Ben S 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: DEA Accused Of Leaking Misleading Info Falsely Implying That It Can't Read Apple iMessages

    Ben S ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2013 @ 03:32pm

    Re: Re:

    Just did a quick google search, turned up the Mac version, called GPG Tools.
    http://gpgtools.github.io/GPGTools_Homepage/

    And for Windows users:
    http://www.gpg4win.org/

    Linux users, you probably already know that you have it in your software center or equivalent.

  • On the post: DEA Accused Of Leaking Misleading Info Falsely Implying That It Can't Read Apple iMessages

    Ben S ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2013 @ 03:27pm

    Re:

    Gnu Privacy Guard for your emails, but you'll need the receiving user to have it as well. Some linux distros will have it installed by default. Gnu PG for Windows is available for those using Windows computers (and even comes with a GUI, unlike mine). Chances are, it's also available for Mac.

    Useful tool. It works be creating 2 keys, public and private. The public key can only encrypt the email/document/file, it can't reverse the encryption. The private key though, is one you must protect and keep hidden. That key is the one that breaks the encryption. Keep a backup, but keep it locked up (for example, on a USB drive inside a lockbox) so prying eyes can't get their hands on it.

    Using GPG is not too hard. Step 1, create your public and private keys. Step 2, share the public key with anyone at all who would be interested in sending you encrypted emails. Step 3, obtain public keys from anyone you would want to send email to. Now you're ready to use it.

    Any emails you receive, you run through your personal private key, and it decrypts. Any emails you send, run the text through the receiving user's public key first to encrypt it, then send it out.

  • On the post: Damaging The Internet Is Not Acceptable Collateral Damage In The Copyright Wars

    Ben S ( profile ), 02 Apr, 2013 @ 08:22am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Yeah, I don't doubt it'd never make it through lobbying, but should such a change occur, that would, for the most part, fix the issue with large corporations controlling all the works.

  • On the post: Damaging The Internet Is Not Acceptable Collateral Damage In The Copyright Wars

    Ben S ( profile ), 02 Apr, 2013 @ 07:37am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Easy fix here. Give the artist the ability to revoke the licence after (just throwing out a number) 1 year. No exceptions.

    If one of the big record labels/movie studios cheats a creator, they will end up losing access to the work in question. If the label/studio succeeds in making it popular, the creator can then take full advantage of it.

    Now other labels/studios are more likely to give better licensing terms for something that's already hugely popular, assuming the creator of the work decides to go with another group. They could self-publish by that point in time.

  • On the post: If Your Cable Company Were Honest, This Is What Its Commercial Would Look Like

    Ben S ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2013 @ 10:21pm

    Re: Tech Support

    I do tech support actually. Discovered for a particular caller that their DNS server was down because of ping results. What's funny is that everyone in the office she was in was unaffected, just her assigned station. Of course, I'm not high enough level to be allowed to have her switch DNS servers as a temporary fix, so I had to transfer to a higher tech support.

  • On the post: If Your Cable Company Were Honest, This Is What Its Commercial Would Look Like

    Ben S ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2013 @ 08:52pm

    Re: Re: very funny, fortunately doesn't fit my experience

    Do you know who the ISP is through your HOA? You're talking over 14 times my current speed (downstream, upstream is far more vast a difference) at a mere 57% increase in price. I'm hoping Google Fiber begins to spread to force ISP prices down, but until then, the speeds and price you're getting sound awesome.

  • On the post: 'Internet Lawyer' Charles Carreon Has A New Best Friend And He's An SEO Expert Who Hates Anonymous Critics

    Ben S ( profile ), 29 Mar, 2013 @ 08:17am

    Re: Want higher rankings? Be better.

    Not exactly. It's which tags you use for what purpose. For example, The h1 tag treats an item as the most important point of your website, and phrases that match anything inside the tags will rank you up more than matches elsewhere on your page. I'm sure a certain amount of gaming the system is going to be part of it, but Google apparently looks for that kind of thing and will stop websites from showing up if it looks like you're using underhanded tactics to gain a ranking you don't deserve.

  • On the post: True Purpose Of DRM: To Let Copyright Holders Have A Veto Right On New Technologies

    Ben S ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2013 @ 08:23pm

    Re: Re: Silly premise. First, DRM works unless circumvented.

    Technically, there are paid applications you can get for Linux that are officially licensed for playing the videos. In that way, it can be legal to watch DVD's on Linux. But it's far better to use libdvdcss2 so that you can watch it with what ever video player you prefer. (Or use Handbrake to simply rip the video)

  • On the post: United Airlines Kicks Travel Writer Off Of Plane For Photographing His Seat

    Ben S ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2013 @ 02:34pm

    Re:

    You know, I decided to check the comments just to see if some one referenced this. :)

  • On the post: Maxis Insider: EA Lying About Needing Servers For Single Player SimCity

    Ben S ( profile ), 13 Mar, 2013 @ 10:28am

    Re: Gamer

    I partly disagree here. Some games that truly use online as a feature for connecting to other players are great, and definitely worth encouraging. There are, for example, some great mmo's out there. But there will be times when your internet connection fails. Having something that works when your connection is down is invaluable. It means you have something you can do until the connection is back up. For people who live in areas where the connection is NOT stable, single player becomes even more important. We need games that work offline for when your connection goes down.

  • On the post: Maxis Insider: EA Lying About Needing Servers For Single Player SimCity

    Ben S ( profile ), 13 Mar, 2013 @ 10:03am

    Re: Re: EA are lying?

    Doubtful. Were Hitler to pay money for a game that he couldn't play, no doubt the people responsible would have found themselves in a camp of sorts.

  • On the post: Maxis Insider: EA Lying About Needing Servers For Single Player SimCity

    Ben S ( profile ), 13 Mar, 2013 @ 10:01am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Maxis != EA. The same way that Ant != Colony. Maxis is part of EA, a development group purchased by EA, but is not itself EA. Maxis did the work in creating SimCity, the publisher would be another company under the EA umbrella.

  • On the post: Bayer Fights India's Compulsory Licensing Of Cancer Drug By Claiming It Spent $2.5 Billion Developing It

    Ben S ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2013 @ 07:12am

    Re: Who cares

    The problem is that the drugs aren't affordable at all, and Bayer has a monopoly on this drug. What alternative is there when no one else is allowed to make the drug?

    Bayer more than made their money back already, and will continue making money off this drug for some time. I'd say the risk is gone at this point. Now they're just required to accept competition. Competition is good, it forces prices down and quality up.

    The whole point of the patent granting a monopoly is to mitigate risk. When you've turned a profit, there's no longer risk. The point of the monopoly is gone once the risk is gone. A monopoly is generally harmful to an economy as well as to the public. The moment the monopoly is no longer needed, it should be removed to lessen the harm caused by the monopoly as much as possible.

    The fact that Bayer is resorting to flat out lying to try to maintain its monopoly, even after making a profit on this drug, says all I need to know about them and their motives.

  • On the post: Bayer Fights India's Compulsory Licensing Of Cancer Drug By Claiming It Spent $2.5 Billion Developing It

    Ben S ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2013 @ 07:00am

    Math problems

    Turns out, the exchange rate for euros to dollars is a bit higher. $1.36 per euro, that ends up being $2.72 billion. That would make the correct percentage 10.8% going by my math.

  • On the post: 10 Years Later: Antigua May Finally (Really) Set Up Official 'Pirate' Site To Get Back What US Owes In Sanctions

    Ben S ( profile ), 25 Jan, 2013 @ 07:47am

    Re: Re:

    I'm not sure why you think they wouldn't approve this.

  • On the post: Psy Makes $8.1 Million By Ignoring Copyright Infringements Of Gangnam Style

    Ben S ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2012 @ 07:19am

    Re: not really

    Looks like it wasn't Psy who took it down, but his Korean label.

  • On the post: Psy Makes $8.1 Million By Ignoring Copyright Infringements Of Gangnam Style

    Ben S ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2012 @ 07:08am

    Re: Inaccurate article: It's not up to the artist

    Interesting fact, he's not signed onto either of them. Here's his list of record labels internationally: Bidman, LNLT Entertainment, YG Entertainment, YGEX, Avex Trax, Republic, and Schoolboy. Unless one of those is an alias used by Universal or Sony (I'm not aware of that being the case) then they don't have authority to claim copyright. Further more, he became incredibly popular before signing on to some of these, so he may have been able to negotiate a contract in which he keeps his own copyright, and the label's just have to settle for a license to sell his work.

  • On the post: Psy Makes $8.1 Million By Ignoring Copyright Infringements Of Gangnam Style

    Ben S ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2012 @ 06:48am

    Re: Easy Money

    Just did a quick check. Psy's signed on to multiple record labels. He's signed onto several labels across multiple countries it looks like. The first one he signed on to was YG Entertainment in 2010.

  • On the post: The SHOCKING Photos That Violated Facebook's Policies!

    Ben S ( profile ), 07 Dec, 2012 @ 12:09pm

    Re:

    The big thing that draws people to Facebook is often its games, sad as that is. Those games usually operate like a Skinner Box. Small rewards constantly (xp and currency), random larger rewards (new pony or something), and of course, electric shocks if you don't continue (crops withering). The idea is to keep you hooked. You want to play because of the rewards, and you feel compelled to play because of your friends playing, and the game's systematic punishments inflicted upon your "farm" if you don't continue to maintain it. This is why there's that 4th step.

  • On the post: Court Temporarily Blocks School District From Suspending Student For Refusing To Wear Student ID/Tracking Device

    Ben S ( profile ), 27 Nov, 2012 @ 11:29am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    If the building is on fire, just how are you going to be verifying if the user is out of the building? Generally, in the event of a fire, there's a specific plan people follow, and everyone gathers together into the same place to ensure that everyone is accounted for, and everyone made it out. Anyone not there is probably still in the building. Where is intense heat can damage the chip if the kid was caught in the fire, the sensors can also be damaged, making the RFID system unreliable at best, assuming you can even get to the system to make the check in the first place.

    Here's another thought, what if the chip shows as active, and being in the school, because the owner gave it to a friend, who hid it in their bag, then left the bag in the school? Now you've got a false report of some one in the building who really isn't.

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