Withdraw services such as "Diffie–Hellman key exchange" from products such as Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari? I don't call myself a security person, never mind expert, so I don't know: could MS/Google/Apple retroactively decrypt HTTPS connections made by the web browsers they supply?
I use Kagi to sell my games. There are many other alternatives besides PayPal, Google, Worldpay, etc., and I'd recommend all small digital-distribution studios compare all of them and their reputations instead of just going with PayPal because they've heard of it.
On that last point... yes, my business model does include developing AI to the point that it's not necessary to employ other people. I doubt very much that I'll be the first to get there (especially as I have to do a lot of other stuff to keep the money coming in and only write the AIs as needed), but I'm sure going that way.
Ubisoft are not the first company to do this. My previous employers, Jagex, launched a games portal about two years ago where all the games required a continuous internet connection... including the single player games.
I'm not going to compare and contrast the technical details, as I don't know Ubisoft's secrets and I'm still bound by a confidentiality clause from Jagex. The social effects, however, are discoverable from publicly available information from multiple online game providers, not just Jagex, and are therefore not something I have to keep silent about:)
If you game to kill time while travelling, this product is a couple of years ahead of it's time (Free WiFi is rare in the UK, mobile broadband is spotty and can be expensive).
Online saved games are good, provided they are not destroyed if your client crashes (happened to a friend with Braid).
Free demos that ask you to create a free account in order to save your progress are a bad idea (my girlfriend saw this and assumed they wanted money, so went to a different game site).
Cheating and hacking is still implementation specific, so piracy is probably still possible (I've seen YouTube videos of someone cheating so insanely that their score wrapped around the 2^31 mark and almost made it back to zero).
I can believe it. My dad has an anecdote from a friend (yes, it's that tenuous, I don't know any Americans:)) who was given a free ride in a helicopter in the US. He kept hearing this irregular 'ping', and commented that it was a strange noise for a navigation system, only to be told that was the sound of bullets ricocheting off the bottom of the helicopter. Now, I don't know when this was, so I can readily believe it's been stopped for all the technical reasons you just gave.
Lots of people are using jaywalking as an example non-crime in these comments. Just so you all know, jaywalking is not generally against UK law; the only places you can't do it are motorways (where anyone going less than 50mph will cause problems), railway crossings while the barrier is down, and small patches of road next to lit pedestrian crossings. Everywhere else, it's your judgement.
Now, for the technology itself, I think it will help catch a lot of minor criminals, rural fly-tippers, and an unexpectedly large number of farm-animal-fancying zoophiles, but it will have very little effect on organised crime. Why? Dazzle from small lasers. What's the cost of a CD/DVD burner?
I don't like perfect surveillance - this country has too many laws for any one person to know, so I have no idea if I'm breaking any or not.
You don't need to compete with a AAA to be successful. I know this because I am a one-person game developer, and my best estimate of my income is somewhere around $85k.
Oops, I didn't mean to post that anonymously... brief summary: all big games companies seem to have this problem, even those that try very hard to avoid it. I blame the middle managers. I left Jagex because of a middle manager being extremely unpleasant, despite the considerable efforts of the senior management to make the company an awesome one to work in.
What makes a contractor any better or worse at managing information than the government itself?
In principle? The bottom line of government is the best interest of the nation, the bottom line of bussinesss is profit. In practice, of course, a democratic (small 'd') government cares about being popular, so it has to keep taxes low and employment high (i.e. buy from the lowest bidder based in their own country).
Unfortunately, 95% delivery failure does not mean 95% spam. Some spam gets delivered to my inbox, and I'm certain that some legitimate email gets blocked. Unfortunately, the businesmen who like to use "email marketing" have no idea how much of a problem it is, and the technical people doing the filtering refuse to bounce (instead of black hole) suspected spam as doing so would work as a DoS amplifier.
It's not a question of cryptography, it's a question of accounting. Consider:
Alice creates a character in "Second World of Runes Online".
Alice starts of with 10 gold pieces.
Alice has a memory poking tool, and uses it to change that 10gp into (1<<31)gp.
If the game is written badly, it will let Alice get away with this. If the game is written properly, the server isn't listening to her client, and will only let her spend 10gp no matter what her client claims to have. For reasons of supply and demand, I am sure that every MMOG that has ever suffered from gold farmers is written properly in this regard.
While I'm glad to see someone finally NOT assuming 100% of pirates are potential customers, I don't see any justification for the 10% estimate they give here. Anyone have any sources? (Yes, I did RTFA!)
It could be that pirates have significantly more apps installed than anyone else - not an unreasonable possibility, as they won't be wondering if they *really* want to spend their money on, for example, fifteen almost identical clones of the same miniclip game.
Given they have a trademark on Mickey Mouse (which is $-renewed eternal), I've never understood is why they care so much about the copyright on Steamboat Willie. Seriously, does anyone still watch the old black and white 'toons? Can they really make more money from republishing 70-year-old works than they spend on lobbying for yet another copyright extension?
This seems like a rather interesting concept. From the summary, it's probably illegal to implement due to medical privacy (and if not, it should be) but it's still interesting.
Unfortunately, it's a lot further off than you think. To accelerate to near the speed of light, regardless of the method, requires an enormous level of energy: for comparison, the space shuttle (68,000 kg) going at half the speed of light will have a kinetic energy of 9.455x10^20 joules. Again, for comparison, the total solar flux of the earth is about 1.75x10^17 watts, while total human power consumption is around 16x10^12 watts.
As a self-employed game developer, I own the copyright on all the stuff I sell. While I can recognise the need for a unified global copyright system (and unified global laws on sales and export/import tax), my sales model assumes I can sell any given product for 10 years, and I would be perfectly happy if copyright durations were reduced to that. That said, 10 years may well be optimistic, and I doubt I would have any problems if it was reduced to 5 years. Anyone in a who must make their money back quickly is in the same boat — the rest of the profits are just "keeping score".
From what I've seen, this treaty is not going to make the world a better place, it's going to make it worse, especially given how little most people know about IP law (patent != copyright != trademark != database right != industrial design right != geographical indication != trade secret). Short duration IP-monopoly-rights are non-issues for rapidly moving industries, and shorter durations make it easier to move faster.
They didn't get rid of it, they just changed it a lot. No unbalanced trading, and no control over what you win in a PvP fight (at least, that's what I understood of it when they explained it, but I never played it PvP in the first place).
That's great. Now convince the GeoEye Inc. (in charge of the SeaWiFS satellite) that they should give away all the high-resolution data for free — something that would be a direct consequence of there being no NDA. I'm sure that one of my previous employers, a marine research lab who had some involvement in the experiment to seed a carbon-absorbing algal bloom, would be thrilled with the opportunity to better model the rate of photosynthesis in the oceans, something which has direct consequences for both global warming and the fishing industry.
Oh, and while you're at it, convince Nature and Science to make all their journals available for free. That would make life much easier for my girlfriend.
Rough guess, data awaiting publication — If I understand correctly, that's the academic equivalent to keeping things secret until you patent them. The more raw data you have to yourselves, the more papers you can write about that data set before other academics get there, and that's what your promotion prospects are based on. If you stall on a FOIR, you get richer.
Slashdot Mirror
Withdraw services such as "Diffie–Hellman key exchange" from products such as Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari? I don't call myself a security person, never mind expert, so I don't know: could MS/Google/Apple retroactively decrypt HTTPS connections made by the web browsers they supply?
I use Kagi to sell my games. There are many other alternatives besides PayPal, Google, Worldpay, etc., and I'd recommend all small digital-distribution studios compare all of them and their reputations instead of just going with PayPal because they've heard of it.
In April last year, a robot made a scientific discovery by itself: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/robotscientist/
Haha... wait, you're serious?
On that last point... yes, my business model does include developing AI to the point that it's not necessary to employ other people. I doubt very much that I'll be the first to get there (especially as I have to do a lot of other stuff to keep the money coming in and only write the AIs as needed), but I'm sure going that way.
What is a 'change management process'? I may have heard of it under a different name, but those three words in that order make no sense to me.
Ozone layer depletion was never "going to freeze the earth", it was going to give us skin cancer. We stopped damaging it, now it's getting better.
Ubisoft are not the first company to do this. My previous employers, Jagex, launched a games portal about two years ago where all the games required a continuous internet connection... including the single player games.
I'm not going to compare and contrast the technical details, as I don't know Ubisoft's secrets and I'm still bound by a confidentiality clause from Jagex. The social effects, however, are discoverable from publicly available information from multiple online game providers, not just Jagex, and are therefore not something I have to keep silent about :)
I can believe it. My dad has an anecdote from a friend (yes, it's that tenuous, I don't know any Americans :)) who was given a free ride in a helicopter in the US. He kept hearing this irregular 'ping', and commented that it was a strange noise for a navigation system, only to be told that was the sound of bullets ricocheting off the bottom of the helicopter. Now, I don't know when this was, so I can readily believe it's been stopped for all the technical reasons you just gave.
Lots of people are using jaywalking as an example non-crime in these comments. Just so you all know, jaywalking is not generally against UK law; the only places you can't do it are motorways (where anyone going less than 50mph will cause problems), railway crossings while the barrier is down, and small patches of road next to lit pedestrian crossings. Everywhere else, it's your judgement.
Now, for the technology itself, I think it will help catch a lot of minor criminals, rural fly-tippers, and an unexpectedly large number of farm-animal-fancying zoophiles, but it will have very little effect on organised crime. Why? Dazzle from small lasers. What's the cost of a CD/DVD burner?
I don't like perfect surveillance - this country has too many laws for any one person to know, so I have no idea if I'm breaking any or not.
One person taking charge? Sounds like management to me. Which came first, the gang or the manager?
You don't need to compete with a AAA to be successful. I know this because I am a one-person game developer, and my best estimate of my income is somewhere around $85k.
Oops, I didn't mean to post that anonymously... brief summary: all big games companies seem to have this problem, even those that try very hard to avoid it. I blame the middle managers. I left Jagex because of a middle manager being extremely unpleasant, despite the considerable efforts of the senior management to make the company an awesome one to work in.
In principle? The bottom line of government is the best interest of the nation, the bottom line of bussinesss is profit. In practice, of course, a democratic (small 'd') government cares about being popular, so it has to keep taxes low and employment high (i.e. buy from the lowest bidder based in their own country).
Unfortunately, 95% delivery failure does not mean 95% spam. Some spam gets delivered to my inbox, and I'm certain that some legitimate email gets blocked. Unfortunately, the businesmen who like to use "email marketing" have no idea how much of a problem it is, and the technical people doing the filtering refuse to bounce (instead of black hole) suspected spam as doing so would work as a DoS amplifier.
It's not a question of cryptography, it's a question of accounting. Consider:
If the game is written badly, it will let Alice get away with this. If the game is written properly, the server isn't listening to her client, and will only let her spend 10gp no matter what her client claims to have. For reasons of supply and demand, I am sure that every MMOG that has ever suffered from gold farmers is written properly in this regard.
While I'm glad to see someone finally NOT assuming 100% of pirates are potential customers, I don't see any justification for the 10% estimate they give here. Anyone have any sources? (Yes, I did RTFA!)
It could be that pirates have significantly more apps installed than anyone else - not an unreasonable possibility, as they won't be wondering if they *really* want to spend their money on, for example, fifteen almost identical clones of the same miniclip game.
Given they have a trademark on Mickey Mouse (which is $-renewed eternal), I've never understood is why they care so much about the copyright on Steamboat Willie. Seriously, does anyone still watch the old black and white 'toons? Can they really make more money from republishing 70-year-old works than they spend on lobbying for yet another copyright extension?
This seems like a rather interesting concept. From the summary, it's probably illegal to implement due to medical privacy (and if not, it should be) but it's still interesting.
I only used VB in my Computing A-level because the teacher didn't know any other languages.
Unfortunately, it's a lot further off than you think. To accelerate to near the speed of light, regardless of the method, requires an enormous level of energy: for comparison, the space shuttle (68,000 kg) going at half the speed of light will have a kinetic energy of 9.455x10^20 joules. Again, for comparison, the total solar flux of the earth is about 1.75x10^17 watts, while total human power consumption is around 16x10^12 watts.
As a self-employed game developer, I own the copyright on all the stuff I sell. While I can recognise the need for a unified global copyright system (and unified global laws on sales and export/import tax), my sales model assumes I can sell any given product for 10 years, and I would be perfectly happy if copyright durations were reduced to that. That said, 10 years may well be optimistic, and I doubt I would have any problems if it was reduced to 5 years. Anyone in a who must make their money back quickly is in the same boat — the rest of the profits are just "keeping score".
From what I've seen, this treaty is not going to make the world a better place, it's going to make it worse, especially given how little most people know about IP law (patent != copyright != trademark != database right != industrial design right != geographical indication != trade secret). Short duration IP-monopoly-rights are non-issues for rapidly moving industries, and shorter durations make it easier to move faster.
They didn't get rid of it, they just changed it a lot. No unbalanced trading, and no control over what you win in a PvP fight (at least, that's what I understood of it when they explained it, but I never played it PvP in the first place).
That's great. Now convince the GeoEye Inc. (in charge of the SeaWiFS satellite) that they should give away all the high-resolution data for free — something that would be a direct consequence of there being no NDA. I'm sure that one of my previous employers, a marine research lab who had some involvement in the experiment to seed a carbon-absorbing algal bloom, would be thrilled with the opportunity to better model the rate of photosynthesis in the oceans, something which has direct consequences for both global warming and the fishing industry.
Oh, and while you're at it, convince Nature and Science to make all their journals available for free. That would make life much easier for my girlfriend.
If you're not guilty, why are you hiding?
Rough guess, data awaiting publication — If I understand correctly, that's the academic equivalent to keeping things secret until you patent them. The more raw data you have to yourselves, the more papers you can write about that data set before other academics get there, and that's what your promotion prospects are based on. If you stall on a FOIR, you get richer.