[with apologies to the OP for steering off-topic:]
____/ Doug Mentohl on Sunday 03 February 2008 14:32 : \____
> On 3 Feb, 14:22, Rick <n...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:18:24 -0800, allen.dar...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>>> I installed Totem dvd support. I was able to use the synaptic package
>>> manager. However , WHen I tried to play a video file or DVD it tells me I
>>> need to download codec files.
>
> When you've finished installing the codecs, hire on a lawyer to make
> sure you're not violating billgS intellectual property. Also, t be on
> the safe side, send him an annual check for $500.00
Well, BillG and the BillGerberg Group need to ensure their monopolies and
fortresses are well secured...
,----[ Quote ]
| Mssage-ID: <pan.2006.11.08.19.57.13.507859@xxxxxxxxxx>
| From: Richard Rasker <spamtrap@xxxxxxxxxx>
| Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
| Subject: Gates' lobby for mandatory MS-DRM in Russia
| Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2006 20:57:15 +0100
| Lines: 35
| Organization: Linetec
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| NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2006 19:57:15 +0000 (UTC)
| User-Agent: Pan/0.14.2.91 (As She Crawled Across the Table)
|
| Well well, the exponent of Capitalism just paid a little visit to the
| remnants of communism - on a subject they're both all to familiar with:
| repression:
|
| http://www.kommersant.com/p719683/r_528/
|
| "A source that deals with the company said unofficially that Gates
| proposed Microsoft's Digital Rights Management technology as a national
| standard to fight piracy at the governmental level."
|
| Yeah, in their dreams ...
|
| "That system allows for complete control over the use of the digital
| content of Microsoft products."
|
| Now you guess *who* has this "complete control" ...
|
| "If the state makes Microsoft's DRM mandatory, life will be much harder
| for users and sellers of illegal software."
|
| ... and if this means that Linux users lose access all sorts of internet
| media it's just an "unfortunate side effect"? Or should Linux perhaps be
| outlawed altogether, as it can't legally support MS-DRM?
|
| Ah well, we all know it: listening to Microsoft amounts to digging your
| own grave.
|
| Richard Rasker
`----
Richard spoke about "communism" and "repressions". Hmmm... let's see... what
have we have?
Microsoft's man in Europe carries communist-era baggage
,----[ Quote ]
| That report sparked a flurry of speculation in Czech media and online
| chat rooms about Muehlfeit's role under the communist regime, and it
| elicited a public statement at the time from Microsoft, which
| supported Muehlfeit's integrity.
`----
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/microsofts-man-europe-carries-communist-era/story.aspx?guid=%7BA26DE642%2DD6BC%2D4946%2DA2A7%2D158330F9E89B%7D&siteid=yhoof
,----[ Quote ]
| The New Soviet Union.
| Microsoft isn't evil for being Microsoft, but because its leadership
| values control above delivering good products or advancing the state
| of the art. Rather than competing in the market, Microsoft's
| leadership has pursued a strategy of repeatedly deceiving the market.
| The result has been decades of productivity losses that negatively
| impact the rest of the world's economy and distract humanity away from
| technical achievement to instead fiddle with shoddy software that is
| weak because it was developed outside of competitive pressure....
|
| However, the iron fist of resistance to outside ideas was as
| destructive to the USSR as the inbreeding of royalty was to Europe's
| empire nations before it. Microsoft is facing the same failure by
| arrogantly pushing old strategies and ignoring the potential of open
| source. Microsoft's anti-open rhetoric even sounds a lot like the
| Soviet's view of free markets, laced with fear-based propaganda that
| promises dire consequences for experimenting with the open source
| ideas that are already proven to work outside of the Red Square of
| Redmond....
`----
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2007/12/13/soviet-microsoft-how-resistance-to-free-markets-and-open-ideas-will-the-unravel-the-software-superpower/#more-1347
What's all the FUD about?
,----[ Quote ]
| My favorite, classic FUD comes from Steve Ballmer. "There's no company called
| Linux, there's barely a Linux road map. Yet Linux sort of springs organically
| from the earth. And it had, you know, the characteristics of communism that
| people love so very, very much about it." Here, Ballmer went to the route of
| the American psyche. How many Americans, to this day, still cringe a little
| in fear at the voicing of "communism"? If there's anyway to turn Americans
| off from buying a Linux PC, it's to emblazon the image of a big, red, Soviet
| Flag on the face of Linux, to conjure up an image of FIdel Castro reciting
| his communist propaganda from a speech he'd written on his openoffice,org
| word processor, to strike fear into our hearts at the thought of a Wisconsin
| Senator named Joe McCarthy barging into our houses in the middle of the night
| to send us away to prison for life because we owned an Ubuntu PC. I can't say
| if this FUD actually worked; it was so preposterous, and so few people give
| any credence to what Ballmer says anymore, that people might have just
| laughed at it. But it does show the depths to which proprietary software
| makers will go to keep the Linux and open source software threat out of their
| wallets.
`----
http://linuxhow2.com/Feature_Articles/What_s_all_the_FUD_about.html
Russian FSB 'protecting' Storm Worm gang
,----[ Quote
| The creators of the Storm Worm botnet are known to US authorities but a lack
| of co-operation from their counterparts in St. Petersburg, Russia, is
| preventing action being taken.
|
| Dmitri Alperovitch director of intelligence analysis and hosted security at
| Secure Computing told The Washington Post that Russian President Vladimir
| Putin and political influence within the Federal Security Service (Russia's
| successor to the Soviet KGB) was hampering prosecution efforts. The
| implication is that elements of Russian intelligence agencies are protecting
| the city's cybercriminals.
|
| St. Petersburg was the centre of the infamous Russian Business Network. It's
| also reckoned by some to be the city the Storm Worm (more properly Trojan)
| authors call home.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/storm_worm_protection/
>> You probably need to download codecs and libdvdcss. This is probably well
>> covered in the Ubuntu forums and newsgroups.
>
> http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Gutsy#codecs
Yeah, well it's clear why Microsoft loves DRM and continues to lobby for
these 'horrible' people who dislike DRM...
CD copying OK, DRM circumvention not OK
,----[ Quote ]
| Circumventing DRM to make copies for personal use will remain illegal for
| consumers, under copyright reform proposals floated by the UK government
| today....Copyright law should also recognise that consumers can legitimately
| make copies of copyright material they've already bought, the government
| proposes.
|
| Speaking at the launch today, Lord Triesman said it made no sense to prevent
| someone making a playlist for use in the car from material they had
| legitimately purchased.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/08/copyright_reform/
Vista DRM blocking legal video downloads
,----[ Quote ]
| Windows Vista's increased anti-copying protection is already leading some
| customers of movie services to find themselves locked out of content they
| have legal rights to watch, users are reporting today.
`----
http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/01/04/vista.drm.and.netflix/
http://www.cypherpunks.to/~peter/vista.pdf
HD Monitor Causes DRM Issues with Netflix
,----[ Quote ]
| When I called them they confirmed my worst fears. In order to access the
| Watch Now service, I had to give Microsoft's DRM sniffing program access to
| all of the files on my hard drive. If the software found any non-Netflix
| video files, it would revoke my rights to the content and invalidate the DRM.
`----
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/03/2339248&from=rss
Plug a Windows XP Copy Protection Hole
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft reports "limited" attacks on Windows XP systems via an unexpected
| path exploiting a security hole in a copy protection program that comes with
| XP. (Windows Vista is not at risk.)
|
| The program that attackers are leveraging is Macrovision's SafeDisc,
| optical-disc copy prevention software for Windows applications and games. The
| flaw is located in a system driver file called secdrv.sys. Microsoft
| immediately issued a Security Advisory.
`----
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140862/article.html
Microsoft: We Like DRM
,----[ Quote ]
| Steve Jobs wants the music business to drop restrictions for digital
| tunes. But Microsoft, which began competing head to head with Apple
| in the digital music business last fall, is happy with the way things
| are, says media exec Robbie Bach.
`----
http://www.forbes.com/2007/02/08/zune-drm-itunes-tech-media-cx_df_0208bach.html?partner=yahootix
http://tinyurl.com/2lrz3y
Microsoft Tells Apple To Stop Complaining About DRM
http://www.podcastingnews.com/2007/04/13/microsoft-apple-drm/
Golden Rant : Microsoft DRM's gone too far
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft appears to have hit the wrong button on its critical
| Windows XP download service late last month, pretty well forcing
| every XP user to upgrade to Windows Media Player (WiMP) 11 if
| they (like me and many others) have the automatic download/install
| option enabled for critical updates.
`----
http://securityblog.itproportal.com/?p=712
The Longest Suicide Note in History
,----[ Quote ]
| Gutmann: The genie's out of the bottle before the operating system has even
| been released! But that doesn't mean Vista users in particular - and
| the computer community at large - won't end up paying for Microsoft's
| DRM folly. At the risk of repeating myself repeating myself, yet
| another reason to move to Linux.
`---- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
http://blogs.pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/tux-love/2007/01/the_longest_suicide_note_in_hi.html
Avoid the Vista badge, it means DRM inside
,----[ Quote ]
| The root of this crappy DRM infection is Microsoft. It is the driving
| force here. This has nothing to do with protecting content, as we
| keep pointing out, there has never been a single thing that has had
| a DRM infection applied that didn't end up cracked on the net in
| hours. DRM is about walled gardens and control.
|
| He who controls the DRM infection controls the market. DRM is
| about preventing you from doing anything with the devices
| without paying the gatekeeper a fee. This is what MS wants,
| nothing less than a slice of everything watched, listened to
| or discussed from now on. DRM prevents others from playing
| there, thanks to the DMCA and other anti-consumer laws.
|
| Make no mistake, MS is pushing the DRM malware as hard as
| it can so it can rake in money hand over fist with no
| competition. It is really good at lock-in, in fact, the firm
| based its entire business model on harming the user so they
| have to comply and spend more.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38926
DRM in Windows Vista
,----[ Quote ]
| Windows Vista includes an array of "features" that you don't want.
| These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure.
| They'll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will
| cause technical support problems. They may even require you to
| upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software.
| And these features won't do anything useful. In fact, they're
| working against you. They're digital rights management (DRM)
| features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment
| industry.
|
| And you don't get to refuse them.
`----
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/drm_in_windows.html
Macrovision update plugs zero-day DRM exploit
,----[ Quote
| The flaw, though Symantec wasn't specific on this, involves a privilege
| elevation bug in Macrovision secdrv.sys driver that comes bundled with
| Windows XP and 2003 (though not Windows Vista).
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/06/macrovision_drm_update/
DRM – a big win for Microsoft
,----[ Quote ]
| Recently I came to conclusion that Microsoft is the company, which profits
| most from the Digital Rights Management.
| I don't know the numbers, but I guess that DRM is little or no success for
| the recording industry. To say it stopped pirating films and music would be a
| joke.
| Microsoft people must have known that the protection would be broken very
| soon. So why they are implementing it after all?
`----
http://technocrat.net/d/2008/1/2/32809
Action alert: Don't let the EU sanction DRM
,----[ Quote ]
| Yesterday, Viviane Reding, European Union commissioner for information
| society and media, issued a report sanctioning a "transparent" DRM framework
| for the EU. This irresponsible and senseless report comes just a day before
| Sony BMG announced that they would join Warner Music Group, EMI, and
| Vivendi's Universal Music Group in selling DRM-free music downloads in the
| United States.
`----
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/Do_Not_Sanction_DRM
EU seeks single market for online services
,----[ Quote ]
| The European Commission will make proposals by mid-2008 aimed at creating a
| single European market in the burgeoning sector of online music, films, and
| games, it said on Thursday.
`----
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6224553.html
|
|
