Should we be buying new Vista ready computers?

[lm]

Around here it's nowadays illegal to bypass copy protection of CDs, so if I buy a copyprotected music CD and actually want to use it by loading it into my computer jukebox would make me a criminal. So if downloading the same CD I don't need to bypass any copy protection, then it's probably a smaller crime, or is it? Any which way, the system is borked.

[nici]

A lesson to other countries, DON´T vote Miss Finland or anything like that to the government.. Try to critisize her and women will say that you are a very bad person and can´t stand it that there is actually a woman that is beautiful and smart and successful, personally i think she is not.

And yes, holding shift while inserting a CD into your computer is illegal. Maybe i should go the police and turn myself in..


You would think there is better things to do than figure out how to make every single citizen a criminal..

And no im not going to switch to linux, im too lazy to figure everything out and tweak stuff. I do use free stuff when i can though, i like OpenOffice for example. Once Linux gets to the point where OpenOffice is now compared to MS Office, i might switch.

And i want a big screen, watching movies on a small tv is just very, very boring imho..

The thing i hate most is that if i wan´t HD content i don´t have any choice but DRM shit. I don´t want to live in a cave with a tinfoil hat eating insects and leaves either.

Maybe i should just get a fast car with a big very uneconomical engine now while i can still drive it myself. In ten years they are probably restricted to 120kph, have crappy economical engines, controlled by GPS or probably galileo by then so i cant speed or make a wrong turn without a ticket waiting for me when i get home. Or maybe private cars are totally banned, and then ten years later we find out that global warming is actually happpening because of rice production.

And by then the people are so scared they will allow the government to plant videocameras in their homes, just in case someone brakes in or farts, wich is probably also illegal by then.


Continuing off topic on the off topic, watching american news broadcasts makes me feel weird. It´s like they are trying to scare people on purpose by continuosly blabbing on about some terrorists and bombs and car chases and murders and bla bla bla.. It´s scary.

Now ill just have some yoghurt. Yoghurt without artificial sweeteners or other sheit like that, i think those should be illegal. Sold to people with diabetes with special permission and any price difference paid by the government.

Yeah ill have a MacMegaBurger, Extra-Large fries and a Diet Coke, anyone else think this is funny? The power of advertising i suppose.

[qviri]

Or maybe private cars are totally banned, and then ten years later we find out that global warming is actually happpening because of rice production.
...
Yoghurt without artificial sweeteners or other sheit like that, i think those should be illegal.

So let's see. You support the freedom to buy an automobile of your liking, but want to ban some kinds of yoghurt.

Care to explain the logic?

[nici]

No not really, i don´t claim to be a rational or very smart human being. Not always very logical either. But when i admit that im completely bonkers, am i really mad? Because mad people often claim to be sane, i think. Maybe im just a regular adrenaline junkie in need of a fix A lazy one too, can´t be bothered. I might speak a bit too directly about my own thoughts from time to time... To be honest i don´t care about some damn yoghurt, as long as i can buy what i believe is proper yoghurt others can buy what they like. Maybe i should start a thread bout yoghurt and see what people like People may do or purchase anything they want as long as long as i may do the same.

No idea if any of this made any sense, i certainly hope not. *insert preferred smilie here*

[Candor]

I don't want to ban yogurt. I just want to standardize its spelling. Perhaps Sony/BMG and Microsoft are already working on a way to copyright the USAmerican way of spelling it. Luckily, most cups of yogurt can't phone home and report you for using an unapproved modification of the proprietary format.

nici, yes the U.S. media is indeed out to scare us as much as possible. That's partly how all of this surveillance stuff is going to wind up with popular support. It's like when we wouldn't allow Playstation 2s to be shipped to Iraq because they could be modified into missile guidance systems. (!) Please someone prove that that was an urban myth!

Though I'd have to ask, if anyone here can mod a PS2 into something of that sort, please post pics and tell us- is it quiet?

The internet is such a scary thing, people can steal your identity now, and talk to your kids on MySpace, and, and, and learn how to silence PCs so they can sneak up on you from behind and force you to listen to music you didn't pay for. Yeah.

[nici]

This yoghurt does not comply with Microsoft Taste Guidelines, this yoghurt will now self destruct. Please visit www.microsoft.com/approvedyoghurts for a complete list of approved, Genuine tastes. *Microsoft does not take any responsibility for consuming non-approved yoghurts. If you suspect you have an illegal yoghurt, please visit our validation site at www.microsoft.com/validateyouryoghurt

[Candor]

This yoghurt does not comply with Microsoft Taste Guidelines, this yoghurt will now self destruct. Please visit www.microsoft.com/approvedyoghurts for a complete list of approved, Genuine tastes. *Microsoft does not take any responsibility for consuming non-approved yoghurts. If you suspect you have an illegal yoghurt, please visit our validation site at www.microsoft.com/validateyouryoghurt

Luckily, the hackers at Yoplait have already cracked this DRM technique.

[thegoldenstrand]

To me it is amazing how far the Government of the United States, that is will go to deny freedoms when no light is on the subject.. and even deny funding for anti-terrorism funding right up until 911.

I was invested in a neat security company called Invision a few years back. and still remember how as small as the company was, it had been legislated that Lockeed needed to be protected by the laws in regards to purchases.. and US purchases had to include one machine from Lockheed.. for every machine from this 30 Million market cap company..

Well.. the DCMA or whatever the initials to the Digital Millenium Copyright act is incredible.. Corporations are supposed to be legal persons, yet this act.. has made them have rights living persons do not have, like 75 years of protection for copyrights.. and.. any kind of tampering with big business software and equipment that might have been for purpose of stopping piracy is now a crime..

There is scarce little competition.. i am a DIY by heart.. but often by the pre built items, like cars, tvs, etc.. but I like to tinker..

People learn and come up with new products by tinkering..

Now.. Tinkering could be illegal..

Criminalized..

This is bad law.. light in the form of public attention needs to be focused on this imo..

Also.. word is that for total Vista Premium Certification.. DIY rigs can not and will not qualify.. even if you paid Intel's not for profit group.. $15,000 for a HDCP license and paid the exhorbitant and unfair prices other groups are demanding.. and the Feds are turning a blind eye to in this regard.. Microsoft and Intel and AMD and Sony.. well. they have decided.. that for the time being the final certifciation.. that big companies can give to the finished product and the chip that goes with it will not be given to small businesses or do it your selfers.. so..

If Enabled.. the lack of this chip could mean.. troublel and non compliance and exclusion from being "trusted" by a very untrustworthy alliance of corporations who want to put Platform encryption key modules into almost all electonic appliances..

Not wanting to go along with this.. and needing to use Windows..

I have read Windows 2000 SP 4 gets around some of this.. as do versions of Windows XP prior to SP2 SP2 apparantly has the enabling software for the embedded hardware included in some of the updates..

So.. being pragmatic.. I have decided to risk some kid hackers and having to deal with a few sniffles over the TCPA having control over my computer.. at least until some checks and balances enter the equation..

Some of these ideas are good, but.. it appears to me.. taking the end user and not trusting them and not providing any real alternatives other than to have our computing possessed with a software/hardware solution that wrest low end control of our pcs away from us.. kind of like a blue pill.. that we must swallow.. is too much for me..

We should have more options than:

Buy 100% trusted components and be trusted.
Buy 100% trusted as DIY and risk having trust and equipment turned off
Don't buy into it and not be trusted.. and risk losing out on better tech and.. communications with "trusted" tech.. as this too could be turned off.

Mike

[breunor]

Over the last 4 years, M$ has been working with the government to create a highly secure system, the project was/is called Palladium. http://www.epic.org/privacy/consumer/mi ... adium.html has info on what it's about. One of the goals was to make software licenses tied to hardware IDs, so that M$ could make an OS for example that only works for certain IDs and prevent pirated software from running at all.

Tie it to DRM controls and you can have software which prevents you from even loading an app to copy your movie/music/anything while that data is in memory. A new app comes out to rip files? M$ finds out and hotfixes the OS to prevent it. You try to prevent hotfixes? Part of the OS which will force you to, or have your license revoked and the OS stops working.

The "I Accept" button is now the power switch to the electric chair your personal freedoms are sitting in.

[Engine]

It would be nice to have a choice?

It would. Of course, it'd be nice to have a lot of things, but dreaming doesn't make it so.

Car manufacturers have been doing this for years: proprietary parts, uncapable of functioning with the competition, protected by government fiat. We put up with it, because we're a long ways away from the days when cars were, ah, "open source." We remember computing when it was less proprietary [although many of us remember when it was /more/] and thus, we object.

We should! Objection is the right of all humans, I think, although it's worth noting that, by itself, objection does generally very little.

A warning about using these software and hardware products would be nice.. the platform has very little to do with DRM, but with the control the platform gives big companies, DRM would be easy to police and control.

Oh, warnings are always nice, but I don't think we deserve those, either. A citizen has the responsibility to be informed; we don't have the /right/ to be informed. I think, anyway.

I was thinking.. maybe we should insist on a warning label before buying and.. why not a choice? Maybe some of us don't want our computers, tvs and cell phones possessed with a platform that gives the power to others to switch off or reduce the quality of whenever they want.

That power, you have. Inform yourself, and vote with the best ballot of all: money. Now, you should know, you're in the minority. Most people won't care, and will happily shell out their dollars for crippled hardware and DRM-protected crap, and so your vote probably won't mean much, but it means more than nothing.

And what, after that? When it's illegal to do what you want to do, and the majority thinks that illegality is acceptable, how do you protest? Start a political action group, as many people today are doing, or join an existing one. Don't spend your money on people who support draconian standards, and write them letters - real, physical ones, please - letting them know why you're not spending your money on them. And then, break the law.

Gods, how to recommend something of the sort! Breaking the law is /wrong!/ Except that it's not: it's the last refuge of the patriot, depending on your point of view. If my nation made it illegal not to eat babies, you can bet I'd break the law, and protest, and start political action groups. Follow your morality, not the law, if the law does not match your morality. Just understand the consequences: you may have to pay enormous sums of money. You may go to prison. Welcome to the revolution.

Or you can do what most everyone will do: complain on message forums, and do little else. Use Linux, and make fun of people who run DRM-infested computers. It won't make any difference, but it might make you feel better.

[Engine]

I should point out none of that vitriol is directed at you, thegoldenstrand: your post was just the gate to my rant. No offense was intended or implied.

[breunor]

/fatbastard

Don't knock baby-eatin until ya try it!

/fatbastard

[crypto]

That power, you have. Inform yourself, and vote with the best ballot of all: money. Now, you should know, you're in the minority. Most people won't care, and will happily shell out their dollars for crippled hardware and DRM-protected crap, and so your vote probably won't mean much, but it means more than nothing.

...

Use Linux, and make fun of people who run DRM-infested computers. It won't make any difference, but it might make you feel better.

You state that "the best ballot of all" is money, yet you think that using Linux instead of paying for a Microsoft product won't make a difference?

[Engine]

That power, you have. Inform yourself, and vote with the best ballot of all: money. Now, you should know, you're in the minority. Most people won't care, and will happily shell out their dollars for crippled hardware and DRM-protected crap, and so your vote probably won't mean much, but it means more than nothing.

...

Use Linux, and make fun of people who run DRM-infested computers. It won't make any difference, but it might make you feel better.

You state that "the best ballot of all" is money, yet you think that using Linux instead of paying for a Microsoft product won't make a difference?

Yes, because, as I also said, "Most people won't care, and will happily shell out their dollars for crippled hardware and DRM-protected crap, and so your vote probably won't mean much, but it means more than nothing." So, "won't make any difference," might be an overstatement, but, "probably won't make enough difference, but is still probably worth doing, particularly for functionality if not principle," is accurate.