[TriLUG] incoherent ramblings

[Ilan Volow]

On Sat, 21 Sep 2002 00:20:30 -0400
Greg Brown <gregbrown at mindspring.com> wrote:

.
> 
> What really strikes me is aren't we going backwards with all this copy
>  protection BS?  Right now I get most of my news from NPR and the web.
>    If it comes down to me either bowing down to Bill Gates to surf the
>     'net or NOT surfing all I'll take the latter.  Just cancel my  
> RoadRunner and DirectTV, thank you.  I'll get my news from the radio. 
>  Welcome to the 1940s!   Oh, the reason I'll be giving up my TV is the
>   recording industry is pushing to have all television stations to  
> digital by 2004, not 2007 which is the current date of all this going 
> digital.  The recording industry is also pushing for digital signals
> to  have a "digital watermark" which prevents the "unauthorized
> copying" of  the signals.  This means all TV sets are obsolete as well
> as DVD-Rs,  VHS, TiVOs, etc.  Nice, huh?
> 

What scares me about DRM is DRM hard drives. What happens if the copy
protection bit accidently gets set on, say, your term paper? I'm sure
that the MPAA will just be dying to tell you how to circumvent it so you
can print it out at a lab when its due this afternoon. On the other
hand, DRM hard drives might actually beneift me because instead of
giving my professors the lame excuse that the dog ate my homework, I can
now tell them that it was accidently copy protected and duplication of
it would result in a federal crime. 

> 
> <http://www.froghunters.com/cbdtpa/html/read_the_bill.html>
> A bill in the Senate RIGHT NOW calling for digital copyright  
> protections based on software patented by Microshit
> 
> <http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25891.html>
> Little Billy's plan to eradicate Linux
> 
> <http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=569&ncid=738&e=1&u=/nm/ 
> 20020907/tc_nm/bizcomputers_security_dc>
> More M$ BS
> 
> <http://www.cnn.com/2002/EDUCATION/09/17/school.web.filters.ap/ 
> index.html>
> Red Hat blocked by firewall software purchased by public school.   
> Unrelated?  Maybe.  Maybe not.
> 
> ..and I could go on and on. 
>   

We need porn in schools. Given the sorry state of sex education in North
Carolina, kids gotta learn somewhere. -- 
Ilan Volow, 
listboy at clarux.com

My choice after I quit film school was either to be a script writer for
porno flicks or a linux UI designer. And to tell you the truth, there's
hardly any difference.