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The Real Purpose of DRM

Posted by CowboyNeal on Sun Apr 02, 2006 12:35 PM
from the man-keeping-us-down dept.
It's funny. Laugh. Technology
Roberto writes "Gorgeous nerd Annalee Newitz hacked a political interpretation to recent vacuum cleaner cockfights at O'Reilly's ETech: 'Hollywood corporations have finally admitted that the real reason they built digital restriction management (DRM) software into PVRs and DVD players was to stop geeks from turning their recording devices into back-alley combat machines. You haven't seen ugly until you've watched what a DVD player without DRM can do to a TiVo.' Don't try to even think of this at home."
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  • Dude... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SigILL (6475) on Sunday April 02 2006, @12:37PM (#15046122) Homepage
    April fools day is *so* yesterday.
  • A late attempt to keep the secret of printed word hidden from the peasants and the surfs.

    Those uprisings do cause ever so much trouble.

    -Lord Rove II
  • Why would someone even want to turn a DVD player into a battlebot? And even besides that, Why would makers care? If more DVD players get destroyed, that means more are bought. Why spend more money to make less?

  • What? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 02 2006, @12:42PM (#15046146)
    "Don't try to even think of this at home."

    What the hell does that mean?

  • Err... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by remembertomorrow (959064) on Sunday April 02 2006, @12:48PM (#15046166)
    Am I the only one who feels more confused after reading TFA?

    Is this supposed to be a joke, or some form of satire? A "jest" at "nerds"?

    • Re:Err... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by xtieburn (906792) on Sunday April 02 2006, @03:12PM (#15046639)
      A lot of people seem to be getting confused or thinking this is an April fools but to me it seemed pretty straight forward.

      It was an exagerated story of geeks going mad with modifications in hardware in order to give sarcastic support towards DRM. Basically shes slagging off the companys for claiming to put DRM in to stop people doing dangerous terrifying things when in actual fact its just to make more money at the expense of normal consumers.

      At least thats what I thought it ment. It seemed clear when I read it. After reading half of the comments here im beginning to think that maybe im completely wrong and in fact it was totally nonsensical waffle...

  • Looks... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 02 2006, @12:57PM (#15046200)
    It would be nice if women could be judged on the merit of their ideas instead of their looks. Just a thought, you know :-P.

  • digital rights management (Score:3, Funny)

    by henster29 (965532) on Sunday April 02 2006, @01:18PM (#15046275)
    Its rights.. not restriction

        • Re:digital rights management (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Dachannien (617929) on Sunday April 02 2006, @04:14PM (#15046837)
          But [rights] need to be enforced sometimes, no?

          No, they don't. In the absence of outside influence, one's rights are maintained. Even criminal law doesn't enforce *rights* - it imposes restrictions upon behavior for which there is no right.

          Anyway, DRM doesn't preserve or enforce any rights. All it does is enforce restrictions that content producers have deemed desirable. Hence the phrase "digital restrictions management", untouched by the marketing wonks at the ??AA.

  • Digital Rights (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jerf (17166) on Sunday April 02 2006, @01:33PM (#15046326) Journal
    Your digital rights to swing your digital arm ends where my digital nose begins!

    (Digital, digital, didgeridoo...)

  • Evasive tactic (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AnalogDiehard (199128) on Sunday April 02 2006, @01:33PM (#15046328)
    Hollywood doesn't want the words "fair use" to be uttered to their congresscritters, and they want to draw attention away from the Sony fiasco. This is just an evasive tactic to lend legitimacy to DRM.

  • Meta-commentary: "Gorgeous" really relevant? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by svkal (904988) on Sunday April 02 2006, @01:35PM (#15046332)
    Do the Slashdot editors really feel that introducing a woman by a description of her (in this context irrelevant) physical looks is appropriate? (I say "woman" because I have a hard time imagining that Slashdot would introduce a male with a similar adjective: a case in point is that it was obviously a joke when they commended Linus Torvalds on his physical looks yesterday. If they were to do it in a non-joking manner, that would obviously be just as inappropriate as this.)

    As was pointed out yesterday by several posters, this year's April Fool's was more than a little misogynistic in that it seemed to imply(obviously through exaggerations as Slashdot normally does on April Fool's) that women would like pink and ponies rather than technology news. I'm quite willing to let that slide, knowing that subtle humour is not really Slashdot's forte - but really, they shouldn't push their luck by describing female writers as being "gorgeous" the day afterwards.

    (I do know that "political correctness" is largely frowned upon at Slashdot, but really, this isn't about submitting to some ever-changing and arbitrary standard, it's about basic politeness and showing respect for the people you are describing. You don't bring things like physical looks into the picture unless they are somehow relevant, and you certainly don't set different standards for what is relevant depending on the gender of the person being described.)

    (Oh, and if anyone feels the need to argue that though "gorgeous" in this context obviously wouldn't be said about a male subject - given the gender of the Slashdot editors - it is a harmless one-word compliment which doesn't lastingly change the focus of the discussion: do note that there's already a thread contesting [slashdot.org] that Ms. Newitz is "gorgeous" based on a 120x130 grayscale picture in her profile. (Which in and of itself confirms some stereotypes about geeks.) Would there be such a thread debating this unless the submitter/editor had seen it fit to mention this in the introduction?)

    • Re:Meta-commentary: "Gorgeous" really relevant? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cgenman (325138) on Sunday April 02 2006, @02:51PM (#15046568) Homepage
      To be fair, it wasn't the slashdot editor but the story submitter that referred to the author in that way.

      Likewise that introduction would be obviously inappropriate if the author's story was about an OpenSSH vulnerability or a commentary on the sad state of Windows Vista. In that case writing about physical appearances would be an irrelevant distraction which would imply judgement of factual nature of the article in question based upon the physical appearance of the person. Whether or not that judgement is positive isn't important.

      But on a farcical story about cockfighting roombas that line isn't very clear. Can a comedian be demeaned by references to her appearance? Are they making less relevant a story that is already, at core, irrelevant? It again implies a degree of judgement, and a reminder of the prevalant nature of physical judgements in this culture. (I might add, the most insidiously judgemental people about women's appearances are largely other women)

      I personally would have edited out the reference to her "gorgeousness." But the question remains... In a non-serious, non-professional context, is it OK to slip in an irrelevant compliment about someone looks?
    • As was pointed out yesterday by several posters, this year's April Fool's was more than a little misogynistic [...]

      You use that word a lot. I do not think it means what you think it means.

      Mysogyny is an aversion or hatred of women. I have a six year old daughter, and believe me, the "PONIES" stuff was a pretty good (if way, way too obvious to be a prank) parody. But it doesn't signify mysogyny in any way.

      Similarly, describing Ms. Newitz as "gorgeous" may be clumsy, insensitive and more than a little bit objectifying, but it's hardly mysogynistic. The overwhelming majority of single straight male slashdotters don't hate women, they just don't get them (in more ways than one).

    • In mentioning the attractiveness of Ms. Newitz, Slashdot isn't really breaking any ground here. She was named one of the top ten sexiest geeks of 2005 [tinynibbles.com] by multimediatrix and sex educator Violet Blue.

      I'm sure she is lurking here and taking it all in stride. An accomplished journalist, she writes about techno-sexuality herself all the time--just take a look at some of her published pieces [techsploitation.com]:

      • Re:Meta-commentary: "Gorgeous" really relevant? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 02 2006, @04:01PM (#15046800)
        Not a thing you wrote rings true. "Other side of the business world"? I work both and there is no other side, just the same distribution of assholes. She wore short skirts working IT, knowing the physical work entailed? She worked IT just for Comp Sci geeks who chased her from the field? None of the narrative, what little there is, makes any sense. It's a bullshit moral fable on a topic which doesn't need artificial stories to justify itself.

  • O.M.G. (Score:4, Funny)

    by QuietLagoon (813062) on Sunday April 02 2006, @01:36PM (#15046337)
    Is this really such a slow news day that this is news?

  • Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FullCircle (643323) on Sunday April 02 2006, @02:11PM (#15046455)
    Does anyone have a clue WTF this article is about?

    If the summary is that bad, I'm not about to click the link.

  • LAME! NO PONIES!!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SmurfButcher Bob (313810) on Sunday April 02 2006, @02:30PM (#15046511) Journal
    TFA is useless! No kittens! No ponies! No fluffies!

  • Yeah but. . . (Score:3, Funny)

    by kimvette (919543) on Sunday April 02 2006, @03:38PM (#15046722) Homepage
    Can I buy a Roomba and reprogram it to think it's a pony? OMG!!!

    • Re:Gorgeous? (Score:5, Funny)

      by capt.Hij (318203) on Sunday April 02 2006, @12:44PM (#15046148) Homepage Journal
      Dude! This chick just made a joke about Ubuntu *and* Gentoo users in the same sentence and then went on to disparage Red Hat users. I don't know what bug is up your nether regions, but I for one am in love. (She also discusses "USB devices." *drool*)

    • Re:Gorgeous? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Another one *shudder* [othermag.org].

    • Re:Gorgeous? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Chowderbags (847952) on Sunday April 02 2006, @12:50PM (#15046175)
      You're forgetting, it's "Gorgeous nerd". It's relative at that point.

    • Re:Gorgeous? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PrvtBurrito (557287) on Sunday April 02 2006, @01:05PM (#15046226)
      and one wonders why there aren't more geek women...
    • Obligatory references to the caricature of the desperate slashdot audience aside, the blatant sexism of refering to this intelligent, witty and inspiring woman as "gorgeous" almost counters that of tagging every article on the front page as "gay" in the sense of a general derogatory term.

      Btw. Slashdot, thanks for fixing that.

    • Re:Gorgeous? (Score:3, Informative)

      by 1u3hr (530656)
      Some more images here [google.com]; though sadly the one in bikini is not her. I'm afraid on the "hot or not" scale, it's "not".
      • Why don't you post some pics of yourself and we'll let her comment?

        Do you dudes wonder why you don't get laid? When you put a woman down like that it shows off your ego for the nanoparticle that it is.

        This isn't "Women 101": this is the test you need to pass to get into Women 101.

        Cheers
        Stor

      • Re:"Looks first" -- even on slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Mistshadow2k4 (748958) on Sunday April 02 2006, @04:18PM (#15046848) Journal

        Well, I'm a woman and the first thought that went through my mind was "funny how they criticize her looks but don't mention their own". In my experience, guys are quick to shoot down a woman's looks regardless of how good-looking they're not themselves. Frankly, if some pudgy, out-of-shape geek criticizes my looks I can easily fix that problem... with a fork.

        But yeah, the fact that there were comments about her looks made me roll her eyes. I've read articles that had pics of the guy in question and never once made a comment on his looks. Perhaps I will in the future - why shouldn't I?

        Disclaimer: I've just been to a site where 90% of the files to download weren't available because "this entry is not approved". So I'm a bit irritated anyway.

    • Re:Gorgeous? Take beer goggles off please! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by munehiro (63206) on Sunday April 02 2006, @12:57PM (#15046198) Journal
      Well, imho she is not that bad, and you should consider that:

      1) you don't see the body
      2) the photo is BW
      3) the photo is small
      4) the photo is crappy
      5) there are people that appear not so good in photo but they are pretty in real life.
      6) and most important, a girl can be gorgeous in her ideas and behavior, and you evaluate more and more this point of view as you get older.

      therefore, you have to figure out in real life.
      • 6) and most important, a girl can be gorgeous in her ideas and behavior

        So, how was your trip down the rivers of Egypt?
        Gorgeous is about looks. This "but she has a great personality" stuff doesn't apply.
      • All you can really tell from the picture is that she's not ugly. As a sometimes photographer, I'd say that they're not particularly flattering pictures.

        I've seen people go from drab to sexy with just a change of clothes. These webcam images say that there's a good bit of room for potential. I definitely not expect a date with her to be drab.

        .... and a freaking school photo! How many hot babes do you know that have ID pictures that make them look like complete blobs? Besides. Intelligence counts for alot, and she seems to be missing nothing there. we can work on the rest later.

      • 7) Pictures on-line may be hours, days, months or years old and people's appearance will change. Her techsploitation info page has her looking either slightly butch [techsploitation.com] or anime (you gotta have blue hair...) [techsploitation.com].

        So, basically, unless looking at her turns you to stone, let the original poster have his humble opinion and, if you want to disagree, that's fine, but let's not turn this into a discussion over whether this woman is hot or not. There's a website for explicitly for made for that discussion [hotornot.com] if you're into t
    • Let me make formal introductions...Rodness, humor. Humor, Rodness.
      Or, in the immortal words of Foghorn Leghorn "It's a joke son, get it?"

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