If you are a graphic arts student, let the administration know that you are required to use a Mac and that there IS NO such product for YOUR computer. Then file a discrimination case against the university.
Watch just how quickly they fall back to a more universal email system...!
Lee Darrow, C.H. (and yes, Clarence Darrow IS my cousin!)
The RIAA gripes about music piracy, claiming that it must be stopped. DRM is a step towards stopping it (ineffective as it may be, I know).
The RIAA wants DRM, but gripes when someone OTHER THAN THEMSELVES CONTROLS IT!
Herein lies the REAL rub.
Somehow, they want to have blocking of copying of music (DRM), but, when someone other than the RIAA actually HAS it, they hit the ceiling and DEMAND access TO the technology that they had NOTHING to do with CREATING, marketing, or improving.
In other words, they don't want to put in the money to develop the METHODS to STOP piracy, but BOY! Do they EVER want to CASH IN ON IT!
A threat of litigation without litigation happening is not extortion. It is actually barratry. Barratry is also illegal.
Look up the term. They are demanding money "or else we will sue," without bothering to even interview the person that they BELIEVE to be the culprit. That's barratry as I understand the term.
In today's world of homes where several family members, dorm mates, roommates, cohabiting parters or whatever other domestic situation is present in a residence, happen to SHARE a computer, there is NO way for the RIAA to actually know for certain WHO is actually using a specific computer at any given moment, especially when people can have multiple user accounts under one master billing name.
And while liability may be attempted to be tied to the master account holder's name, this could prove problematic if the master account holder is a deceased GI in Iraq whose twelve year-old kid is actually using his own user account, UNDER the master account, to do the downloads!
What are they going to do? Dig up the dead GI?
From what has gone on so far, this is not all that far-fetched a scenario...
In my case, I rent my flat because I cannot afford the capital to buy with UK property prices. If I could get together the money to put down a deposit, I could get a decent mortgage and cheaper monthly outgoings. Because I cannot afford the initial capital, I have to pay a higher price for where I live. Great. Now imagine what happens when your rental runs out and you INSTANTLY can no longer access your toiletries, your clothing, your bed, your pets, all of your personal effects and your food, not to mention your telly and the loo (john to the Americans in the audience).
Now imagine that, when you "renew" your "rental" all of these things are now either damaged, gone or disrupted because some strange whirlwind went through your flat and tossed everything about. Call that a "new version upgrade that occurred while you were renewing your rental agreement - and Microsoft does NOT lease older versions of its software..."
Not to mention that you now have to go into your flat and re-install the loo, the telly, the fridge, the sink and the stove...
I think that shows the fallacy of this "brilliant idea" pretty well.
If there's a law against that, then EVERY proslytizing S.O.B. who tries to convert me on the street and won't take "NO" for an answer and keeps following and haranguing me, should be open to prosecution for interfering with MY religion!
There's one helluva big difference between tripping over a dead body in the middle of an empty room and sorting through ALL of the data that was just DOWNLOADED or DIRECTLY MONITORED AND CAPTURED (either being a proactive, intrusive action, requiring an internet hookup and special software, as well as datamining software and some VERY large storage systems - a separate SET of actions) to FIND wrongdoing that is NOT apparent to anyone who is NOT directly jacked into the internet. As such, searches of that type would, Constitutionally, require a warrant.
Here's why as I see it:
Because the internet is a datacommunications format and NOT a physical medium, such as a play, or a shooting that takes place in a restaurant, plain sight search, in this instance, simply does NOT apply, especially as the wrongdoing would NOT have been found EXCEPT by direct, intrusive monitoring of an ENTIRE ISP's pipe AND the use of datamining software to sort through ALL of the signals going through that pipe AFTER that data had been STORED on some sort of stroage medium, like a hard drive or tape.
Your analogy would be like someone invoking a plain sight search on a telephone trunk line. Which is impossible to do without the use of specialized equipment and hookups.
Hence, the plain sight exemption would not, nor should it, apply.
At least, that's how I would argue it, initially, before turning it over to a group of seriously dedicated attorneys...
So I am to believe that I should be GLAD that commercial media will be degraded by Windows Vista playback?
Maybe I should also be glad that Microsoft is trying to degrade my viewing experience!
Maybe I should be glad that my viewing experience WILL be degraded in ANY way, shape or form - especially when I will HAVE to BUY this alleged operating system, whether I want to or not if I want technical support in the future!
Maybe I should be GLAD that I am getting my DVD definition CUT and having to PAY MORE for it!
Maybe I should be glad that I don't USE Windows Vista!
This is another proof that a SEPARATE court be created for cyber issues, much like the courts that are dedicated to TAX matters, traffic issues and divorce matters. This is simply because the technology is too esoteric and complex for anyone NOT versed in its use and application to understand enough to make a sane ruling upon and those rulings are too far-reaching for them NOT to be ruled upon by someone who is not at least moderately conversant with them and their application in the real world.
I would urge the judicial system to adopt this suggestion, immediately.
where all of those accountants from Enron wound up!
The federal Environmental Protection Agency announced a new system for determining the fuel economy of many cars and trucks. Hardest hit will be hybrids as all-electric driving is not considered. At the same time, many medium-duty vehicles will get rated, but not have to be published until 2011 This move to more realistic ratings will severely reduce the high numbers some cars have posted. Not rating all electric driving is like NOT counting people who have no jobs but can no longer draw unemployment compensation as being unemployed! Oh. Wait! We already DO that, too! Ronald Reagan started THAT! "If a person doesn't draw unemployment, they are not unemployed and do not count as BEING unemployed." - Ronald Reagan administration edict for the "new" metod of "counting" the unemployed for the federal unemployment figures.
Enron-style accounting lives and flourishes at the Departments of Labor AND at the EPA!
It's called "The studio system," where a bunch of people get together and form this "company," see, and call it a "studio."
The "Studio" then hires a bunch of people who do the job of something called "writers," who actually write the initial form of something called a "treatment" which is the description of what the "movie" (which is short for moving picture, or motion picture) will be.
The "Studio," actually, the people who own the "company CALLED "the Studio" then hand the "treatment" over to some OTHER people who then re-write the "treatment" into a form called a "script," which is what the actors and the guy who tells everybody what to do on the "set" (which is really everywhere the people from the "Studio" go to film the "movie") use to tell the story IN the original "treatment."
The "Studio" then takes the "script" and gives it to ANOTHER bunch of people who then re-write the "script" to make it "more marketable," meaning that it is less like the original "treatment" or the original "script."
This is done until the final "script" has NO resemblance to the original "treatment" or "script."
Sometimes, a Studio will even take something called a "book," which is a story that is found printed on a bunch of pages glued together on one side to hold them together for easy carrying and reading.
By the time the "book" has gone through the process above, it often has little similarity as a movie to the story in the book. For examples of that, see "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" from Disney Studios where the tragic ending in the book was changed to a HAPPY ending in the cartoon version and JFK starring Kevin Costner, which has only passing similarity to reality.
"testing? What's that? If it compiles, it is good, if it boots up it is perfect. - The Ultimate Guru: Linus Tovalds"
Not if it still adds 2+2 and the total comes out as 5,286 it isn't. An error in the math can still compile - and often does. Just ask any first year programming major - or the Teaching Assistant (because the professors never show up to teach 101 level courses, after all).
Sorry, but that argument doesn't wash and never has.
Checks and balances, Skippy. And with paperless electronic voting systems as they are, there are no checks and balances that are worth a Tiner's Dam. And it doesn't matter which party is winning either - no checks and balances and the election is still a fraud. Ask any Chicago voter in the last 150 years - we used to dig them up to vote here, all the time!
Harmonious Botch posted:... (quoting someone else in this paragraph) Condemning actions, pushing out wrongdoers and apologizing for mistakes counts as leadership right after a scandal breaks. Three weeks in it looks like standard corporate ass covering.
"Maybe he likes to think before he acts, maybe even consult a lawyer or two. Do the stockholders really want a CEO who shoots from the hip? Especially on issues as important as this? We're talking about a multi-million dollar company here that is front page news. The decisions are big, maybe big enough to make or break the company. I'd take a week or three to think if I were making decisions on that scale."
Why not? We have a PRESIDENT who does - and claims to be PROUD of it!
As opposed to non-magnetic stripe data - bar code, written material or a phone call to verify something, not to mention photographs, retinal scans or fingerprints?
2. Missing or Outdated Security patches
Like SP2?
3. Use of Vendor Supplied Default Settings and Passwords
Like SP2?
4. SQL Injection
Would that be intravenous or intramuscular?
5. Unncessary and Vulnerable Services on Server
Like SP2, Windows, Unix, Linux, Mac OSX, an internet connection, a card reader or having ANY human being, anywhere in the information loop, at all.
Insecurity is better than NO security and no matter HOW well encrypted a card is, some waiter with a pocket credit card scanner, somewhere, is going to get your information if he wants it.
There is NO defense against competence. And at least SOME cybercriminals are extremely competent.
This is CompuNewsBroadcast. I'm Dan Bloggit and next to me is John Discspinner!
Tonight - Microsoft sells the public on Zune - a site that features a virus as a feature!
That's right, John! Microsoft has now, for the first time anywhere, managed to market a virus that, they claim, is legal! Zune will, whether the recording artist wants it to or not, place playback restrictions on a recording, regardless of the licensing agreement that that artist might have, with anyone - even Microsoft!
And yet, according to Microsoft, this encryption/restriction scheme is all perfectly legal as it "protects the artist against illegal downloading an copying of their product" even if the artist WANTS to give the material away as a promotional item!
So now, even US Government recordings, which are free and available to the public by Act of Congress, will, if downloaded from Zune, no longer be free, nor will they be free of DRM tampering! That's right - no longer will the recorded speeches of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King or anything else from the National Archives that gets loaded onto Zune be fres from a DRM lockdown bug, John. Nor will it be free from that bug when that file gets passed on to anybody else, either!
John, you have to love these guys in Redmond! They sure know how to write creative software! Only Microsoft could market a service that actively SELLS the public a virus as a FEATURE!
John: And they REALLY know how to write creative marketing materials, too, Dan! You have to give them their props for that!
Slashdot Mirror
If you are a graphic arts student, let the administration know that you are required to use a Mac and that there IS NO such product for YOUR computer. Then file a discrimination case against the university.
Watch just how quickly they fall back to a more universal email system...!
Lee Darrow, C.H.
(and yes, Clarence Darrow IS my cousin!)
The RIAA gripes about music piracy, claiming that it must be stopped. DRM is a step towards stopping it (ineffective as it may be, I know).
The RIAA wants DRM, but gripes when someone OTHER THAN THEMSELVES CONTROLS IT!
Herein lies the REAL rub.
Somehow, they want to have blocking of copying of music (DRM), but, when someone other than the RIAA actually HAS it, they hit the ceiling and DEMAND access TO the technology that they had NOTHING to do with CREATING, marketing, or improving.
In other words, they don't want to put in the money to develop the METHODS to STOP piracy, but BOY! Do they EVER want to CASH IN ON IT!
Why am I NOT surprised?
A threat of litigation without litigation happening is not extortion. It is actually barratry. Barratry is also illegal.
Look up the term. They are demanding money "or else we will sue," without bothering to even interview the person that they BELIEVE to be the culprit. That's barratry as I understand the term.
In today's world of homes where several family members, dorm mates, roommates, cohabiting parters or whatever other domestic situation is present in a residence, happen to SHARE a computer, there is NO way for the RIAA to actually know for certain WHO is actually using a specific computer at any given moment, especially when people can have multiple user accounts under one master billing name.
And while liability may be attempted to be tied to the master account holder's name, this could prove problematic if the master account holder is a deceased GI in Iraq whose twelve year-old kid is actually using his own user account, UNDER the master account, to do the downloads!
What are they going to do? Dig up the dead GI?
From what has gone on so far, this is not all that far-fetched a scenario...
Now imagine that, when you "renew" your "rental" all of these things are now either damaged, gone or disrupted because some strange whirlwind went through your flat and tossed everything about. Call that a "new version upgrade that occurred while you were renewing your rental agreement - and Microsoft does NOT lease older versions of its software..."
Not to mention that you now have to go into your flat and re-install the loo, the telly, the fridge, the sink and the stove...
I think that shows the fallacy of this "brilliant idea" pretty well.
Lee Darrow, C.H.
So let's go up there and do it to THEM and see how THEY like it, eh?
If there's a law against that, then EVERY proslytizing S.O.B. who tries to convert me on the street and won't take "NO" for an answer and keeps following and haranguing me, should be open to prosecution for interfering with MY religion!
What happened to that pesky federal regulation that REQUIRED ISP's to ARCHIVE all emails for up to TWO YEARS?
It would seem that those emails have to be somewhere?
Too late.
They already have.
For over fifteen YEARS.
On something more like a WEEKLY basis.
Sometimes DAILY.
There's one helluva big difference between tripping over a dead body in the middle of an empty room and sorting through ALL of the data that was just DOWNLOADED or DIRECTLY MONITORED AND CAPTURED (either being a proactive, intrusive action, requiring an internet hookup and special software, as well as datamining software and some VERY large storage systems - a separate SET of actions) to FIND wrongdoing that is NOT apparent to anyone who is NOT directly jacked into the internet. As such, searches of that type would, Constitutionally, require a warrant.
Here's why as I see it:
Because the internet is a datacommunications format and NOT a physical medium, such as a play, or a shooting that takes place in a restaurant, plain sight search, in this instance, simply does NOT apply, especially as the wrongdoing would NOT have been found EXCEPT by direct, intrusive monitoring of an ENTIRE ISP's pipe AND the use of datamining software to sort through ALL of the signals going through that pipe AFTER that data had been STORED on some sort of stroage medium, like a hard drive or tape.
Your analogy would be like someone invoking a plain sight search on a telephone trunk line. Which is impossible to do without the use of specialized equipment and hookups.
Hence, the plain sight exemption would not, nor should it, apply.
At least, that's how I would argue it, initially, before turning it over to a group of seriously dedicated attorneys...
Okay, in response to your sig line - virus protection. SHOW me how Windows does THAT "20 times better" than Linux.
Elucidate, by all means!
So I am to believe that I should be GLAD that commercial media will be degraded by Windows Vista playback?
Maybe I should also be glad that Microsoft is trying to degrade my viewing experience!
Maybe I should be glad that my viewing experience WILL be degraded in ANY way, shape or form - especially when I will HAVE to BUY this alleged operating system, whether I want to or not if I want technical support in the future!
Maybe I should be GLAD that I am getting my DVD definition CUT and having to PAY MORE for it!
Maybe I should be glad that I don't USE Windows Vista!
Maybe...
This is another proof that a SEPARATE court be created for cyber issues, much like the courts that are dedicated to TAX matters, traffic issues and divorce matters. This is simply because the technology is too esoteric and complex for anyone NOT versed in its use and application to understand enough to make a sane ruling upon and those rulings are too far-reaching for them NOT to be ruled upon by someone who is not at least moderately conversant with them and their application in the real world.
I would urge the judicial system to adopt this suggestion, immediately.
Lee Darrow, C.H.
eggs? The kiosk I tried to play last week was SO hot it could have been used as a griddle at the iHop next door!
If nothing else, George Foreman might have a problem if Sony repackages this thing as a kitchen appliance!
Enron-style accounting lives and flourishes at the Departments of Labor AND at the EPA!
Why am I not surprised?
It's called "The studio system," where a bunch of people get together and form this "company," see, and call it a "studio."
The "Studio" then hires a bunch of people who do the job of something called "writers," who actually write the initial form of something called a "treatment" which is the description of what the "movie" (which is short for moving picture, or motion picture) will be.
The "Studio," actually, the people who own the "company CALLED "the Studio" then hand the "treatment" over to some OTHER people who then re-write the "treatment" into a form called a "script," which is what the actors and the guy who tells everybody what to do on the "set" (which is really everywhere the people from the "Studio" go to film the "movie") use to tell the story IN the original "treatment."
The "Studio" then takes the "script" and gives it to ANOTHER bunch of people who then re-write the "script" to make it "more marketable," meaning that it is less like the original "treatment" or the original "script."
This is done until the final "script" has NO resemblance to the original "treatment" or "script."
Sometimes, a Studio will even take something called a "book," which is a story that is found printed on a bunch of pages glued together on one side to hold them together for easy carrying and reading.
By the time the "book" has gone through the process above, it often has little similarity as a movie to the story in the book. For examples of that, see "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" from Disney Studios where the tragic ending in the book was changed to a HAPPY ending in the cartoon version and JFK starring Kevin Costner, which has only passing similarity to reality.
Lee Darrow
L. Ron Hubbard, of course!
Subtitled:
Battlefield Earth, I betcha!
Lee
"testing? What's that? If it compiles, it is good, if it boots up it is perfect. - The Ultimate Guru: Linus Tovalds"
Not if it still adds 2+2 and the total comes out as 5,286 it isn't. An error in the math can still compile - and often does. Just ask any first year programming major - or the Teaching Assistant (because the professors never show up to teach 101 level courses, after all).
Sorry, but that argument doesn't wash and never has.
Checks and balances, Skippy. And with paperless electronic voting systems as they are, there are no checks and balances that are worth a Tiner's Dam. And it doesn't matter which party is winning either - no checks and balances and the election is still a fraud. Ask any Chicago voter in the last 150 years - we used to dig them up to vote here, all the time!
Lee Darrow, C.H. Chicago, IL
... there STILL won't be a voice chat client for the Mac users!
Lee Darrow, C.H.
Chicago, IL
PrefPass should be something like PassTheInfo, HandItOverToHackers or, maybe TARGET.
Because that's what it's going to become if the public and the corporations actually start using this thing.
One Big Target. Hackers start your engines...!
Lee Darrow, C.H.
It never ceases to amaze me that people who ridicule psychics and science fiction will rely on the predictions of financial analysts and economists.
Lee Darrow, C.H.
Harmonious Botch posted: ... (quoting someone else in this paragraph) Condemning actions, pushing out wrongdoers and apologizing for mistakes counts as leadership right after a scandal breaks. Three weeks in it looks like standard corporate ass covering.
"Maybe he likes to think before he acts, maybe even consult a lawyer or two. Do the stockholders really want a CEO who shoots from the hip? Especially on issues as important as this? We're talking about a multi-million dollar company here that is front page news. The decisions are big, maybe big enough to make or break the company. I'd take a week or three to think if I were making decisions on that scale."
Why not? We have a PRESIDENT who does - and claims to be PROUD of it!
Lee Darrow, C.H.
Where are you going to find a gas station that small?
1. Storage of Magnetic Stripe Data
As opposed to non-magnetic stripe data - bar code, written material or a phone call to verify something, not to mention photographs, retinal scans or fingerprints?
2. Missing or Outdated Security patches
Like SP2?
3. Use of Vendor Supplied Default Settings and Passwords
Like SP2?
4. SQL Injection
Would that be intravenous or intramuscular?
5. Unncessary and Vulnerable Services on Server
Like SP2, Windows, Unix, Linux, Mac OSX, an internet connection, a card reader or having ANY human being, anywhere in the information loop, at all.
Insecurity is better than NO security and no matter HOW well encrypted a card is, some waiter with a pocket credit card scanner, somewhere, is going to get your information if he wants it.
There is NO defense against competence. And at least SOME cybercriminals are extremely competent.
Lee Darrow, C.H.
This is CompuNewsBroadcast. I'm Dan Bloggit and next to me is John Discspinner!
Tonight - Microsoft sells the public on Zune - a site that features a virus as a feature!
That's right, John! Microsoft has now, for the first time anywhere, managed to market a virus that, they claim, is legal! Zune will, whether the recording artist wants it to or not, place playback restrictions on a recording, regardless of the licensing agreement that that artist might have, with anyone - even Microsoft!
And yet, according to Microsoft, this encryption/restriction scheme is all perfectly legal as it "protects the artist against illegal downloading an copying of their product" even if the artist WANTS to give the material away as a promotional item!
So now, even US Government recordings, which are free and available to the public by Act of Congress, will, if downloaded from Zune, no longer be free, nor will they be free of DRM tampering! That's right - no longer will the recorded speeches of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King or anything else from the National Archives that gets loaded onto Zune be fres from a DRM lockdown bug, John. Nor will it be free from that bug when that file gets passed on to anybody else, either!
John, you have to love these guys in Redmond! They sure know how to write creative software! Only Microsoft could market a service that actively SELLS the public a virus as a FEATURE!
John: And they REALLY know how to write creative marketing materials, too, Dan! You have to give them their props for that!
Dan: John, I've known that since OS/2.
And now the weather...
Lee Darrow, C.H.
Too late.
That happened in BOTH of the last two Presidential elections!
Lee Darrow
Chicago, IL