VERY,VERY HOT READS, I Would Read The News In This Thread This Thead Is To post Any Thing Ye Want About The News,,NEWS WAS MOVED,READ MY FIRST POST..CHEERS
BMG, a Major Music Label, Adopted Alpha-Audio Technology
BMG (Bertelsmann Music Group), a major music label and pioneer adopting CCCD (Copy Control CD) technology for CD-Audio, decided to choose Settec?s Alpha-Audio technology to protect its music labels from illegal piracy. As for protecting method, BMG has been applying CDS200 technology, which is copy protection technology provided by Macrovision, one of leaders in the copy protection technology market. BMG?s adoption of Settec?s technology can be interpreted as BMG?s high interest in Settec?s superior technology.
Besides its robust primary copy resistance technology, Alpha-Audio M3 type technology, which is applied to BMG?s music albums, offers the best playability/compatibility. Such high playability and compatibility is expected to resolve consumer?s claims caused from inplayability to a greater extent. Moreover, protection for additionally supplemented multimedia contents is another merit only available by employing Settec?s technology. Basically, Alpha-Audio technology prevents one-to-one copying and ripping, an activity converting audio tracks into computer files. Moreover, copying of additional multimedia contents such as music video and bonus track played by Alpha-Audio player is copy controlled as well. Lyrics and photo albums are also supported through proprietary player and built-in banner allows an easy and direct access to the designated website.
?This is a wonderful result of our incessant effort for international marketing activities. With this major deal (with BMG) accomplished, I believe that Settec would continuously develop further relation with other major labels such as EMI, Warner and Universal. Please keep an eye for our newly launching ?Alpha-Audio X-Type,? a revolutionary version of audio protection technology, coming out in year 2004. And we promise that we would continuously strive to work on better and stronger copy protection technology boosting overall sales of music labels. Above all, it is my pleasure that, finally, they came to realize the technical superiority of Alpha-Audio Technology. About this time in the upcoming year, you can expect that Settec would have all four major music labels as our clients? said Dong-Kyu Kim, vice president of Settec. Currently, all four major music labels (BMG, Universal, EMI and Warner) are applying Macrovision?s copy protection technology to their products, while SONY is using its own.
BMG?s adoption of Settec?s technology is notable in the sense that domestic IT firm earned a respect from multi-national conglomerate with its robust technology.
More information about BMG and BMG products can be found on the web at www.bmg.com
http://www.settec.co.kr/bbs/view.php?id=en_press&page=1&sn1=&divp...
VD piracy has been growing threat to home video industry in last few years. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and its international counterpart, the Motion Picture Association (MPA), estimate that the U.S. motion picture industry loses in excess of $3 billion annually in potential worldwide revenue due to piracy. Decreasing price of DVD-R media and DVD writing disc drives has fanned piracy activities and damaged fast-growing DVD home video market.
From the introduction of DVD media in the market, copy protection has been a necessity to DVD as industry standard. Collaborating companies of the DVD media development created protection system called CSS (Contents Scrambling System) which scrambles video contents on the DVD media according to the predefined set of keys. These keys are stored on the DVD in encrypted form, thus preventing people from making digital copies of the original DVD contents into DVD-R or computer files. Unfortunately, the decryption and de-scramble logic have been figured out and known to public as DeCSS technology.
Not only digital copy protection, but also analog copy protection has been used in the market. A U.S. technology driven firm in 1980's introduced an analog DVD protection system called APS (Analog video Protection System). APS is used to distort the composite video output to prevent recording and playback on VHS. However, this protection system does not protect copying activities via RGB or YUV outputs. Analog copy protection for these types of copying is currently being investigated.
With the existing analog copy protection system failing, and ways of digital copying and distributing becoming handier, moving pictures industries face greater threats of revenue decrease due to everyday piracy activities. Digital ripping of movies has been inflicting remarkable growing damage to the movie industry. Not many people tries analog copying these days, digital copying gives better quality in easier storage media. Naturally, DVD contents providers have been openly demanding dedicated digital copy protection system; hence comes Alpha-DVD.
Settec's Alpha-DVD technology is committed to discourage illegal copying activities. Alpha-DVD protects the DVD contents by using multi-layered encryption technology. A number of available DVD copying software has failed to copy the DVDs with Settec' copy protection. The result is: copying process stops or copied content is not viewable.
Alpha-DVD technology reallocates and inserts Alpha-DVD blocks into original movie contents. Such Alpha-DVD blocks provide multi-level protection against ripping activities by commonly used ripping software. Alpha-DVD technology is applied to DVD so that it is completely transparent to legal users while allowing them full compatibility as normal unprotected DVDs. However, when ripping is attempted, errors will occur notifying either ripping is not possible or the ripping tools recognize no disc.
Alpha-DVD provides easy and quick implementation. Unlike previously available DVD copy protection system, no additional process is required for Alpha-DVD during authoring stages. Alpha-DVD application takes place immediately after DVD authoring process. Alpha-DISC Authorized Mastering & Replication companies or Alpha-DISC Resellers in your area applies Alpha-DVD technology to make a protected DVD master. This protected DVD master is delivered for mass replication. For customer preference, Alpha-DVD application to DLT master is also supported.
Alpha-DVD applied DVD can be manufactured in Alpha-DISC Authorized Mastering & Replication facilities. For production support at other facilities, please contact Alpha-DISC Resellers in your area.
Quote:History of DVD copy protections (not CSS):
The first AnyDVD version supporting Sony Arccos was version 4.0.4.1 from September 2004. If I remember correctly, the first Sony Arccos titles were released in Summer 2004. About the same time some titles with the "Puppetlock" protection were first released.
Sony's marketing blurb: http://www.sonydadc.com/products.copy.arccos.go Most newer titles from Sony Pictures (and the companies they own, like Columbia TriStar, MGM) are Sony Arccos protected, but Arccos has recently been seen on non-Sony Pictures DVDs as well.
Support for "Settec Alpha DVD" (a protection created by a LG spinoff in Korea) was added to AnyDVD in January 2005. Settec Alpha DVD marketing blurb: http://www.settec.co.kr/eng/pro_alphadvd.htm Madagascar (US) is not Sony Arccos protected. It is protected by Macrovision RipGuard. The first RipGuad protected title was discoverd around November 2005 ("Vet Hard", R2, Netherlands). As Universal and Macrovision work closely together (see press release: http://www.macrovision.com/company/...18%20PST%202005 ), most new Universal US DVDs are now RipGuard protected. Macrovision marketing blurb: http://www.macrovision.com/products...ard/index.shtml A new copy protection "ProtectDVD" is announced here:
http://www.protectdisc.com/With_FL/html/products.html AnyDVD does not support this protection yet, as we were not able to purchase a disc with this protection. Some people believe, that the rental version of "The Keeper" R2 (Italian) has this protection. We don't know if this rumour is true or false. We were not able to purchase this disc, so we cannot verify it.
__________________
James
p2p news / p2pnet: France is fast becoming a bastion for p2p freedom.
The country was the first to propose legalizing p2p downloading and now a French court has thrown out a case against a p2p file sharer for both downloading and uploading music and movies.
The file sharer was defended by the Association of Audionautes (ADA) in a suit brought by sued by the Société Civile des Producteurs Phonographiques.
"On September 21, 2004, the prosecutor's office found 1875 MP3 and DivX files on the defendant's hard drive," says the ADA.
The man was later sued for allegedly downloading and uploading 1,212 music tracks.
However, "the Judges decided that these acts of downloading and uploading qualified as 'private copying'," says the post.
Also See:
legalizing p2p - French 'legal p2p downloads' plan, February 3, 2006
Association of Audionautes - French judge authorizes downloading and uploading of copyrighted content on the Internet, February 7, 2006
p2p news / p2pnet: Two more DRM applications that'll supposedly prevent 'illegal' file sharing have appeared on the non-event horizon.
The first can detect, "illegally exchanged files in file-sharing networks using the watermark technology combined with a P2P network client," promises the Fraunhofer Integrated Publication and Information Systems Institute (IPSI), quoted in CDRInfo.
"A software program enters a file-sharing network as a user, downloads potentially illegal copies and scans the P2P network for watermarks," it says, going on:
The second, "automatically responds to search queries in file-sharing networks," says the story.
"The system would, for instance, display a warning to a participant, if the file requested happened to be an illegal copy. With the help of search queries addressed within the network the system would be able to compile a list of keywords to detect the requested files and would also prevent multiple downloads of the same file.
"This would allow the files exchanged on the Internet to be correlated with a list of current music charts. The tool is designed as a means of discouragement to scare users who believe they are not observed when trading files on a file-sharing network."
The two Digital Rights Restriction apps will probably be introduced to potential marks at Cebit 2006 in March, says CDRInfo.
Also See:
CDRInfo - New Technology to Detect Illegal File-Sharing , February 7, 2006
p2p news / p2pnet: "Anti-piracy operations conducted throughout the Asia-Pacific region by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) in 2005 confirmed that movie pirates are significantly changing their tactics in an attempt to evade an increased focus on intellectual property crime by Asian law enforcement agencies and courts," says Hollywood through its MPAA clone, the MPA.
MPAA is short for Motion Picture Association of America, and MPA is even shorter for Motion Picture Association.
"MPA operational results made clear that a shift is underway in many countries from large-scale production in optical disc factories using machines that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, to burner labs that can contain dozens of low-cost burners and are often located in apartments and small retail premises," it says.
One of the MPAA/MPA's owners is Sony, a volume make and seller of low-cost burners often found in apartments and small retail premises.
Meanwhile, "burner labs are inexpensive and easy to set up, and if raided, easily and quickly replaceable," says a statement.
Sony sets price for Blu-ray movie discs-two tier system
Posted by Dan Bell on 08 February 2006 - 19:10 - Source: Yahoo!
Hypnosis4U2NV used our news submit to tell us "They set the price for the discs, but what about the players?"
Good question! Also, will the new fangled discs even be able to display their high definition splendor on our present devices? We just read in this interesting article posted by Seán Byrne: "As the launch of HD DVD and Blu-ray products draws near, a lot consumers are going to be disappointed to find that their TV, PC monitor or graphics card will not be compatible with the equipment if it does not fully support HDCP." Ouch!
Better find out before you shell out the cash for these new high definition discs. Or worse yet, purchase an expensive Blu-ray player only to discover you cannot play them in full resolution on your "antiquated" equipment. You might just discover that you will be better off sticking with DVD's until you can justify the investment in the new blue laser format.
Sony Pictures on Tuesday became the first major studio to put a price tag on Blu-ray discs when they become available in U.S. stores this year. At the same time, the studio unveiled what many observers believe will be a key component of the next-generation, high-definition optical disc"s marketing strategy: bundling various formats together to give consumers more flexibility and mobility. Catalog Blu-ray disc titles will wholesale for $17.95, about the same as DVDs when that format hit the market in 1997.
New-release Blu-ray discs will wholesale for $23.45, a premium of 15%-20% over what suppliers were charging for new theatrical DVDs. The higher pricing structure for new releases is meant to accommodate the sell-through and rental markets, said Benjamin Feingold, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
Of course at DigiTimes we already read in January that Blu-ray players are expected to run about $1,000-1800 dollars US. Also, Samsung is touting a Blu-ray player coming for us in April that is around $1000 bucks. However, this puppy can't cut the 1080p mustard and will just output in 1080i! At any rate, here is the link to todays article source if you would like to read a bit more about the movie discs.
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/13039
I am glad to tell you, that I found a solution for the "Out of memory" problem when copying RipGuard protected discs (full backup) with DVDShrink and Nero Recode today.
This means, that the next AnyDVD version will have the fix you have been waiting for. And it will have another nice surprise as well: A "copy to harddisk" button, which will not only copy the files from the DVD to your harddisk, but also reconstruct broken .ifo files by scanning-while-copying the .VOB files. This option can be used as an emergency for discs which cannot be copied otherwise.
VSO changes name of DivXtoDVD to ConvertXtoDvd
Posted by Quakester2000 on 08 February 2006 - 21:29 - Source: VSO
omen71 used our news submit to tell us that VSO software has changed the name of its popular DivXtoDVD to ConvertXtoDVD. A new version of the software has been released bringing the version number to 2.0.1.101.
VSO have taken feedback from users on how to improve the software and new features such as being able to create DVD menus have been integrated. Other features allow you to set how you want the created DVD to be played on your media systems for example video looping or auto starting the DVD disc.
For more information check out VSO's website.
VSOVSO Software announces a new product ConvertXtoDVD. This product is actually a new version of the well known DivXtoDVD. This version has integrated the requests through VSO surveys and introduces many new major features.
One of the most exciting features introduced is the option to create DVD Menu automatically from the conversion file list. You can make a personalized menu as well as define how you would like your DVD to be read (AutoStart the movie, loop the videos ).
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/13040
Little-known data-collection system could troll news, blogs, even e-mails. Will it go too far?
By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity.
The system - parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development - is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy.
"We don't realize that, as we live our lives and make little choices, like buying groceries, buying on Amazon, Googling, we're leaving traces everywhere," says Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We have an attitude that no one will connect all those dots. But these programs are about connecting those dots - analyzing and aggregating them - in a way that we haven't thought about. It's one of the underlying fundamental issues we have yet to come to grips with."
The core of this effort is a little-known system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE). Only a few public documents mention it. ADVISE is a research and development program within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), part of its three-year-old "Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment" portfolio. The TVTA received nearly $50 million in federal funding this year.
DHS officials are circumspect when talking about ADVISE. "I've heard of it," says Peter Sand, director of privacy technology. "I don't know the actual status right now. But if it's a system that's been discussed, then it's something we're involved in at some level."
Data-mining is a key technology
A major part of ADVISE involves data-mining - or "dataveillance," as some call it. It means sifting through data to look for patterns. If a supermarket finds that customers who buy cider also tend to buy fresh-baked bread, it might group the two together. To prevent fraud, credit-card issuers use data-mining to look for patterns of suspicious activity.
What sets ADVISE apart is its scope. It would collect a vast array of corporate and public online information - from financial records to CNN news stories - and cross-reference it against US intelligence and law-enforcement records. The system would then store it as "entities" - linked data about people, places, things, organizations, and events, according to a report summarizing a 2004 DHS conference in Alexandria, Va. The storage requirements alone are huge - enough to retain information about 1 quadrillion entities, the report estimated. If each entity were a penny, they would collectively form a cube a half-mile high - roughly double the height of the Empire State Building.
But ADVISE and related DHS technologies aim to do much more, according to Joseph Kielman, manager of the TVTA portfolio. The key is not merely to identify terrorists, or sift for key words, but to identify critical patterns in data that illumine their motives and intentions, he wrote in a presentation at a November conference in Richland, Wash.
For example: Is a burst of Internet traffic between a few people the plotting of terrorists, or just bloggers arguing? ADVISE algorithms would try to determine that before flagging the data pattern for a human analyst's review.
At least a few pieces of ADVISE are already operational. Consider Starlight, which along with other "visualization" software tools can give human analysts a graphical view of data. Viewing data in this way could reveal patterns not obvious in text or number form. Understanding the relationships among people, organizations, places, and things - using social-behavior analysis and other techniques - is essential to going beyond mere data-mining to comprehensive "knowledge discovery in databases," Dr. Kielman wrote in his November report. He declined to be interviewed for this article.
One data program has foiled terrorists
Starlight has already helped foil some terror plots, says Jim Thomas, one of its developers and director of the government's new National Visualization Analytics Center in Richland, Wash. He can't elaborate because the cases are classified, he adds. But "there's no question that the technology we've invented here at the lab has been used to protect our freedoms - and that's pretty cool."
As envisioned, ADVISE and its analytical tools would be used by other agencies to look for terrorists. "All federal, state, local and private-sector security entities will be able to share and collaborate in real time with distributed data warehouses that will provide full support for analysis and action" for the ADVISE system, says the 2004 workshop report.
Some antiterror efforts die - others just change names
Defense Department
November 2002 - The New York Times identifies a counterterrorism program called Total Information Awareness.
September 2003 - After terminating TIA on privacy grounds, Congress shuts down its successor, Terrorism Information Awareness, for the same reasons.
Department of Homeland Security
February 2003 - The department's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announces it's replacing its 1990s-era Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS I).
July 2004 - TSA cancels CAPPS II because of privacy concerns.
August 2004 - TSA says it will begin testing a similar system - Secure Flight - with built-in privacy features.
July 2005 - Government auditors charge that Secure Flight is violating privacy laws by holding information on 43,000 people not suspected of terrorism.
A program in the shadows
Yet the scope of ADVISE - its stage of development, cost, and most other details - is so obscure that critics say it poses a major privacy challenge.
"We just don't know enough about this technology, how it works, or what it is used for," says Marcia Hofmann of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "It matters to a lot of people that these programs and software exist. We don't really know to what extent the government is mining personal data."
Even congressmen with direct oversight of DHS, who favor data mining, say they don't know enough about the program.
"I am not fully briefed on ADVISE," wrote Rep. Curt Weldon (R) of Pennsylvania, vice chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, in an e-mail. "I'll get briefed this week."
Privacy concerns have torpedoed federal data-mining efforts in the past. In 2002, news reports revealed that the Defense Department was working on Total Information Awareness, a project aimed at collecting and sifting vast amounts of personal and government data for clues to terrorism. An uproar caused Congress to cancel the TIA program a year later.
Echoes of a past controversial plan
ADVISE "looks very much like TIA," Mr. Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes in an e-mail. "There's the same emphasis on broad collection and pattern analysis."
But Mr. Sand, the DHS official, emphasizes that privacy protection would be built-in. "Before a system leaves the department there's been a privacy review.... That's our focus."
Some computer scientists support the concepts behind ADVISE.
"This sort of technology does protect against a real threat," says Jeffrey Ullman, professor emeritus of computer science at Stanford University. "If a computer suspects me of being a terrorist, but just says maybe an analyst should look at it ... well, that's no big deal. This is the type of thing we need to be willing to do, to give up a certain amount of privacy."
Others are less sure.
"It isn't a bad idea, but you have to do it in a way that demonstrates its utility - and with provable privacy protection," says Latanya Sweeney, founder of the Data Privacy Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. But since speaking on privacy at the 2004 DHS workshop, she now doubts the department is building privacy into ADVISE. "At this point, ADVISE has no funding for privacy technology."
She cites a recent request for proposal by the Office of Naval Research on behalf of DHS. Although it doesn't mention ADVISE by name, the proposal outlines data-technology research that meshes closely with technology cited in ADVISE documents.
Neither the proposal - nor any other she has seen - provides any funding for provable privacy technology, she adds.
Some in Congress push for more oversight of federal data-mining
Amid the furor over electronic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, Congress may be poised to expand its scrutiny of government efforts to "mine" public data for hints of terrorist activity.
"One element of the NSA's domestic spying program that has gotten too little attention is the government's reportedly widespread use of data-mining technology to analyze the communications of ordinary Americans," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D) of Wisconsin in a Jan. 23 statement.
Senator Feingold is among a handful of congressmen who have in the past sponsored legislation - unsuccessfully - to require federal agencies to report on data-mining programs and how they maintain privacy.
Without oversight and accountability, critics say, even well-intentioned counterterrorism programs could experience mission creep, having their purview expanded to include non- terrorists - or even political opponents or groups. "The development of this type of data-mining technology has serious implications for the future of personal privacy," says Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists.
Even congressional supporters of the effort want more information about data-mining efforts.
"There has to be more and better congressional oversight," says Rep. Curt Weldon (R) of Pennsylvania and vice chairman of the House committee overseeing the Department of Homeland Security. "But there can't be oversight till Congress understands what data-mining is. There needs to be a broad look at this because they [intelligence agencies] are obviously seeing the value of this."
Data-mining - the systematic, often automated gleaning of insights from databases - is seen "increasingly as a useful tool" to help detect terrorist threats, the General Accountability Office reported in 2004. Of the nearly 200 federal data-mining efforts the GAO counted, at least 14 were acknowledged to focus on counterterrorism.
While privacy laws do place some restriction on government use of private data - such as medical records - they don't prevent intelligence agencies from buying information from commercial data collectors. Congress has done little so far to regulate the practice or even require basic notification from agencies, privacy experts say.
Indeed, even data that look anonymous aren't necessarily so. For example: With name and Social Security number stripped from their files, 87 percent of Americans can be identified simply by knowing their date of birth, gender, and five-digit Zip code, according to research by Latanya Sweeney, a data-privacy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.
In a separate 2004 report to Congress, the GAO cited eight issues that need to be addressed to provide adequate privacy barriers amid federal data-mining. Top among them was establishing oversight boards for such programs.
p2pnet.net Feature:- p2pnet's Movies File Share Top Ten is compiled from statistics supplied by p2p research company Big Champagne.
Only on p2pnet.
If you want to see how BC develops them, head over to the music FSTT, or go to our Q&A with ceo Eric Garland here.
(Note: If a movie returns after being out of the charts for two weeks or longer, it's designated 'new'.) 'Return' means back after a week's absence.
Movies Top Ten File Share Downloads, Global
Week ending February 9, 2006
Ranking Movie Number of Downloads
01 >>> The Wedding Crashers (unchanged) 1,079,393
02 >>> Redeye + #4 1,059,985
03 >>> Underworld: Evolution + #7 1,047,694
04 >>> The Chronicles of Narnia: LWW (return) 1,015,082
05 >>> King Kong (return) 996,775
06 >>> Hostel (new) 993,170
07 >>> Flight Plan + #10 991,320
08 >>> The Exorcism of Emily Rose (unchanged) 950,304
09 >>> Big Momma's House 2 (new) 948,829
10 >>> Mr. & Mrs. Smith - #5 936,725
Movies Top Ten File Share Downloads, USA
Week ending February 9, 2006
Ranking Movie Number of Downloads
01 >>> The Wedding Crashers (unchanged) 586,703
02 >>> Underworld: Evolution + #5 581,263
03 >>> Redeye (unchanged) 566,408
04 >>> The Chronicles of Narnia: LWW - #2 563,697
05 >>> Hostel + #6 547,259
06 >>> King Kong - #4 545,995
07 >>> Flight Plan (new) 540,151
08 >>> Big Momma's House 2 + #10 534,172
09 >>> The Fog (new) 518,627
10 >>> Mr. & Mrs. Smith - #7 494,660
p2p news / p2pnet: Who would have guessed the taxpayers of Germany are actually among the biggest contributors to Hollywood's bottom line?
Investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein recently exposed the enormous tax shelter that allows Hollywood studios (or any other movie maker, for that matter) to reap multi-million dollar tax windfalls through a series of clever on-paper transactions.
This is how it's done:
A section in the German tax law allows German corporations to get an immediate tax deduction on any cash they invest in films, including borrowed money. It doesn't have to be a German film either - no filming in Germany, no German actors or crew - just a film that's produced by a German company. The film doesn't even have to be in production, so long as the German company owns the copyright and is included as a recipient of the film's earnings (when it's actually released) it counts as "produced in Germany" for tax purposes.
Along comes a Hollywood studio which sells the copyright and production rights to the German company. The German company then leases those rights straight back to the Hollywood studio ('cause that stuff is "property" and if you can own it, you can lease it out). The German company also gives out a Production Service Agreement and a Distribution Service Agreement that allows the Hollywood studio to produce and distribute the film.
Now the tricky part: the Hollywood studio give the German corporation an "advance" on the film's earnings instead of any kind of percentage. As far as the German taxman is concerned, this meets the requirement of the German company to get some of the "profit" from the film. The Hollywood studio then buys back the rights to the film for less than what it sold them to the German corporation for, meaning the German corporation makes a tax deductible loss on the deal which can be defered to whenever it wants to claim it.
In selling the rights back to the Hollywood studio the German connection is severed, leaving the German taxpayer to make up for the German company's "loss".
Epstein gives a great example of this little scheme in action:
Consider the case of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
A Munich-based tax-shelter fund, Hannover Leasing, had a corporate shell pay $150 million to New Line Cinemas for the movie's copyright, which it simultaneously leased back to a New Line affiliate. It also entered into agreements for New Line to produce and distribute the movie.
At the end of filming, New Line Cinemas paid the German company the agreed-upon minimum advance (which approximately equaled the interest on the initial investment) to honour the pretence that the Germans had participated in the profits. For engaging in these strictly paper transactions, New Line "earned" $16 million, a tidy "money-for-nothing" sum.
One Paramount executive admitted to Epstein that his studio made between $70 and $90 million from these tax shelters in 2003 - more than it actually made from the movies themselves!
Fortunately for the good people of Germany, their government is in the process of shutting down the huge hole that's allowed the American studios to get away with this, but only after years of hundreds of millions of dollars being pulled out of the German economy.
In some ways, it's comforting to know the film industry can screw an entire country as easily as it screws individuals. It's simply another demonstration of how a corporation is designed to care about one thing and one thing only - money. As far as the studios are concerned, it's just business.
So if you've ever wondered why there are so many crap movies out there (like anything that Uwe Boll has ever made), just remember the German government was paying people to make those movies suck.
Further reading on Uwe Boll's exploitation of the loophole can be found here.
Alex H, p2pnet - Sydney, Australia
[Alex is an operations manager for an ATM (automatic teller machine) supplier and he specialises in infrastructure development and maintenance, and logistics. He?s also an[other] active member of the Shareaza community who's just started his own blog called Tech Loves Art where you'll find past p2pnet posts, together with other goodies to come ; ]
p2p news / p2pnet: Don't use the Search Across Computers feature in Google's Desktop 3, out today, warns the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) emphatically.
It snags copies of users' Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google servers, in the process making personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, "while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password," says the foundation.
"Unless you configure Google Desktop very carefully, and few people will, Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index," says EFF attorney Kevin Bankston.
"The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business, and in many cases you wouldn't even be notified in time to challenge it.
"Other litigants - your spouse, your business partners or rivals, whomever - could also try to cut out the middleman (you) and subpoena Google for your files."
The privacy problems arise from the fact the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) gives only limited protection to emails and other files stored with online service providers - much less privacy than the legal protections for the same information when it's on your computer at home, says the EFF, adding:
"And even that lower level of legal protection could disappear if Google uses your data for marketing purposes. Google says it is not yet scanning the files it copies from your hard drive in order to serve targeted advertising, but it hasn't ruled out the possibility, and Google's current privacy policy appears to allow it."
Also See:
out today - Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation, February 9, 2006
last time around - Google releases Desktop 3, February 9, 2006
READ THE ABOVE POST VERY CAREFULL SO YE UNDERSTAND IT!!!!!!!
Unless you configure Google Desktop very carefully, and few people will, Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index," says EFF attorney Kevin Bankston.
p2p news / p2pnet: Remember when Google first launched its desktop search application?
"Users of the Google Desktop Search software beware - it indexes your files across all users on your PC, bypassing user protections," said Dioscaido on slashdot. "The Google cache feature allows all users to browse the contents of messages and files it has indexed, irrespective of who is logged in. 'This is not a bug, rather a feature,' says Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer Web products. 'Google Desktop Search is not intended to be used on computers that are shared with more than one person'.
"Reminds me of a Neal Stephenson essay: 'The Hole Hawg is dangerous because it does exactly what you tell it to. It is not bound by the physical limitations that are inherent in a cheap drill, and neither is it limited by safety interlocks that might be built into a homeowner's product by a liability-conscious manufacturer. The danger lies not in the machine itself but in the user's failure to envision the full consequences of the instructions he gives to it'."
Meet Google Desktop 3, released today.
"The new version comes loaded with features that make finding and sharing information even easier and more fun than before," Google promises on its blog.
And among the new features is Search Across Computers which, "makes it seamless to search the content of your documents and web history from any of your computers".
To make it thus, users need to store their hard drive indexes on Google servers instead of their own systems and, "This applies to your Web history (from Internet Explorer, FireFox, Netscape, and Mozilla); Microsoft Word documents; Microsoft Excel spreadsheets," Jack Schofield points out in a Guardian Unlimited story.
"Even if Google isn't evil (or more evil than is commercially necessary), this idea also relies on Google being invulnerable to hackers (including the ones that work for the CIA), and also able to fend off government agencies with subpoenas trawling for information," he says, adding:
"Of course, you also have to be able to protect and defend your own computers, even when you are out of the house/office. Otherwise the person who nicks your notebook PC may also get access to critical files on your desktops.... including that little Notepad file where you keep all your pins and passwords."
Also See:
first launched - Google Desktop Search: Spyware?, October 15, 2004
Guardian Unlimited - Google's new Desktop 3 will let Google store files from your hard disk, February 9, 2006
READ THE ABOVE POST 2-POSTS VERY CAREFULL SO YE UNDERSTAND IT!!!!!!!
Unless you configure Google Desktop very carefully, and few people will, Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index," says EFF attorney Kevin Bankston.
p2p news / p2pnet: "Copy protection is not about stamping out piracy. Sure, it will cut down on piracy - at least the casual file-trading that goes on. But at its heart, its about finding new ways to monetize the content. And by 'monetize the content,' I mean charge you multiple times for the same thing'."
For copy protection read DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) and the quote comes at the end of Eric Bangeman's Ars Technica post on the fact HBO argues its programming, and all "Subscription Video On Demand" services, should fall into the category of "Copy Never."
"In a broadcast-flagged world, that translate into consumers not being able to record content broadcast by HBO. No TiVo, no VCR, no video capturing on your PC, no nada," says Bangeman, going on:
Earlier, although the FCC's attempt to enforce the broadcast flag failed, "the networks are moving full steam ahead on getting the flag written into law one way or another," he says, mentioning the infamous analog hole, "and there have been a number of Congressional hearings on piracy and copyright. No matter what the venue, the mantra of the media industry has been the same: restrictions on what consumers can do with their broadcasts are absolutely necessary in order to stop piracy and keep the networks in business."
Meanwhile, the proposed restrictions on recording HBO's programming are, "a clear and simple money grab," adds the Ars Technica item.
"Love watching Deadwood, but missed the premiere of the new episode on Sunday night? Well, you may not be able record it, but HBO will be happy to deliver an on-demand viewing to you for an extra couple of bucks."
Also See:
Ars Technica - HBO wants its programming to be off-limits for DVRs, February 9, 2006
Resident Evil 4' nabs game-of-year award
..This game rocks ....
Capcom's "Resident Evil 4" picked up awards for video game of the year and best action video game at Ziff Davis Media Game Group's annual 1UP Awards in San Francisco on Wednesday.
Full story ZDNet
'Resident Evil 4' nabs game-of-year award
Capcom's "Resident Evil 4" picked up awards for video game of the year and best action video game at Ziff Davis Media Game Group's annual 1UP Awards in San Francisco on Wednesday.
The awards, hosted at the epicenter of the $10 billion video game industry, honored game publishers and developers who have made a powerful impact on American culture and the entertainment industry. During the ceremony, nominees' in-game footage and the 1UP Show podcast were projected on movie screens above the crowd.
A list of winners follows.
* ? Game of the year: "Resident Evil 4" (Capcom)
* ? Best action game: "Resident Evil 4" (Capcom)
* ? Best adventure game: "Shadow of the Colossus" (Sony Computer Entertainment)
* ? Best fighting/wrestling game: "Soul Calibur III" (Namco)
* ? Best "massively multiplayer" game: "Guild Wars" (NCsoft)
* ? Best online/multiplayer game: "Battlefield 2" (Electronic Arts)
* ? Best puzzle game: "Lumines" (Ubisoft)
* ? Best racing game: "Mario Kart DS" (Nintendo)
* ? Best role-playing game: "Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King" (Square Enix)
* ? Best shooter game: "Call of Duty 2" (Activision)
In side-by-side tests of Microsoft Internet Explorer and FireFox, IE proved to be far more vulnerable to spyware infections. Most of the exploits that leveraged IE vulnerabilities to plant spyware were based on ActiveX and JavaScript.
By Gregg Keizer
TechWeb News
Feb 9, 2006 02:15 PM
Internet Explorer users can be as much as 21 times more likely to end up with a spyware-infected PC than people who go online with Mozilla's FireFox browser, academic researchers from Microsoft's backyard said in a recently published paper.
"We can't say whether FireFox is a safer browser or not," said Henry Levy, one of the two University of Washington professors who, along with a pair of graduate students, created Web crawlers to scour the Internet for spyware in several 2005 forays. "But we can say that users will have a safer experience [surfing] with FireFox."
In May and October, Levy and colleague Steven Gribble sent their crawlers to 45,000 Web sites, cataloged the executable files found, and tested malicious sites' effectiveness by exposing unpatched versions of Internet Explorer and FireFox to "drive-by downloads." That's the term for the hacker practice of using browser vulnerabilities to install software, sometimes surreptitiously, sometimes not.
"We can't say IE is any less safe," explained Levy, "because we choose to use an unpatched version [of each browser.] We were trying to understand the number of [spyware] threats, so if we used unpatched browsers then we would see more threats."
Levy and Gribble, along with graduate students Alexander Moshchuk and Tanya Bragin, set up IE in two configurations -- one where it behaved as if the user had given permission for all downloads, the other as if the user refused all download permission -- to track the number of successful spyware installations.
During Levy's and Gribble's most recent crawl of October 2005, 1.6 percent of the domains infected the first IE configuration, the one mimicking a naďve user blithely clicking 'Yes;' about a third as many domains (0.6 percent) did drive-by downloads by planting spyware even when the user rejected the installations.
"These numbers may not sound like much," said Gribble, "but consider the number of domains on the Web."
"You definitely want to have all the patches [installed] for Internet Explorer," added Levy.
In the same kind of configurations, FireFox survived relatively unscathed. Only .09 percent of domains infected the Mozilla Corp. browser when it was set, like IE, to act as if the user clicked through security dialogs; no domain managed to infect the FireFox-equipped PC in a drive-by download attack.
Spyware Barely Touches Firefox
(Page 2 of 2) Feb 9, 2006 02:15 PM
Compare those figures, and it seems that IE users who haven't patched their browser are 21 times more likely to have a spyware attack executed -- if not necessarily succeed -- against their machine.
Most of the exploits that leveraged IE vulnerabilities to plant spyware were based on ActiveX and JavaScript, said Gribble. Those two technologies have taken the blame for many of IE problems. In fact, FireFox boosters often point to their browser's lack of support for ActiveX as a big reason why its security claims are legit.
Levy and Gribble didn't set out to verify that, but they did note that the few successful spyware attacks on FireFox were made by Java applets; all, however, required the user's consent to succeed.
Microsoft's made a point to stress that Internet Explorer 7, which just went into open beta for Windows XP, tightens up ActiveX controls by disabling nearly all those already installed. IE 7 then alerts the user and requires consent before it will run an in-place control.
Good thing, because one of the research's most startling conclusions was the number of spyware-infected sites. One out of every 20 executable files on Web sites is spyware, and 1 in 25 domains contain at least one piece of spyware waiting for victims.
"If these numbers are even close to representative for Web sites frequented by users," the paper concluded, "it is not surprising that spyware continues to be of major concern."
Microsoft Patch Day: Critical WMP, Windows Fixes on Tap
..Oh a patching we will go a patching we will go...
On Feb. 14, the Redmond, Wash.-based software plans to release seven security bulletins with patches for multiple software vulnerabilities, at least two of which will be rated critical, the company's highest severity rating.
Full story EWeek
Microsoft Patch Day: Critical WMP, Windows Fixes on Tap
By Ryan Naraine
February 9, 2006
Be the first to comment on this article
Microsoft's security response center won't be playing Cupid this Valentine's Day.
ADVERTISEMENT
On Feb. 14, the Redmond, Wash.-based software plans to release seven security bulletins with patches for multiple software vulnerabilities, at least two of which will be rated critical, the company's highest severity rating.
One of the critical bulletins will address remote exploitable code execution issues in WMP (Windows Media Player), one of Microsoft's most widely deployed products.
Four of the seven bulletins apply to fixes for the Windows operating system, and at least one of those will carry the "critical" rating, Microsoft announced in its advance notice mechanism.
As is customary, the MSRC isn't providing any details until next Tuesday, when the bulletins are posted.
Enterprise IT administrators are also urged to start planning for patch deployment around the Microsoft Office productivity suite.
Two bulletins will address vulnerabilities in the desktop productivity suite that includes the ubiquitous Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint programs.
PointerClick here to read more about Microsoft's confirmation of a new IE/WMF vulnerability.
The maximum severity rating on the Microsoft Office flaws is "important," which applies to a vulnerability that can be exploited to compromise the confidentiality, integrity or availability of data. It also applies to flaws that can lead to denial-of-service conditions.
eWEEK Special Report: Securing Windows
According to a long list of unpatched flaws maintained by eEye Digital Security, there are five overdue issues that have not yet been addressed by Microsoft.
They include a high-risk code execution hole in default installations of Internet Explorer and Outlook that was reported to Microsoft about 250 days ago.
PointerFor advice on how to secure your network and applications, as well as the latest security news, visit Ziff Davis Internet's Security IT Hub.
Microsoft typically includes IE patches under the Windows umbrella, so it's likely that a cumulative browser patch will be coming in the February batch of updates.
Another eEye-discovered code execution hole affecting Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 2003 users is also more than 167 days overdue.
On Feb. 14, Microsoft will ship an update to its malicious software removal tool to add detections for new worms and viruses detected over the last month.
i been playing with this new update with clonecd..not a bad program
note its not on there site yet
SlySoft CloneCD v5.2.7.1 Multilingual
CloneCD is the perfect tool to make backup copies of your music and data CDs, regardless of copy protection. CloneCD's award-winning user interface allows you to copy almost any CD in just a few mouse clicks.
Since the release of 5.0, CloneCD is not only able to copy CDs but also all DVD formats, such as DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD+R Dual Layer and DVD-RAM. The movies are copied 1:1 and therefore not modified (compressed). Note that to copy movie DVDs you also require AnyDVD.
CloneCD also works with other formats such as ISO and UDF files and copies CDs/DVDs with the new SafeDisc 3 Copy Protection System. CloneCD allows you to create perfect 1:1 copies of your valuable original compact discs. Should your copy-protected music CD not play in your car audio, the backup created by CloneCD will.
Slysoft combine knowledge and innovation with many years of experience and direct communication with customers to provide constant improvements, therefore making CloneCD the highest quality copying application around.
p2p news / p2pnet: Blind people surf on keyboards linked to screen-reading applications which turn text into speech.
But Bruce Sexton jr, 24, a blind UC Berkeley student, says Target Corp doesn't have this facility on its web site. Accordingly, he's filed a class-action lawsuit against the company, saying it's committing civil rights violations.
Target's site doesn't include "alt-text" code embedded under a graphic to allow a screen reader to provide a description of the image to a blind person, the suit said, states the San Francisco Chronicle.
The class-action claims target.com denies blind Californians equal access to goods and services available to people who can see and alleges violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and various state statutes, says the story, going on:
"Target thus excludes the blind from full and equal participation in the growing Internet economy that is increasingly a fundamental part of daily life," said the suit.
"What I hope is that Target and other online merchants will realize how important it is to reach 1.3 million people in this nation and the growing baby-boomer population who will also be losing vision," Sexton, a third-year student, is quoted as saying.
"Target.com also has inaccessible image maps, the suit said," continues the San Francisco Chronicle, adding, "since Target's site requires the use of a mouse to complete the transaction, it prevents blind people from making purchases online, the suit said."
Blind people have, "complained about (Target's Web site) in particular," Disability Rights Advocates of Berkeley lawyer Mazen Basrawi statesm says the story. "That one's gotten a lot of complaints, especially because it's completely unusable. A blind person cannot make a purchase independently on target.com."
Also See:
San Francisco Chronicle - Blind Cal student sues Target , February 8, 2006
p2p news / p2pnet: DVD Jon Lech Johansen, who enjoys a little reverse engineering now and then, wonders if anyone else would like to try it out as well.
On his So Sue Me blog Johansen, renowned for his role in the creation of the DeCSS software which unscrambles the content-scrambling system used for DVD licensing enforcement, says, "Here?s how I got started out in the 90s:
Learned x86 assembly by reading Programming the 8086 8088 (I still have my copy. If you are filthy rich and would like to buy it, please do get in touch).
Scoured the net for articles and tutorials on reverse engineering. Fravia?s site was a goldmine.
Lurked in a x86 assembly IRC channel and picked up tips from wise wizards.
So what would you need by way of gear? A hex editor, a disassembler and a kernel mode debugger, he says.
He adds, "You can get by with only free tools, but for serious reversing you will need to spend around 4000 USD on commercial tools.
p2p news / p2pnet: "People all over are gearing up to celebrate some of filmmaking's finest as they are considered for Academy Awards," says MPAA boss Dan 'Jedi' Glickman.
But alas, "The rampant online theft of Oscar-nominated films is a glaring example of the damage piracy can do and in particular to some of the smaller films that depend on revenues to recoup their investments," he says in one of his better non sequiturs.
"If people want to continue to see quality movies that are worthy of taking home Oscar, they must respect copyrights and the hard work of those individuals who make the movies," he says.
The film industry is presently suffering from a notable lack of enthusiasm on the part of its customers, something Glickman, et all, blame on counterfeiters and file sharers, lumped together as pirates, rather than the appallingly bad movies Hollywood pumps out in endless streams.
Not that there isn't method to its madness. As p2pnet's Alex H points out, German taxpayers are significant contributors to Hollywood's bottom line, thanks to largely to the garbage the studios are churning out.
Meanwhile, Glickman's statements came in an announcement that the MPAA is getting ready to launch an indefinite number of lawsuits against an unknown number of unnamed people for supposedly sharing movies on the p2p networks.
Will the next batch of MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) victims include some of the Hollywood insiders who are increasingly seen to responsible for much of the 'product' that ends up online?
Also See:
significant contributors - Hollywood's Golden Goose, February 9, 2006
Hollywood insiders - Star Wars 'Sith' p2p uploader, January 26, 2006
The justifications for Digital Rights Management are many, but they usually involve some flavor of anti-piracy rhetoric. Consumers have accepted DRM into their lives, by and large, but there is a growing awareness that not all DRM is created equal. Rather, consumers appear to gravitate towards DRM solutions that aren't complex or messy; one has only to look at iTunes to see a successful enterprise built atop DRM. In my own experience, I've found that most of Apple's customers view Apple's FairPlay DRM favorably, largely because it doesn't create inconveniences, and it is moderately permissive. But no one goes to the iTunes Music Store because of the DRM. No, the more accurate way to look at it is to say that people go there in spite of it.
The MPAA, however, has a very different spin on DRM. In their view, DRM is your friend, and life without DRM could be messy and complex. So says Dan Glickman, of the Motion Picture Association of America:
"Content owners use DRMs because it provides casual, honest users with guidelines for using and consuming content based on the usage rights that were acquired. Without the use of DRMs, honest consumers would have no guidelines and might eventually come to totally disregard copyright and therefore become a pirate, resulting in great harm to content creators," he said.
Without DRM, you might become a pirate. Welcome to this Brave, New World, friends. The MPAA is here to save us from ourselves.
This cleverly veiled justification comes in response to a question from the BBC about the efficacy of DRM: is DRM useless if movies end up on P2P networks regardless? Glickman's response was slick, and it needed to be. DRM doesn't stop piracy, but the MPAA loves it. Why? It makes them lots and lots of money.
Want to make a back-up of that SpongeBob movie before the kids destroy it? Too bad: the helpful MPAA didn't want you to do that anyway. You could buy another one, though. Want to transfer your DVD to a mobile DVD? Too bad! Perhaps you could buy the UMD though? The helpful MPAA is too worried that you might slip, trip, fall, and accidentally become a pirate while exercising your fair use rights. Fortunately, you can buy your way to safety.
It's all about the Benjamins
Mr. Glickman, I have a question for you (and I know one of your underlings will read this): if DRM is about helping honest users, then why does your DRM make fair use impossible? Why does your DRM make it impossible to backup movies that I have bought? Why is it impossible to legally put DVDs that I've purchased onto my iPod? Why is it impossible for me to extract clips from your movies for educational purposes? These are all things I have a legal right to do, but can't, because of the DMCA: a law that your organization cheerleads for. Perhaps I don't need an answer from Mr. Glickman. He also told the BBC that DRM aims to "support an orderly market for facilitating efficient economic transactions between content producers and content consumers."
Hold up now. Which is it? I don't remember Jack Valenti and friends saying anything about new economic transactions, really. I do remember plenty of talk about terrorists and drug dealers thriving off of piracy, however, and I remember those kinds of hyperbolic arguments being used to justify draconian laws. Is this the kinder, gentler side of the MPAA? Who knows, but it is surprising to see Glickman essentially admit what's going on: DRM is about economic transactions, that's for sure. But the notion of "facilitating economic transactions" would be better expressed as "legislatively creating a market" for those economic transactions, because that is what DRM is all about. First you make it illegal to circumvent DRM (hello, DMCA), then you put DRM on everything. It's the double-dip, the "pay for this a few times" approach to business. That's why we can't make backups, and that's why they absolutely hate the idea of taking DVD content and putting it on a mobile. You should pay for that. And that. And that there, too.
Indeed, one only has to look at the concept of "customary historic use" to see the dismantling of fair use spurred in large part by the MPAA. Or consider the Digital Transition Content Security Act of 2005. This legislation wants to see something you have been able to do for more than 20 years (namely, record TV) reduced to another method of "facilitating economic transactions" by stripping you of that historical right. Hollywood never got over Betamax and VHS being legal, and DRM is their plan for an 11th hour victory.
Antitrust complaints surface over Vista setup screens
2/10/2006 12:49:32 PM, by Ken "Caesar" Fisher
The US Department of Justice has received complaints about the nature of a forthcoming feature of Windows Vista. It's not Internet Explorer, it's not Windows Media Player, it's not even Windows OneCare. No, this brewing debacle concerns the way in which Windows Vista boots on new machines. According to the Antitrust division of the DoJ,
"Plaintiffs have received a complaint regarding the ability of OEM's to customize the first-boot experience in Vista, and in particular concerning the Welcome Center, a new interface that presents the user with various setup options and commercial offers (presented by Microsoft and OEMs) at the end of the initial out-of-the-box experience. Plaintiffs are also talking with several industry members who have expressed additional concerns regarding aspects of Windows Vista."
The identity of the complainant is not known, although the nature of the concern suggests the context of a major OEM such as HP or Dell. Indeed, before the DoJ report was published, Wall Street Journal reported that HP had been fighting with Microsoft over the issue, which leaves them as the most likely culprit in filing an official complaint. Contrary to reports elsewhere, the DoJ has said that they have received only one complaint, not several. In any case, others are likely to sound the alarm, too, because the setup process is something that the OEMs like to monetize (along with your desktop, which they cheerfully pack with endless amounts of crap you have no interest in). Now that the topic has been breached, it will be interesting to see who wishes to protest the issue.
OEMs would like to see a first-time setup process that allows them to customize screens in order to promote brand image and sell additional products such as anti-virus subscriptions, support contracts, and more. Microsoft is expected to use the setup process to promote services such as Windows OneCare.
The complaints are processed by the DoJ as part of its monitoring of the antitrust settlement reached with Microsoft. At the moment, the DoJ reports that they have not yet reached a judgment regarding the validity of these concerns, but they will continue to monitor and assess the situation.
Oh, to envy Apple
Microsoft must envy Apple on days like this. Divorced from the hardware manufacturing part of the equation, Microsoft has been long entwined in battles with OEMs over what gets top billing, and what doesn't. The never-ending tug-of-war between OEMs and Microsoft has led to what can only be called a quagmire on the newly unpacked OEM desktop: applications, services, services for applications, applications to manage your services, all sprawled out all over the place. Oh boy, and dial-up Internet offers! In my past life as a IT type, I found that it took more time to undo the damage done to a new PC by OEMs than it took to set it up. Thank the Giant Head for ghosting system images!
Of course, the OEMs' penchant for loading up a machine with garbage didn't land them on the losing end of the DoJ's tortoise style kung-fu, either. Microsoft's own issues with regards to OEMs and software configurations are well known, as the company was nailed for using its leverage to push out competitors. For now, the company will have to watch on with worry, as the likes of Dell sign pacts with Google to distribute their wares. Yet the evil monopolist in me is pulling for Microsoft in this dispute, if only because system setup is not the time to try and milk people for more money. (And let's face it: when you buy a PC from a major OEM, the "check out" process us already inundated with commercial offerings to begin with. Give it a rest, people.)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060210-6156.html
