anyone who mentions competition and lower prices in telecommunications is lying thru their teeth. broad band services are used to prop up fading monopoly line services like cable television and telephone services. sure, you can get DSL with no phone service in a tenth of the US, but for the majority of us, IF you have a choice of providers, they are one phone company and one cable company, both requiring subscription to another service in order to get broadband.
that's not choice and that's not competition. that's two monopolies offering similar products to prop up customer lock in.
if things were truly deregulated, then it should be possible for others to enter into these markets. why hasn't anyone done that?
The situation you just described not only doesn't apply to the vast majority of computer users, it doesn't even apply to most techies.
yeah, people work offline all the time. that's why most corporate offices grind to a halt when the email system is down. if you don't work in a corporate office then imagine what would happen if SAP went down.
if both systems went offline at the same time, most office workers would start killing and eating each other within an hour.
Re: Yes Shoot the messenger! These are not the droids you are looking for...
In conclusion Discovery will happily show you any truth that doesn't go against a sponsor. Never forget through that the truth is less important to them than greed so take everything you hear from them with a grain of salt because after all....
Discovery is the best programming a corporate bribe can buy!
you act like the media has some sort of responsibility to us. we are a product, a commodity to be leveraged and traded. the media's only responsibility is to the company execs and the stock holders. the execs and stock holders only care about profits, and profits are dictated by advertisers. er go, advertisers will always be able to bend media companies to their will. if you think fox or nbc or cnn are any different than the discovery channel you are woefully naive.
real security research is now and will forever be underground. it's cheaper to provide the illusion of security than it is to build truly secure systems, so corporations and governments will always opt for obscurity first until an independent researcher exposes these vulnerabilities.
the credit industry is built on impulse buying. secure systems with integrity checks and access restrictions are a hindrance to impulse buys and will never be implemented. credit systems will always be flawed and fraud will just be considered the cost of doing business. if you think that's pessimistic think about this: what does a company do when it's had a large data breach: it buys the victims a year of credit monitoring and it moves on like it never happened.
why do you think credit card companies and news programs blame ID thefts and credit card fraud on hackers?
identities get stolen by identity thieves. credit card companies are defrauded by con artists. there is no hacking involved 99% of the time.
corporations want you to see competitive analysis and independent research as the products of shadowy figures that we need to fear so that you will mistrust the exposure of security vulnerabilities and not ask scary and expensive questions.
that's the only time they get to wear those khaki vest things and pretend to be indiana jones.
maybe i'm alone here, but i just love to watch aging white guys fail to keep the fear out of their voices when they report from war zones and disaster areas. watching them be frightened while sitting 10 miles away from any real activity is just extra win.
doubly so for weather guys. i don't really believe there is a hurricane unless some jackass from a news agency is standing in the driving wind and rain taking his over privileged life in his own hands.
that what hard hitting news is all about: getting paid fat stacks to fly around the world and repeat what the government has told you to say.
Insofar as I am aware, Swedish civil courts have not jumped on the bandwagon that what TPB is doing in Sweden is legal under Swedish law, and it seems those tasked with the enforcement of Swedish criminal law have likewise not jumped on the bandwagon.
they were raided by the swedish police two years ago and were back online in less than 3 days. the police shut them down (swedish criminal law was on the bandwagon thanks to pressure from the US) and couldn't make a case against them. people try to shut them down and fail because they are not doing anything wrong there in sweden.
For people who say "we are doing nothing wrong here in our home country", I do have to wonder why they found it necessary to "move" servers to various foreign locations.
they have backup servers elsewhere sure, but so does just about every large website. they are still based in sweden. the announcement that they moved to egypt was an april fool's day joke.
While things need to change on business models it's your attitude that shows that it doesn't matter. No matter how much you like the music or artist you're going to continue to steal it because you can.
no. the most notorious downloaders, myself included, are also the most notorious music fans. i buy all kinds of stuff from artists. i have an emusic account that i bottom out on a monthly basis, often in minutes. i have t-shirts and stuff from lots of people, but i express my true fandom in other ways. yes i download a lot of stuff, but i pay for a lot of stuff too.
if you take people like me out of the equation, then you take a good deal of the buying public out as well.
i learned about a small rap group called dualcore (www.dualcoremusic.com) on penny-arcade and paid to download their music because i had to have one of their tracks since i felt like it had been made specifically for me.
i loved the track so much that i contacted them and learned that they were local to me and i have since volunteered at shows, advocated their music, and supported them in ways that only a true fan would. int80 has rewarded my fandom with friendship, a chance to be "with the band" on a few occasions and sneak peeks at tracks before their albums are released.
that true fandom is what artists should focus on, not beating something unstoppable like piracy.
the only way to "beat" piracy is to transcend it and offer something that can't be copied. be more accessible to your real fans and do not waste your time, effort, or money on people who aren't supporting your work. it also helps to realize that people will support you in ways that don't involve money.
So, it's a mistake, and only makes things worse, to respond to criminal activity by confronting it?
it's a mistake to not take an extra 30 seconds and read any of the hundred letters sent to TPB where they laugh at people who write them letters before writing your own and essentailly inviting them to make fun of you. not only do they not do what you want, they will publish your cease and desist letter along with an antagonistic reply. asking TPB to stop doing something is asking to be made fun of. crying about being made fun of afterward is just pathetic.
As for "treating consumers as criminals" ... well, uh, they are when they're braking the law, by definition.
the law is outmoded and wrong. the law is a crutch that is propping up industries that became obsolete a decade ago. TPB is a wakeup call to these industries that they have to change the way they do business. just like prohibition that was eventually repealed, copyright laws will be overhauled, largely because of the sheer number of regular people that are now "criminals".
sure there are people that won't pay, ever. they are not the people to focus your attention on. you should spend your time and money courting and rewarding the people who do pay.
you can't stop file sharing, so stop wasting your time and money. your content will be shared no matter what your feelings may be on the subject. if you have paying fans, treat them well and give them more incentive to give you money.
Replacing the current infrastructure likely will cost AN AWFUL LOT, so the delay (and thus chaos) would be HUGE.
maybe an alternative can be built in a decentralized and modular fashion, like a computer network that grows over time. perhaps short regional flights can be replaced with a fast rail or bus system, or flights based on alternative fuels, and those systems can be connected together in time.
whatever it is that will replace air travel (if indeed air travel needs to be replaced) might start with a small build out (compared to the current air travel system), with additional expansions/connections over time as local systems are connected regionally, and regional systems are connected nationally, and national systems are connected internationally.
perhaps the fuel source for airplanes will be replaced, perhaps super efficient or super sonic underground/underwater trains or busses will be built. maybe both will happen and competition between the two will benefit travelers.
there seem to be these huge airports everywhere, maybe those terminals can be gradually converted into the regional and national hubs for the new system.
the difference between leaks and hacks is the same as the difference between negligence and malice.
should you be held liable for doing something stupid that harms others? sure. like falling asleep at the wheel and causing a fatal accident, you should be held accountable being negligent with people's personal information.
is that the same as deliberately doing something that hurts others? of course not. driving on the sidewalk with the intent of running people over is a much worse crime than falling asleep at the wheel, even if no one is injured in your sidewalk rampage.
the issue boils down to a question of intent. once you get past that, the issue is still really complicated.
a company having questionable security practices are where it really gets interesting. i mean, they aren't trying to be unsafe, they just aren't aware of what safe is, or are too cheap/lazy/incompetent to implement security measures.
is there an enforceable definition of what safe is in terms of information security? can we trust state/federal legislators to come up with a definition that won't land us all in jail?
it stands to reason that if you conformed to some sort of accepted standard for security measures and your data was compromised by an outsider then you shouldn't face the same penalties as a company that disregards information security. that would be like punishing the victim of an assault for not defending himself.
there are industry standards, but should those be made enforceable? is there a federal or national standards body for information security? there are standards for the government and the military, should those be applied corporations as well? you know, something like an FDA or OSHA?
what happens if you do everything by the book and you get owned by something that isn't in the book? (like a 0day for example) should the company still be held accountable? is that the same as being negligent? are legislators even capable of understanding what a 0day is?
what happens if a company has an employee that actively subverts those reasonable security measures? you took all the steps and someone is working against you. someone might do this on purpose in the case of corporate espionage, or they may do this without realizing it, in the case of a lost or stolen laptop or USB key. someone may have access to sensitive data and move/copy it to a non-secure medium purely in the interest of convenience. should there be a mandate to lock down that sort of activity?
also, upon whom does the responsibility fall? on the company leadership? on the company's IT director? on the negligent party?
it seems like forcing companies to safeguard data is a good idea, but there are a lot of questions that need to be answered.
That's an ideal scenario, far removed from the real world where we all live in. But what if PC makers refuse to do so? After all, they don't need the games to sell PCs; it's the other way round. And they can always turn around and say: Sales are good enough, we don't need to throw money at game developers.
office and windows may sell a lot of dell and ibm computers, but gaming is another story.
video cards, high end processors and high end memory are brisk businesses among gamers. they are the only market that i am aware of that will not just buy new gear as soon as it comes out, but then proceed to void the warranty on it by overclocking or flashing it with third party firmware just to gain an extra percentage point of performance.
If you are trying to encourage sales of your companies hardware, are you going to invest in making a game that could run on any of the staandardised hardware? I think not.
i think so. PC software is what it is because of interoperability. hardware marches on at a much faster pace than software.
you might see optimizations for a given chip or video card but you see that already today with certain daughter cards (agea physX for example). games like city of heroes and ghost recon are optimized for those cards, but play like any other game on amd/ati hardware.
PC gaming hardware changes fast. hardcore gamers buy new video cards every couple of months and new rigs every year. no developer in his/her right mind would make a PC game that was confined to a specific hardware configuration.
Why use OpenDNS? is there some level of security or anonymity it provides?
they are not your ISP and won't be co-erced into monkeying with your DNS resolution. as dan kaminsky taught us, if you can trust DNS, you can't trust ssl, ssh, certificates, basically the entire network.
the only thing missing from the lesson is using (and updating!!!) peer guardian. forced stealth is nice, but seeing the blocked connections from media sentry and their ilk is even better.
Re: What critical Microsoft code would be revealed?
IE is bonded to windows at the molecular level. you can't remove it from windows. this is how they pushed netscape out of the market and what has landed them in trouble with the EU, along with windows media player.
MS understands the power of free all too well. they are the best example of loss leadership in software to date:
IE is free but only runs on windows and macOS (and for a short time, solaris). apple wanted to dump IE for netscape in the 90's and MS threatened to stop making office for the mac in retalliation. IE is the easiest to code for and get script and components to work correctly in (because of its molecular bonding to windows) so most of the web recommended it instead of anything else. giving IE away creates demand for windows.
IIS/ASP are bundled into server versions of windows and could be considered free in much the same way as IE. again, they are easy to develop with/for and so a lot of companies end up buying windows server. again, a free product that you can't get without buying a version of windows.
On the post: Woman Arrested For Threatening To Hold Broadband Repair Guy Hostage
Re: Geez
we sent soldiers to deal with germany, not cable/phone guys.
you know, real men that know what they are there to do and are willing to do what it takes to get the job done.
if WWII had fought by cable companies we'd be watching tv in german and watching david hasselhoff on demand.
On the post: Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of More Patents?
you missed their other sign
On the post: Mixed Signals: Is There A Broadband Price War? Is It A New Thing?
competition? wtf is that?
that's not choice and that's not competition. that's two monopolies offering similar products to prop up customer lock in.
if things were truly deregulated, then it should be possible for others to enter into these markets. why hasn't anyone done that?
On the post: Google's Browser Is A Warning Shot At Windows, Not At Internet Explorer
Re: Re: Re: Online/OS
yeah, people work offline all the time. that's why most corporate offices grind to a halt when the email system is down. if you don't work in a corporate office then imagine what would happen if SAP went down.
if both systems went offline at the same time, most office workers would start killing and eating each other within an hour.
On the post: Credit Card Companies Gagged Mythbusters Over RFID Vulnerabilities?
Re: Yes Shoot the messenger! These are not the droids you are looking for...
Discovery is the best programming a corporate bribe can buy!
you act like the media has some sort of responsibility to us. we are a product, a commodity to be leveraged and traded. the media's only responsibility is to the company execs and the stock holders. the execs and stock holders only care about profits, and profits are dictated by advertisers. er go, advertisers will always be able to bend media companies to their will. if you think fox or nbc or cnn are any different than the discovery channel you are woefully naive.
real security research is now and will forever be underground. it's cheaper to provide the illusion of security than it is to build truly secure systems, so corporations and governments will always opt for obscurity first until an independent researcher exposes these vulnerabilities.
the credit industry is built on impulse buying. secure systems with integrity checks and access restrictions are a hindrance to impulse buys and will never be implemented. credit systems will always be flawed and fraud will just be considered the cost of doing business. if you think that's pessimistic think about this: what does a company do when it's had a large data breach: it buys the victims a year of credit monitoring and it moves on like it never happened.
why do you think credit card companies and news programs blame ID thefts and credit card fraud on hackers?
identities get stolen by identity thieves. credit card companies are defrauded by con artists. there is no hacking involved 99% of the time.
corporations want you to see competitive analysis and independent research as the products of shadowy figures that we need to fear so that you will mistrust the exposure of security vulnerabilities and not ask scary and expensive questions.
On the post: The Mainstream Media Has No Shortage Of Resources
news guys have to fly around the world
maybe i'm alone here, but i just love to watch aging white guys fail to keep the fear out of their voices when they report from war zones and disaster areas. watching them be frightened while sitting 10 miles away from any real activity is just extra win.
doubly so for weather guys. i don't really believe there is a hurricane unless some jackass from a news agency is standing in the driving wind and rain taking his over privileged life in his own hands.
that what hard hitting news is all about: getting paid fat stacks to fly around the world and repeat what the government has told you to say.
On the post: Google's Browser Is A Warning Shot At Windows, Not At Internet Explorer
queue goobuntu conspiracy in 3,2,1
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/20/the-google-set-top-box-t hink-android-for-tv/
there has been talk of a google browser, google OS, and google computers/set top boxes for years. perhaps this is the first step.
if it's open source and cross platform, it might be worth checking out.
On the post: You Don't Beat Pirates By Doing Something More Annoying
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Add value?
they were raided by the swedish police two years ago and were back online in less than 3 days. the police shut them down (swedish criminal law was on the bandwagon thanks to pressure from the US) and couldn't make a case against them. people try to shut them down and fail because they are not doing anything wrong there in sweden.
For people who say "we are doing nothing wrong here in our home country", I do have to wonder why they found it necessary to "move" servers to various foreign locations.
they have backup servers elsewhere sure, but so does just about every large website. they are still based in sweden. the announcement that they moved to egypt was an april fool's day joke.
On the post: You Don't Beat Pirates By Doing Something More Annoying
Re: Re: Re: It's not for Lack of Trying
no. the most notorious downloaders, myself included, are also the most notorious music fans. i buy all kinds of stuff from artists. i have an emusic account that i bottom out on a monthly basis, often in minutes. i have t-shirts and stuff from lots of people, but i express my true fandom in other ways. yes i download a lot of stuff, but i pay for a lot of stuff too.
if you take people like me out of the equation, then you take a good deal of the buying public out as well.
i learned about a small rap group called dualcore (www.dualcoremusic.com) on penny-arcade and paid to download their music because i had to have one of their tracks since i felt like it had been made specifically for me.
i loved the track so much that i contacted them and learned that they were local to me and i have since volunteered at shows, advocated their music, and supported them in ways that only a true fan would. int80 has rewarded my fandom with friendship, a chance to be "with the band" on a few occasions and sneak peeks at tracks before their albums are released.
that true fandom is what artists should focus on, not beating something unstoppable like piracy.
the only way to "beat" piracy is to transcend it and offer something that can't be copied. be more accessible to your real fans and do not waste your time, effort, or money on people who aren't supporting your work. it also helps to realize that people will support you in ways that don't involve money.
On the post: You Don't Beat Pirates By Doing Something More Annoying
Re:
it's a mistake to not take an extra 30 seconds and read any of the hundred letters sent to TPB where they laugh at people who write them letters before writing your own and essentailly inviting them to make fun of you. not only do they not do what you want, they will publish your cease and desist letter along with an antagonistic reply. asking TPB to stop doing something is asking to be made fun of. crying about being made fun of afterward is just pathetic.
As for "treating consumers as criminals" ... well, uh, they are when they're braking the law, by definition.
the law is outmoded and wrong. the law is a crutch that is propping up industries that became obsolete a decade ago. TPB is a wakeup call to these industries that they have to change the way they do business. just like prohibition that was eventually repealed, copyright laws will be overhauled, largely because of the sheer number of regular people that are now "criminals".
sure there are people that won't pay, ever. they are not the people to focus your attention on. you should spend your time and money courting and rewarding the people who do pay.
you can't stop file sharing, so stop wasting your time and money. your content will be shared no matter what your feelings may be on the subject. if you have paying fans, treat them well and give them more incentive to give you money.
On the post: And What Would Happen If Commercial Aviation Was Simply Impossible To Do Profitably?
Re: Re: Hmmm....
maybe an alternative can be built in a decentralized and modular fashion, like a computer network that grows over time. perhaps short regional flights can be replaced with a fast rail or bus system, or flights based on alternative fuels, and those systems can be connected together in time.
whatever it is that will replace air travel (if indeed air travel needs to be replaced) might start with a small build out (compared to the current air travel system), with additional expansions/connections over time as local systems are connected regionally, and regional systems are connected nationally, and national systems are connected internationally.
perhaps the fuel source for airplanes will be replaced, perhaps super efficient or super sonic underground/underwater trains or busses will be built. maybe both will happen and competition between the two will benefit travelers.
there seem to be these huge airports everywhere, maybe those terminals can be gradually converted into the regional and national hubs for the new system.
On the post: Should It Be Illegal To Get Hacked?
the difference between leaks and hacks
should you be held liable for doing something stupid that harms others? sure. like falling asleep at the wheel and causing a fatal accident, you should be held accountable being negligent with people's personal information.
is that the same as deliberately doing something that hurts others? of course not. driving on the sidewalk with the intent of running people over is a much worse crime than falling asleep at the wheel, even if no one is injured in your sidewalk rampage.
the issue boils down to a question of intent. once you get past that, the issue is still really complicated.
a company having questionable security practices are where it really gets interesting. i mean, they aren't trying to be unsafe, they just aren't aware of what safe is, or are too cheap/lazy/incompetent to implement security measures.
is there an enforceable definition of what safe is in terms of information security? can we trust state/federal legislators to come up with a definition that won't land us all in jail?
it stands to reason that if you conformed to some sort of accepted standard for security measures and your data was compromised by an outsider then you shouldn't face the same penalties as a company that disregards information security. that would be like punishing the victim of an assault for not defending himself.
there are industry standards, but should those be made enforceable? is there a federal or national standards body for information security? there are standards for the government and the military, should those be applied corporations as well? you know, something like an FDA or OSHA?
what happens if you do everything by the book and you get owned by something that isn't in the book? (like a 0day for example) should the company still be held accountable? is that the same as being negligent? are legislators even capable of understanding what a 0day is?
what happens if a company has an employee that actively subverts those reasonable security measures? you took all the steps and someone is working against you. someone might do this on purpose in the case of corporate espionage, or they may do this without realizing it, in the case of a lost or stolen laptop or USB key. someone may have access to sensitive data and move/copy it to a non-secure medium purely in the interest of convenience. should there be a mandate to lock down that sort of activity?
also, upon whom does the responsibility fall? on the company leadership? on the company's IT director? on the negligent party?
it seems like forcing companies to safeguard data is a good idea, but there are a lot of questions that need to be answered.
On the post: Should It Be Illegal To Get Hacked?
Re: Another Thought
On the post: The Benefits Of Piracy Aren't Always In The Expected Places
Re:
office and windows may sell a lot of dell and ibm computers, but gaming is another story.
video cards, high end processors and high end memory are brisk businesses among gamers. they are the only market that i am aware of that will not just buy new gear as soon as it comes out, but then proceed to void the warranty on it by overclocking or flashing it with third party firmware just to gain an extra percentage point of performance.
On the post: The Benefits Of Piracy Aren't Always In The Expected Places
Re: Proprietary Games
i think so. PC software is what it is because of interoperability. hardware marches on at a much faster pace than software.
you might see optimizations for a given chip or video card but you see that already today with certain daughter cards (agea physX for example). games like city of heroes and ghost recon are optimized for those cards, but play like any other game on amd/ati hardware.
PC gaming hardware changes fast. hardcore gamers buy new video cards every couple of months and new rigs every year. no developer in his/her right mind would make a PC game that was confined to a specific hardware configuration.
On the post: No, Websites Shouldn't Roll Their Own Encryption
Re: Re: Use SSL and use it properly, dammit!
the germans in WWII thought their encryption was perfect too. i wonder if that is a side effect of reality distortion fields.
On the post: Voice Is Data: Tech Won't Be Able To Stop VoIP In The Air
Re:
i have forgotten to turn my mobile off on a couple of flights and i have lived to tell the tale.
On the post: Totally False Propaganda About File Sharing Being Given To Students As Educational Material
Re: Re: How DL torrents 101
they are not your ISP and won't be co-erced into monkeying with your DNS resolution. as dan kaminsky taught us, if you can trust DNS, you can't trust ssl, ssh, certificates, basically the entire network.
the only thing missing from the lesson is using (and updating!!!) peer guardian. forced stealth is nice, but seeing the blocked connections from media sentry and their ilk is even better.
On the post: Totally False Propaganda About File Sharing Being Given To Students As Educational Material
propaganda is part of college life
that's what college is for: getting drunk, finding outif you are a lesbian, and being exposed to people's propaganda.
the MAFIAA are just getting in on the act. if anything it opens the door for the pirate party to hand out it's own propaganda.
On the post: The First Step Is For Microsoft To Admit It Has A Problem
Re: What critical Microsoft code would be revealed?
MS understands the power of free all too well. they are the best example of loss leadership in software to date:
IE is free but only runs on windows and macOS (and for a short time, solaris). apple wanted to dump IE for netscape in the 90's and MS threatened to stop making office for the mac in retalliation. IE is the easiest to code for and get script and components to work correctly in (because of its molecular bonding to windows) so most of the web recommended it instead of anything else. giving IE away creates demand for windows.
IIS/ASP are bundled into server versions of windows and could be considered free in much the same way as IE. again, they are easy to develop with/for and so a lot of companies end up buying windows server. again, a free product that you can't get without buying a version of windows.
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