Except that OOXML is a great example of how anti-MSFT trolls get it so damned wrong.
Standardization is good, even when standards come from Microsoft. Behaving like a petulant child or disseminating FUD during a standards process is not how you improve a standard. Active participation is how you do it.
SSL and safely storing bank documents are jobs for encryption and this works very well. Basically you send a lockable chest to your bank but retain the key, they put your documents into it, close the lock, and send it back. Ensuring that only your key can open it.
I know what SSL is.
This is absolutely vital to modern society, but isn't a type of DRM.
By who's definition?
DRM usually requires encryption, but also something else.
Usually is fine. That's not what we're debating here. The hypothesis is that it is possible to design a scheme in which "something else" is not required.
The content producers send their content in a locked box and then try and send the key to your computer in a way where the computer can use it open the box and play back the content but you can't use it to open the box and take the content out. This is obviously logically impossible, which is why you are always hearing of DRM schemes being broken just to watch a film (conversely if you could break a modern encryption system you could literally steal all the money in every bank in the world).
Not exactly.. The key being hidden in existing DRM schemes is to do with trusting a process. The key that protects your content is usually a symmetric key, and that key exchange occurs over the network, and that key in turn is encrypted using asymmetric keys to protect it while in transit. Coming back to trusting the process -- the process on your machine which received the content key -- the DRM scheme has to know it can trust that this process "behaves correctly" (honors the rights associated with that content). Current DRM schemes use baked in keys for that. That doesn't have to be the case. That could be achieved by something as simple as code-signing. There's still the question of obfuscating the process to ensure that someone can't just attach a debugger and get content keys that way (among other attacks that need to be considered) but all these problems are solvable in open source as well.
So logically you can't actually implement DRM in closed source software, but with sufficient obfuscation you can get close (Intel literally burns some of the key into a special chip on your motherboard which makes finding it extremely hard). If you are open about what you code is and dose, that includes telling people where you hare trying to hide the key, making the game of hide and seek a bit shorter.
I think you're missing the point of what is achieved using TPM chips.
If you can implement SSL and code-signing with opensource, you can implement DRM as well.
You're probably thinking along the lines of having some key used to establish trust being baked into some binaries (and probably hidden using some sort of obfuscation). Sure, that approach gets defeated by revealing source -- but that approach isn't a fundamental necessity of DRM schemes (even though most of them do currently go that route).
People are thinking of DRM in terms of music and videos. Time to think a bit out-of-the-box now (expecting too much of slashdot, I know). It's high time that I should be able to get my bank statements, tax documents, other such personal docs delivered to me in a protected container so that I can store them wherever (including cloud storage) and not have to worry about them being compromised in delivery or at rest in the cloud, and without the inconvenience of being tied to a single provider's platforms to access those docs (i.e. a standards compliant iOS/Android/Windows Phone/Blackberry/OS-X/Windows/Linux device should be able to open those docs with equal ease).
The RIAA are missing a business opportunity again. They should instead ask the judge to make Google forward to them any revenue made from such sites.
I mean, they claim it's their content. And they claim Google's getting fat on it (which is true -- ad revenues -- many times over when a downloader gets pwned). Just consider it sales instead. Let users "buy" their content by any means necessary (if they pay for it by getting infected with malware -- the RIAA shouldn't care as long as they get their pound of flesh). As long as Google sells ads on those sites, the RIAA can make money here. Google certainly doesn't care about user's getting botnetted as long as they make money. The RIAA cares even less.
Of course, the interesting part would be the legal machinations involved in convincing the judge to order Google to forward that revenue. There would have to be some small % (maybe 5%) that they could allow Google to keep. What would also be interesting is how quickly Google changes it's ranking of such sites once they are no longer a revenue stream. Also problematic -- if Google forwards $xx.xx to the RIAA saying that's how much is owed, the RIAA has no way of verifying.
Exactly correct -- but you're expecting too much of Slashdot, and too much of The Register.
The exact quote from the interview is "Gates admitted the company didn't "get out in the lead very early" on cell phones. He said, "We didn't miss cell phones, but the way that we went about it didn't allow us to get the leadership. So it's clearly a mistake."
i.e. He's saying they were there with Windows Mobile when the market was in it's infancy but Windows Mobile was clearly a mistake.
But like I said -- you're on Slashdot. Don't expect logic to get in the way of an old-fashioned MS-bashfest.
It would have been super cool if it was all symmetrical with the planet in the middle with 4 suns orbiting around it.
Of course, that configuration isn't in any way stable.. bit of a Ringworld style problem over there..
More on Klemperer Rosettes for anyone who cares:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klemperer_rosette
Perfectly aware of Bobcat. Typing this on a laptop with an E-350 myself. It's a disservice to compare it to an Atom 330 IMO but that's not the point. I didn't call your hardware fast (or slow). "Bobcat board" is insufficient data for such a conclusion. Your post seems to have the underlying assumption that if you are seeing 7 to 8 second boot times then everyone else is as well. The other hardware you're referring to -- under a minute leaves a lot of time for improvement.
Let me know when W8 is able to get from "fresh install" to "updates 6 months from now" without having to reboot, and then we'll talk.
Talk about what? I'm not trying to convince you or anyone to move to 8.
I've got a VM running on a Bobcat board. It takes about 7 or 8 seconds to boot. I've got W7 installed on a physical desktop with an SSD and the boot time is less than it takes to resume from suspend. I can't hit the power button and sit down before it's ready for a login.
You're thinking of your hw only.. I was commenting in more general terms. I've tried 8 on new hw, old hw, and VMs so far.
You don't have to use the new UI -- you can use your existing apps exactly as you used to, keep shortcuts on the desktop, pin to the task bar, snap windows to the left right, etc. exactly as you used to. You don't even have to upgrade to Windows 8 -- if 7 does the job for you keep using it. Some people are just looking for things to get pissed about.
Man, there's old Windows users who don't know about keyboard shortcuts period. That's probably the majority of computer users across all OSes except Linux. That's who I had in mind when I mentioned a "learning curve" -- I don't expect anyone on Slashdot to have to 'learn' a UI.. hehh..
To the end that it just seems like a more natural way to use a tablet.
The app takes the full screen, and several gestures are built into the screen edges and the gestures aren't ambiguous that way. Tablets generally don't have huge screens anyway.
It's definitely a bit of a hodge-podge. No denying that. When you're using Windows 8 on a 17" laptop if you keep hopping back and forth between the two modes its like using a slightly schizophrenic OS -- but if you're a power user there's certainly nothing preventing you from always being in power user mode (aside from the boot-to-new-start-screen thing, but that's pretty minor). I really would be surprised if power users adopt Windows 8 in large numbers. It's very clearly targeted at the tablet/consumer/entertainment crowd who would generally always be in the metro interface.
It should be pretty obvious -- it enables a new way of interfacing (touch). It's a consumer-focused feature, not an enterprise user or power user feature, hence my comment about corporate sales being down.
If Windows 8 is going to follow the pattern, it's going to be another godawful abortion. I'll stick with 7 and probably wait for 9.
There's certainly no need to switch.. I mean, OSes in general have been doing the same thing with only slightly incremental improvements for some years now..
But on the other hand, 8 is bad because it's not an incremental improvement -- it's a pretty big change, and with that change comes growing pains. It's also good, because it's not an incremental change -- for a change MS hasn't tried to support everything since 1853, and just worked on the task at hand instead.
I think for the most part it's going to get less sales than Win7, especially because corporate sales will be down -- they simply won't see value in the new UI. But I do see this as a positive step for Windows.
Steep learning curve (nothing to 'learn' obviously -- it's just a new interface -- but it's very different from Windows 7 and definitely takes some getting used to)
Tangibly faster startup / shutdown / resume etc.
Tangibly faster switching between apps / windows etc.
Unfinished in terms of adopting to the new UI paradigms. Several places where you end up back in the old way of doing things, or going back to the control panel to look for settings. It's clearly still there as a catch-all.
Some awkwardness in terms of managing processes. Clearly, it's designed for you to not think about that stuff. But windows users of old aren't used to that and want to know how to exit an app. You can kill apps quite easily, but it's part of the so-called learning curve.
True enough. You can't blame OEMs for not going that route -- they have their own constraints. Can't blame MS for trying to compensate by making their own tablets either -- they have to look after their own interests as well. As I've been trying to explain to the other AC (the one that comes off like a pedantic child) -- there are no villains here. This is just how things pan out sometimes.
Not choice excerpts -- your posts are just foll of invective and nothing else.
with the primary goal of discrediting the author
You're posting as AC, and worried about being discredited? It's not like 3 days from now when you're railing against MS that these comments will come back to bite you. There's nothing to associate these comments with your future comments. And in this thread your comments can stand on merit if they have any, so why worry about your reputation? I don't get it -- you're happy to heap invective at the drop of a hat, but nobody should have the temerity to question you or disagree with you??
while completely mischaracterizing the actual contents of the post in its aggregate
This is fiction. I've answered in detail, and been more patient than is warranted considering your tone.
is the very definition of an ad hominem.
If you're so worried about ad-hominem attacks on your self -- don't post anonymously, try not cussing for 50%+ of your posts, and try just having a calm, rational conversation.
People keep trying to assign blame. The status quo is the status quo, and currently the best option for MS is to create their own tablet. What's the big deal?
Or, they don't think the current options are compelling. Maybe Microsoft agrees, and maybe they understand why their OEMs are reluctant and/or unable to truly enter that space and compete with Apple. Maybe the Surface Pro is a result of that.
Um, what "hole" are you referring to? There are PCs at every quality level and price range from 200 dollars up to 2000 dollars and more.
There is no iPad competitor -- that's the hole. People are buying them like hot cakes. Each iPad bought is one less windows license purchased, so MS feels like it needs to compete. i.e. they feel a hole in their portfolio. Part of that is a s/w hole -- Windows 8 is their attempt to fix that. Part of it is a h/w hole. They don't have confidence in their OEMs to fill that gap, and they cannot afford to wait since they're so late to the market, so they're trying to fix it themselves. I can't understand why you guys are having such a tough time with that concept.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that OOXML is a great example of how anti-MSFT trolls get it so damned wrong. Standardization is good, even when standards come from Microsoft. Behaving like a petulant child or disseminating FUD during a standards process is not how you improve a standard. Active participation is how you do it.
I am afraid you are confused.
Always a friendly way to start a post ;)
SSL and safely storing bank documents are jobs for encryption and this works very well. Basically you send a lockable chest to your bank but retain the key, they put your documents into it, close the lock, and send it back. Ensuring that only your key can open it.
I know what SSL is.
This is absolutely vital to modern society, but isn't a type of DRM.
By who's definition?
DRM usually requires encryption, but also something else.
Usually is fine. That's not what we're debating here. The hypothesis is that it is possible to design a scheme in which "something else" is not required.
The content producers send their content in a locked box and then try and send the key to your computer in a way where the computer can use it open the box and play back the content but you can't use it to open the box and take the content out. This is obviously logically impossible, which is why you are always hearing of DRM schemes being broken just to watch a film (conversely if you could break a modern encryption system you could literally steal all the money in every bank in the world).
Not exactly.. The key being hidden in existing DRM schemes is to do with trusting a process. The key that protects your content is usually a symmetric key, and that key exchange occurs over the network, and that key in turn is encrypted using asymmetric keys to protect it while in transit. Coming back to trusting the process -- the process on your machine which received the content key -- the DRM scheme has to know it can trust that this process "behaves correctly" (honors the rights associated with that content). Current DRM schemes use baked in keys for that. That doesn't have to be the case. That could be achieved by something as simple as code-signing. There's still the question of obfuscating the process to ensure that someone can't just attach a debugger and get content keys that way (among other attacks that need to be considered) but all these problems are solvable in open source as well.
So logically you can't actually implement DRM in closed source software, but with sufficient obfuscation you can get close (Intel literally burns some of the key into a special chip on your motherboard which makes finding it extremely hard). If you are open about what you code is and dose, that includes telling people where you hare trying to hide the key, making the game of hide and seek a bit shorter.
I think you're missing the point of what is achieved using TPM chips.
Something about it being a proposed standard should make you realize how stupid your comment is, and how stupid you are.
If you can implement SSL and code-signing with opensource, you can implement DRM as well.
You're probably thinking along the lines of having some key used to establish trust being baked into some binaries (and probably hidden using some sort of obfuscation). Sure, that approach gets defeated by revealing source -- but that approach isn't a fundamental necessity of DRM schemes (even though most of them do currently go that route).
People are thinking of DRM in terms of music and videos. Time to think a bit out-of-the-box now (expecting too much of slashdot, I know). It's high time that I should be able to get my bank statements, tax documents, other such personal docs delivered to me in a protected container so that I can store them wherever (including cloud storage) and not have to worry about them being compromised in delivery or at rest in the cloud, and without the inconvenience of being tied to a single provider's platforms to access those docs (i.e. a standards compliant iOS/Android/Windows Phone/Blackberry/OS-X/Windows/Linux device should be able to open those docs with equal ease).
Have zero surface! (Apologies for the redundancy.. OS that does nothing jokes have already been cracked.. couldn't resist adding my own :P)
And they should get paid -- hence the 5% fee they should get to keep.
Huh? They make money off those sites right? What difference does it make if they make money of other sites as well?
The RIAA are missing a business opportunity again. They should instead ask the judge to make Google forward to them any revenue made from such sites.
I mean, they claim it's their content. And they claim Google's getting fat on it (which is true -- ad revenues -- many times over when a downloader gets pwned). Just consider it sales instead. Let users "buy" their content by any means necessary (if they pay for it by getting infected with malware -- the RIAA shouldn't care as long as they get their pound of flesh). As long as Google sells ads on those sites, the RIAA can make money here. Google certainly doesn't care about user's getting botnetted as long as they make money. The RIAA cares even less.
Of course, the interesting part would be the legal machinations involved in convincing the judge to order Google to forward that revenue. There would have to be some small % (maybe 5%) that they could allow Google to keep. What would also be interesting is how quickly Google changes it's ranking of such sites once they are no longer a revenue stream. Also problematic -- if Google forwards $xx.xx to the RIAA saying that's how much is owed, the RIAA has no way of verifying.
Exactly correct -- but you're expecting too much of Slashdot, and too much of The Register.
The exact quote from the interview is "Gates admitted the company didn't "get out in the lead very early" on cell phones. He said, "We didn't miss cell phones, but the way that we went about it didn't allow us to get the leadership. So it's clearly a mistake."
i.e. He's saying they were there with Windows Mobile when the market was in it's infancy but Windows Mobile was clearly a mistake.
But like I said -- you're on Slashdot. Don't expect logic to get in the way of an old-fashioned MS-bashfest.
"Is it priced smartly?" is probably a better question. What could be 'just' or 'unjust' about Surface pricing?
It would have been super cool if it was all symmetrical with the planet in the middle with 4 suns orbiting around it. Of course, that configuration isn't in any way stable.. bit of a Ringworld style problem over there.. More on Klemperer Rosettes for anyone who cares: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klemperer_rosette
Let me know when W8 is able to get from "fresh install" to "updates 6 months from now" without having to reboot, and then we'll talk.
Talk about what? I'm not trying to convince you or anyone to move to 8.
I've got a VM running on a Bobcat board. It takes about 7 or 8 seconds to boot. I've got W7 installed on a physical desktop with an SSD and the boot time is less than it takes to resume from suspend. I can't hit the power button and sit down before it's ready for a login.
You're thinking of your hw only.. I was commenting in more general terms. I've tried 8 on new hw, old hw, and VMs so far.
You don't have to use the new UI -- you can use your existing apps exactly as you used to, keep shortcuts on the desktop, pin to the task bar, snap windows to the left right, etc. exactly as you used to. You don't even have to upgrade to Windows 8 -- if 7 does the job for you keep using it. Some people are just looking for things to get pissed about.
Man, there's old Windows users who don't know about keyboard shortcuts period. That's probably the majority of computer users across all OSes except Linux. That's who I had in mind when I mentioned a "learning curve" -- I don't expect anyone on Slashdot to have to 'learn' a UI.. hehh..
To the end that it just seems like a more natural way to use a tablet.
The app takes the full screen, and several gestures are built into the screen edges and the gestures aren't ambiguous that way. Tablets generally don't have huge screens anyway.
It's definitely a bit of a hodge-podge. No denying that. When you're using Windows 8 on a 17" laptop if you keep hopping back and forth between the two modes its like using a slightly schizophrenic OS -- but if you're a power user there's certainly nothing preventing you from always being in power user mode (aside from the boot-to-new-start-screen thing, but that's pretty minor). I really would be surprised if power users adopt Windows 8 in large numbers. It's very clearly targeted at the tablet/consumer/entertainment crowd who would generally always be in the metro interface.
It should be pretty obvious -- it enables a new way of interfacing (touch). It's a consumer-focused feature, not an enterprise user or power user feature, hence my comment about corporate sales being down.
If Windows 8 is going to follow the pattern, it's going to be another godawful abortion. I'll stick with 7 and probably wait for 9.
There's certainly no need to switch.. I mean, OSes in general have been doing the same thing with only slightly incremental improvements for some years now..
But on the other hand, 8 is bad because it's not an incremental improvement -- it's a pretty big change, and with that change comes growing pains. It's also good, because it's not an incremental change -- for a change MS hasn't tried to support everything since 1853, and just worked on the task at hand instead.
I think for the most part it's going to get less sales than Win7, especially because corporate sales will be down -- they simply won't see value in the new UI. But I do see this as a positive step for Windows.
You can run any number of apps you want, simultaneously.
Well done, but job not finished.
True enough. You can't blame OEMs for not going that route -- they have their own constraints. Can't blame MS for trying to compensate by making their own tablets either -- they have to look after their own interests as well. As I've been trying to explain to the other AC (the one that comes off like a pedantic child) -- there are no villains here. This is just how things pan out sometimes.
Copypastaing choice excerpts
Not choice excerpts -- your posts are just foll of invective and nothing else.
with the primary goal of discrediting the author
You're posting as AC, and worried about being discredited? It's not like 3 days from now when you're railing against MS that these comments will come back to bite you. There's nothing to associate these comments with your future comments. And in this thread your comments can stand on merit if they have any, so why worry about your reputation? I don't get it -- you're happy to heap invective at the drop of a hat, but nobody should have the temerity to question you or disagree with you??
while completely mischaracterizing the actual contents of the post in its aggregate
This is fiction. I've answered in detail, and been more patient than is warranted considering your tone.
is the very definition of an ad hominem.
If you're so worried about ad-hominem attacks on your self -- don't post anonymously, try not cussing for 50%+ of your posts, and try just having a calm, rational conversation.
MS isn't blameless in the OEM crapware problem.
People keep trying to assign blame. The status quo is the status quo, and currently the best option for MS is to create their own tablet. What's the big deal?
Or, they don't think the current options are compelling. Maybe Microsoft agrees, and maybe they understand why their OEMs are reluctant and/or unable to truly enter that space and compete with Apple. Maybe the Surface Pro is a result of that.
Um, what "hole" are you referring to? There are PCs at every quality level and price range from 200 dollars up to 2000 dollars and more.
There is no iPad competitor -- that's the hole. People are buying them like hot cakes. Each iPad bought is one less windows license purchased, so MS feels like it needs to compete. i.e. they feel a hole in their portfolio. Part of that is a s/w hole -- Windows 8 is their attempt to fix that. Part of it is a h/w hole. They don't have confidence in their OEMs to fill that gap, and they cannot afford to wait since they're so late to the market, so they're trying to fix it themselves. I can't understand why you guys are having such a tough time with that concept.