On Tue, Mar 05, 2002 at 09:31:02PM -0700, Rick Kelly wrote:
> Charles Shannon Hendrix said:
> 
> >What I'm curious about is how they would make a hard drive comply with this
> >kind of thing.  It would have to either look for some kind of signature,
> >which could be fooled, or have to run software to handle this sort of
> >thing.
> 
> >The whole idea of enforcing copyright on digital media is just insane anyway.
> 
> Apparently, IBM already has this in some of their IDE drives.

I think Western Digital does to.  Someone took apart a Microsoft X-box
and found that replacing the hard drive with a larger one was going to
be difficult because the drive would refuse to copy data to another or
something like that.

> The entertainment industry sees only the web and downloading movies on demand
> when they look at the internet. They see the future of computing to be 
> entertainment appliances that allow input of credit card numbers.

Imagine the horror of a computer used for something else besides that.

What I think really stinks about this is the people who want no content
control will still be forced to use it.  All of it will likely be
proprietary, making home and scientific use difficult.

Also, if other countries do not adopt this, then how will you move
personal and scientific media overseas?  I also wonder what happens to
new versions of existing digital media software, or new creations even
outside of the commercial realm.  It seems there is a valid case for
restricting that too.

Everything the Microsoftian industry does seems to be orthagonal to the
very purpose of computation and the resulting technologies.

> Hollywood will give lots of money to democrats if they vote for it.

They'll give money to anyone who votes for it.  I haven't seen much
intelligence on either side of the divice with regard to computer
technology and related legistlation.

> >I also wonder about systems like Sun workstations.  I don't see how they
> >could possibly comply with SSSCA.  In fact, I don't really see how it could
> >possibly be enforced without enforcing it on all computers, even mainframes
> >and servers.
> 
> Don't confuse them. All they know is Wintel and Apple.

...and their knowledge of Apple is pretty well limited to 'Isn't that
the PC with the fruit as a logo?  Does it run Office?'

> >Otherwise, who is going to draw the line at exactly what is a Personal
> >Computer and it's peripherals, and what is a workstation, server, mini, or
> >mainframe?
> 
> All my systems are servers. :-)

Yeah, I'm picturing myself in court after violating this new law, and the
statement reads "...for using his PC to...and modifying his PC to...".
My response to a request for a plea is, "Something must be wrong your
honor, I don't have a PC."

> >I love it when an industry we largely don't need anymore goes to Congress for
> >survival.
> 
> Billy "want a cigar?" Clinton humped the leg of hollywood for 8 years. They
> have a hard time dealing with change.

Oh great... I needed that image...



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UNIX/Perl/C/Pizza__________________________________shannon@widomaker.com