that comes to mind here.
The closest physical manifestation of this situation is for a man to walk into a private meeting room such as a boardroom, then use the information he heard for personal gain.
Or someone wandering into a Lawyers office and listening in on a Lawyer-Client conversation and using that information against the client.
Its truly frightening that the US legal system supports such gross violation of privacy, so long as it is perpetrated by a company, not a person.
Has anyone else been made to pause by this post for more than just a laugh?
Could it be that on Lost the radio broadcast is a play on the Number Stations stuff?
I am a bit behind on Lost because I live in Australia so I may be behind on the current theories.
there are a lot more sophisticated ways of hiding and transferring secret information. including texts, images, video and audio streams, ssl, gpg, tunneling, etc. why would anyone bother with a child games like that?
Maybe if they were a child?
Or one of those people with one of those things, you know...
A sense of humour.
Yeah
Thats why the choice of VOIP is so odd, because although it does provide easy access, the prepaid account was emptied, meaning that its no longer accessible.
So its not the best way of doing it if you are really trying ot create a secure comms network. What would be better (though just as traceable) would be posting here, like first post said.
but the shortwave system still trumps it.
Lets analyse it:
What do you want from a secure comms network aimed (as these are supposedly meant to be) at undercover agents
1. Untraceable to the sender
2. Untraceable to the reciever
3. Universally Accessible
4. Undecodable
So we need something that is hard to find, easy to access and secure but hard to trace. Using something as logged and monitored as the internet would probably be a bad decision unless you use something like a coin operated internet kiosk to post and to retrieve, making it less accessible (in the here and now sense, a radio can arguably recieve information anywhere).
So why leave shortwave?
You wouldnt.
Thus this is probably a hobbyist, or a practical joker, or a viral marketing meme, or an elaborate hoax.
From one of the articles: "Update: Ryan Singel (of Wired) thinks it's just two young cryptanalysts in love, "sending love notes and taunting Mossad, the NSA and the phone phreakers at the same time." He also points to some links indicating those shortwave numbers stations are still around. Go take a listen."
Cool. Not everyday you learn about an international conspiracy to broadcast numbers. If it were me, I would set up one of these to broadcast from SEALAND!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealand
01010010 01101111 01110011 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100100 00101100 00100000 01110110 01101001 01101111 01101100 01100101 01110100 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01110100 01110100 01111001 00001101 00001010 01110011 01101111 01101101 01100101 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 01110011 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100100 01101111 01110111 01101110 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100110 01100001 01101001 01110010 00100000 01100011 01101001 01110100 01111001 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 01000011 01110010 01111001 01110000 01110100 01100001 01101110 01100001 01101100 01111001 01110011 01110100 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101 00111111 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01100011 01110101 01110100 01100101 00101110 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 01001001 01101101 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01110010 01101001 01100111 01110101 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100010 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101111 01110010 01110100 01110111 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101110 01110101 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110101 01100111 01101000 00101100 00100000 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101111 01101100 00101110
(for some help with the above: http://nickciske.com/tools/binary.php)
Excuse me, I just wondered if I could distract you from your presumptuous tirade to point out that just because I know all about the Drop Bears and Piecosts and everyone I know knows about them doesnt mean everyone else in the world does. It may be a common story among your social group, but not everyone will know about it.
I know its easy to assume the people who dont know the exact things you know are either ignorant or poorly read, but here is a novel concept for you. Perhaps not everyone knows the same things or the same people.
"Why did the Vasa sink?
...
r for%20sjonk%20Vasa.aspx?lang=en
r lisningen.aspx?lang=en
s tory.htm Which bankrupted the area then, but now provide enormous revenue to the area.
# His_buildings
In the 17th century there were no scientific methods of calculating a
ship's stability. It was not uncommon that warships heeled over and
sank. Their cargo - the guns - were placed relatively high up in the
ship, whereas merchant-vessels stored their cargo in the hold, ie in
the bottom of the ship."
"However, the reckonings used in building the Vasa were intended for
smaller ships with only one gundeck. The Vasa was built differently.
She had two gundecks with heavy artillery (when the norm was to
place lighter guns on the upper gundeck). The standard rules
obviously did not apply here.
Deep down in the Vasa several tons of stone were stored as ballast.
They were meant to give the ship stability. However, the main reason
for the Vasa capsizing was that the ballast was not enough as
counterweight to the guns, the upper hull, masts and sails of the ship.
In the inquiries after the Vasa disaster it was revealed that a stability
test had been performed prior to the maiden voyage."..." Present
was Admiral Klas Fleming, one of the most influential men in the
Navy. His only comment to the failed stability test was "If only His
Majesty were at home!" After that he let the Vasa make her maiden
voyage."
- http://www.vasamuseet.se/Vasamuseet/Om/Skeppet/Da
Lots of reasons for the sinking, but I wouldnt classify it as an engineering failure. Purely due to the non-existence of the engineering discipline. These people were craftsmen, granted, but they were not engineers in the current sense of the word
And as for order of magnitude of the disaster:
"Of the 150 people on board, 30-50 died in the disaster." - http://www.vasamuseet.se/Vasamuseet/Om/Skeppet/Fo
I cant find anything on the cost, but lets assume it is considerable. However the swedish are now making money from the museum. Its a give/take situation there I think. Similar to the mad king Ludwig II building this: http://www.neuschwanstein.de/english/index.htm and this: http://www.schlosslinderhof.de/englisch/palace/hi
King Ludwig: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_II_of_Bavaria
isn't so much with the people who unwittingly failed to be uber-1337 and erase and zero-fill and nonsense-fill their hard drive. They are non-technical people, its wrong to expect them to be able to predict this sort of occurence because they arent as paranoid (mostly because they dont know what could happen).
So yeah, they dont know what they are doing. But the situation still shouldnt have occurred because frankly, best buy should do better than that. And if its not the companies failing but instead an individual, then they should know better than that. I know its fairly proselytizing to say that out of the three entities involved, two are wrong and one is right, but look at the relationship.
The people going to the store are paying for a service, they obviously cant or dont want to perform the task themselves, therefore they pay. In return the company has a responsiblity(?) or at least a vested interest in providing them with the service they have come for. Which in this case should have included (at the very least) some sort of fill.
The other possiblity of course is that someone dumpster dived the drive out of best-buy's trash. In which case, its still Best Buy's fault for not clearing the drive.
Just a quick question to the slashdot readers.
Who keeps a whole bunch of files in their my-documents folder anyway?
We're putting High Performance FFT's on all of our TPS reports now before they go out, Did you get that memo?
So if you could go ahead and do that for me from now on, that'd be great
"Stay on target"
That the Antivirus people are the ones putting the virus's out there to keep their businesses running
*grabs tinfoil hat*
People Create Culture I know the article was long, but if you go back and read all of it the crux of the matter is that the combination of rich and nerd in critical mass happens rarely, and where it has happens, startup's bloom.
Correct, but once we have a shortlist, we can start doing linked searches for that username and those realnames, somewhere else you may have slipped up, you might have a gmail account with your real full name linked to a forum account with the same username, or maybe you have posted a website under that pseudonym.
What I am saying is that there is a digital footprint left by your actions.
Especially if you have no idea what you are doing.
I am willing to bet most of the kids who fit into the category of "planning illegal activities in a public forum such as myspace" also fit into the "have no idea what they are doing" category
Of course you are correct, its not possible to convict on hearsay etc. But if we open your locker and there is more proof, we have got you.
Not everyone is susceptible to this obviously, but case in point: the first post, the parent, said "I am using an Alias"
His full name is on his website