My last discussion here on BlueSocket was how to circumvent the log-in page to connect to Xbox Live. Another annoyance I have had with UALR's internet is the total banning of torrents and peer to peer, even if it is for legitimate purposes. Is it possible to circumvent UALR's block on torrents? Maybe to a few peoples' surprise, to an extent, yes it is!

The cause of this problem is BlueSocket automatically detects when peer to peer software is being used on a system. When it detects such software, it raises a red flag on your NetID and blocks you off the network until you get on your knees and beg for the IT guys to give you back access.

The solution to this problem then would be that you would need to actually download the files from a remote location and then get them somehow in one direct transfer. There are many protocols which we can do this that are not considered P2P. The best one for this job, however, is HTTP :)

Meet TorrentFlux. TF is a fully fledged web-based BitTorrent client that literally uses your web server's resources to download torrent files at blazingly fast speeds - often 100mbps. Once the web server has downloaded the torrent file in question (and it can be as large as you need it to be), all you have to do is download it straight from your browser just like you would download any other file off the internet. Ingenious, eh?

Now we've got another problem. How do we actually use TorrentFlux? You're going to need to find webspace and a host that supports it! Right now I'm looking into GizmoHosting.net; they have a pretty good quality plan for about 35$ annually, and I'm pretty sure they support TF. 35$ is quite inexpensive, especially for webspace. That's about half the price of an Xbox 360 or PS3 game!

Once you get your webspace and have TF installed, all you need to do is simply upload your .torrent file into its downloader, go away for a little while as it downloads the file(s), and then simply download the finished transfer onto your computer. The final transfer from the webserver to your PC is done over the HTTP protocol, which BlueSocket recognizes as being completely legitimate!

The very first thing that you should do is to configure your PC to have static IP. Here's a link (Setting up Static IP)on how to setup static IP for different OSes. This is a very good website for port forwarding info and you should bookmark it.

Once you're done setting up the static IP, then proceed to setup virtual servers at your router. Just try to browse the menu inside the router and i'm pretty sure you'll find an option to setup virtual server. Insert your static IP address that you just setup and then ensure that you choose it's for both UDP+TCP. Then for the port range, try to put the range from 6881-6889 or alternatively, you can try numbers above 25000 as well.

After that, go to your BitTorrent download client and under the Options menu, usually you can find a section for you to enter the 'Listen Port'. This is where you put in the port numbers based on what you have setup in your router earlier. Eg. if your port range in your router is 6881-6889, then you can choose 6882 or any numbers within that range as your listen port.

You should be able to use the listen port after that and hopefully your torrent downloads are gonna be faster.

Remember, if you have any issues, feel free to visit Portforward.com as you can find all the resource and guides on how to setup port forwarding there. Happy Port Forwarding!

i seem to remember the john kerry and moveon.org swift boat veterans for truth rebuttal film (called something, something... upstream?) being distributed via bittorent, as well as "good copy, bad copy" which we showed last spring... are there any others?

does LEGITEMATELY distributing a film FOR FREE via bittorrent trackers mean that someone could screen it freely? not legally probably, but does that line of thinking hold up as far as the big picture goes? if something's freely available (slacker uprising for instance) what's the difference between putting it on a big screen and showing it to a ton of people for free, and telling them to all go home and download it for themselves?

Roma - A seguito del meritato exploit nelle sale, la pellicola incentrata sulla vicenda del supereroe corazzato Iron Man ha sbancato anche in home video. Il film ha venduto tanto, troppo, oltre le aspettative almeno per quanto riguarda la versione in Blu-ray, al punto da far collassare i server approntati da Paramount Pictures per gestire le funzionalità BD-Live della release.

BD-Live rappresenta l'ultima specifica attualmente codificata del formato hi-def di Sony, e permette di sfruttare la connessione di rete per il download di contenuti aggiuntivi non presenti originariamente sul disco in commercio. Nel caso di Iron Man le richieste di download hanno superato le capacità infrastrutturali del servizio, impedendo il suo corretto sfruttamento e, quel che è peggio, provocando un ritardo tale da far credere agli acquirenti che il supporto fosse difettato.

Il download parte non appena si inserisce il disco nel lettore e solo gli utenti di PlayStation 3 sono in condizione di gestire il download in modo autonomo. Il problema è stato tale da obbligare Paramount a rilasciare un comunicato sull'argomento, rassicurando sul pronto incremento di server a disposizione degli utenti e sul fatto che il disco fosse "un'offerta Blu-ray davvero allo stato dell'arte con un'applicazione BD-Live inedita nel suo genere".

Un'applicazione che forse è sin troppo inedita, al punto da sollevare per l'ennesima volta interrogativi sulle caratteristiche del formato Blu-ray, che ancora fa discutere esperti, commentatori e gli stessi esponenti dell'industria tecnologica anche dopo la conquista del mercato dell'alta definizione seguita alla sconfitta del rivale HD DVD, supportato da Toshiba e dal DVD Forum.

In casi del genere è sin troppo semplice paragonare la praticità dei download digitali su P2P alle spigolosità crescenti dei prodotti offerti dall'industria: tra DRM invalidanti e applicazioni "allo stato dell'arte" capaci di farti attendere davanti allo schermo muto per un'ora prima di poterti godere il film appena acquistato, scaricare la pellicola da BitTorrent ancorché illecita è certamente l'opzione più frequentata dagli utenti di personal computer mediamente informati sui fatti della vita, l'universo e tutto quanto.

Alfonso Maruccia 

fonte: Punto-informatico.it

En fin. Han pasado varios días desde que vine a escribir y, aunque quería hacerlo, no podía porque dediqué todas mis horas libres a traducir esta lesera. :p El viernes estuve desde las 12 del día y hasta como las 2 am (con una pausa entre 3-4 pm y otra entre 9-10 pm, para comer y mandar mi artículo de ese día a Mangas.es) y el sábado me levanté a la 1 pm y estuve traduciendo de corrido hasta como las 4, cuando almorzamos. Después seguí hasta como las 11 pm, cuando tomamos once y después, tras pelear con mi estúpido computador por un rato, seguí hasta como la 1 am. :p Finalmente, hoy me levanté a la 1.30 pm y traduje hasta como las 4 pm, almorcé y seguí hasta ahora. ¬¬ ¡Y estoy aburridísimaaaaaaaaaa! Gah. Es domingo pero no parece que haya sido fin de semana, en realidad, porque han sido días aburridos y monótonos iguales a los de toda la semana (o peores, porque los días de semana, cuando escribo artículos, no estoy tantas horas y puedo hacer cosas entretenidas ¬¬).

Peeero... Meh. Hay varias cosas que contar de estos días (nada demasiado interesante, pero bla), así que, si quieren, sigan leyendo a través del vinculito de aquí abajo.

También terminé con éxito lo que tenía que entregar el viernes pasado que resultó ser un "trabajo con sorpresa" porque el sábado, cuando revisé el correo antes, me encontré con que mi cliente me agradecía el haberle mandado la traducción y me enviaba una carta para invitarme a formar parte de la agencia de asesoría para la movilidad académica que él y una socia están armando (y respecto a la cual era la traducción que me habían pedido). En la carta se detallaba que la agencia busca la colaboración de personas de todos los países; que, en caso de que un cliente de la agencia desee viajar a estudiar a mi país, yo tendría que ayudar a buscar alojamiento, ir a recibirle, ayudarle con los trámites y cosas así. Ellos me pagan una comisión (un porcentaje de lo que el cliente le paga a la agencia) y puedo, eventualmente, hasta invitar a otros conocidos míos a integrarse, para que haya más representantes en más ciudades y países. :o

Como podrán imaginarse, de buenas a primeras no me imagino que este sea un trabajo que yo pueda hacer demasiado bien, considerando que yo no salgo nunca, casi no tengo amigos en mi ciudad, no conozco nada, no hago trámites; nada. Pero lo estuve pensando y, por un lado, si no lo hago por una cosa como esta (en que me pagarán por hacer esas averigüaciones y todo, si es que toca que tengo que ayudar con la venida de un extranjero a Chile), nunca aprenderé a hacer esas cosas. Por otro lado, no es como que vaya a ser una avalancha de personas las que vengan. Además, M. está siempre dispuesta a ayudarme con trámites y cosas. Y, finalmente, a lo mejor los vínculos que establezca a través de esto puede que algún día me sirvan a mí misma para concretar mi sueño de irme a Japón aunque sea a conocer o vivir un tiempo allá. :p Aparte, si se pueden invitar a amigos, podría contactar a algunos de mis amigos de la U (o a lo mejor hasta a alguno de los amigos por internet, quién sabe), por si se interesan en participar y así, por ejemplo, que alguno de ellos se 'hiciera cargo' en caso de que haya que averiguar cosas en Santiago, donde yo tengo mucho menos idea de hacer cosas que acá... Qué sé yo. Aparte, es una propuesta más bien libre de riesgos, porque no tengo que invertir nada, sólo mandar una foto para que me incluyan en el sitio web y ... El resto lo tendré que ir viendo cuando se dé el caso de que alguien quiera venir a Chile.

Así que, al final dije que sí. Tengo que sacarme una foto, eso sí, porque no tengo ni una decente que mandar. xD  Pero veremos qué pasa... A lo mejor resulta algo entretenido. ^^

¿Qué más? Bueno, el viernes no hice prácticamente nada más que traducir. En la noche, después de que S. dejó de hacer sus cosas y yo también dejé la traducción, vimos el DVD de la maratón de POT, que hace muuucho que no lo veíamos y ya estábamos medio con síndrome de abstinencia. xD  Con eso se me quitó un poco la lata que tenía (de haber aceptado el trabajo, de no haber recibido la mitad del pago aunque todavía era día de semana, de que el tema fuera tan fome, de que me demoro tanto en traducir cada cosa, etc, etc, etc) y me alegré, porque pude volver a babear por los hermosos seiyuucitos que aparecen ahí (especialmente Iw.Ma.-san y Ki.Hi.-san, por supuesto... *.*).

El sábado, durante la tarde, yo no hice nada más que traducir, mientras que M. durmió siesta y después leyó el diario con nosotras. S. estuvo haciendo leseras para su famosa feria de software y después estudiando y también se dio un largo baño antes de once. Después, jugamos toda la noche al Zelda (más bien, ella jugó y yo miré, como siempre). ¡Estamos cerca del final! Ayer terminó el Templo del Tiempo y consiguió la tercera pieza del espejo rarito ese que tiene que conseguir y ahora tiene que encontrar la forma de restaurar la magia del Dominion Rod para poder ir a los cielos y encontrar la última pieza del famoso espejo. Aprendió la última de las habilidades escondidas que el armadurito le ha estado enseñando desde el principio del juego... Y ya tiene 13 corazones de salud. :o

Y hoy... No sé. Debería ver/leer algo para escribir un artículo y reponer el que gasté, de mi reserva, el viernes - porque no tenía tiempo de ponerme a escribir de la nada, así que usé uno de los que tengo en lista de espera, por si acaso; pero debo reponerlo por si se da otra situación como esta -... Pero no tengo especiales ganas de nada. En realidad, tengo ganas de leer y también tengo ganas de jugar a algo. Estaba pensando en volver al Flyff y ver qué onda... Todo eso de las ciudades aéreas de las civilizaciones antiguas y eso me dio ganas de ir y jugar con mi monita ya que ella puede volar. Pero es tan fome andar sola... :p  También había pensando en jugar al Second Life e intentar hacer algo más que acampar (buscar algún evento o ir a algún lado o algo...), pero no sé. Se terminó de bajar una serie (en donde no actúa ninguno de los seiyuus que me gustan demasiado, sólo Ho.So.-san, que sale en casi todo xD) pero tiene 24 capítulos y tengo que verla en el PC, porque es en mkv... No sé. Honestamente, tenía ganas de hacer algo con S. pero justo hoy ella tenía que salir a juntarse a estudiar para un quiz o noseque lesera que tiene mañana. -_-  Así que probablemente volverá tarde y no haremos nada más que irnos a dormir. Puaj...

Ahora mismo, M. duerme. Ya casi no quedan películas que ver, así que no sé si podremos ver algo. No me dan especiales ganas de ver las leseras que quedan y ver películas repetidas, que vimos hace poco, tampoco tiene mucha gracia... :p

Y bueno... El otro día iba a contar un par de cosas. Dije que iba a contarlas "al otro día", porque eran como las 7 am y me iba a dormir, pero... El "otro día" nunca fue. ¬¬  De todas formas, de todo lo que listé, lo más interesante es la conversación que sostuve con la dueña del Club Le French Kiss, el lugarcito en SL donde me la he pasado acampando últimamente.

Ya el día anterior a esa conversación, yo estaba acampando y de repente me llegó un aviso diciendo que me habían expulsado del grupo de miembros al que uno tiene que pertenecer para tener acceso a las cositas para acampar. O.o  Yo le respondí a la persona que me había echado (la misma con la que hablé al otro día) y le dije que me acababa de echar y que por qué. Claro que le hablé en inglés, porque yo no sé nada de francés (debería aprender... Pero ése es otro cuento). Ella me respondió en francés algo que no entendí -y que Babylon no supo traducir- y me reagregó al grupo. Yo quedé plop, pero filo. Me olvidé.

Al otro día, yo estaba viendo Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuuutsu y de repente veo que alguien se me acerca (mi mona estaba bailando donde siempre) y me saluda. Me dijo "Hola Hiyoko, ahora podemos hablar porque tengo un traductor". Yo miré y claro, de alguna forma ella hablaba en francés y, acto seguido, todo su texto aparecía traducido automáticamente (y con algunas pifias) al inglés. :O Sugoi! Yo le saludé y le dije que gracias por conseguirse eso para poder hablar conmigo... Y empezamos a hablar. Ella me preguntó si acaso me gustaba mucho estar ahí, a lo que yo respondí que sí, porque son pocos los lugares que permiten acampar sin tener qu estar prestando atención cada 5 ó 10 minutos al personaje. Ella me dijo que sentía haberme echado del grupo del otro día, pero es que quería ver cómo reaccionaba. Por lo visto, como había estado por tantos días bailando ahí, hora tras hora, ella pensaba que yo era un bot y quería asegurarse de que no lo era y, para eso, me echó del grupo. Si no me daba cuenta, probablemente habría sido una muestra, para ella, de que yo era sólo un bot. Pero dijo que, como yo le había respondido, había notado que yo era real. Le expliqué que yo pasaba mucho rato ahí porque, en general, necesitaba hacer otras cosas mientras dejaba a la mona acampando y su spot era uno de los más cómodos para eso. También le dije que, si mi continua presencia les molestaba, podía dejar de ir todos los días y estar muchas horas. Ella me dijo, inmediatamente, que no, que no había problema, que sólo quería saber si yo era real o no.

En eso, se nos sumó otra de las personas dueñas del lugar, que sí hablaba inglés. La dueña nos presentó y nos saludamos y entonces ellas conectaron su chat de voz y se lanzaron a hablar en francés. Merry, la persona con la que llevaba un buen rato hablando, me preguntó de dónde era y por lo visto la otra niña le traducía lo que yo decía en inglés, por chat de voz, al francés. Yo les dije quién era, qué hacía y que lamentaba no saber francés y entonces la segunda persona dijo que ella había aprendido inglés en Second Life, así que demás que yo podía aprender francés. Yo les dije que haría lo posible y entonces ellas siguieron hablando en francés, por chat de voz, a toda velocidad. Se reían y hablaban mucho así que yo me aburrí y decidí volver a mi serie. Así que me despedí correctamente, diciéndoles que tenía que irme AFK por un rato y que había sido un gusto conocerlas. También les agradecí el que me permitieran acampar allí por muchas horas, sin problemas. Ellas me dijeron que no había problema, que el gusto era de ellas y entonces se retiraron hacia la barra del club, que queda más bien lejitos de donde estaba yo bailando, mientras que yo ponía en silencio el computador y seguía con mis episodios. xD

Así que, eso. Fueron bien simpáticas conmigo pero igual como que me dio lata que pensaran que era un bot de tanto estar haciendo lo mismo. Si tuviera a gente con la que conversar o qué sé yo, demás que me podría poner a acampar en esos lados donde hay que contestar preguntas cada 10 minutos o hay que re-sentarse cada 2 minutos o cosas así, pero estar muchas horas mirando a la mona bailar o sentarse sin hacer nada, como que se vuelve latero. Y los pocos amigos que tengo agregados son casi todos de Japón, así que se conectan a horas en que yo ya no estoy con ganas de estar en el PC. :p

Pero bueno. Al día siguiente, me puse a buscar algún otro lado donde acampar, por último para tener variedad y no siempre estar allá. Encontré un lugar bien feito, pero que tiene una cosa para pararse y acampar, que paga 2L$ por cada 25 minutos. Lo malo es que, después de los 25 minutos, hay que volver a hacerle click para empezar otra vez, no sigue indefinidamente. La tarima de baile de Club Le French te deja seguir por 1 hora sin tener que hacerle nada, lo que da más tiempo para que uno se entretenga en otras cosas o pueda, como yo estaba haciendo los otros días, escribir mails o trabajar. :p  Pero tengo que seguir buscando... Algún lugar debe haber. En Money Island hay dos sillas en las que uno gana 2L$ por 25 minutos, pero siempre, indefectiblemente, están llenas cuando yo llego. ¬¬  Y las otras dan 1L$ por cada 45 minutos, así que no salen muy a cuenta. :p

En medio de mis viajes del jueves, buscando dónde más acampar, llegué a una parte que no me acuerdo cómo se llama, pero en donde uno podía sacar una moto, una bicicleta o un scooter y dar vueltas alrededor. No servían para acampar, pero me acordé cuando anduve en moto acuática en Okinawa con T.B. y me subí a la moto.

También traté la bicicleta, pero no resultó porque algo malo tenía y, cuando me subía, como que el mundo se hacía transparente y después la mona quedaba pegada en pose "montada en bicicleta" y como que flotaba por el mundo... @_@

Y... Eso. De ahí, el viernes y el sábado no pude abrir el juego porque estaba demasiado lento con el Open Office, el Firefox como con 10 pestañas y el Babylon... Así que sigo a punto de llegar pero sin alcanzar todavía la meta de los 500L$. xD Parece Teletón la lesera... ¬¬U Aunque no sé qué diferencia hará que llegue a esa cantidad, porque igual no sirven para nada, pero... xD  Alguna meta hay que tener en la vida. :p

A todo esto, se acerca la tercera clase de la Kobe Juku... :O  Debería ser la próxima semana, a las 9 am de mi tiempo. Así que de nuevo me tocará madrugar... :O  Quién sabe de qué irán a hablar esta vez. Aunque no creo que me vayan a mencionar de nuevo ni nada, porque no da pa' tanto el temita, ¿no?

En fin... Pasando a otros temas, hoy estábamos hablando de Ichi Ritoru no Namida con M. y S. durante el almuerzo, porque resultó que ahora P.Y., el que era nuestro amigo en Maple y que sigue hablando con S. por MSN de vez en cuando, estaba viéndola y, por supuesto, le encantó. Igual que yo, opina que todo el mundo debería ver esa serie porque es realmente estremecedora y hace que uno ponga un poco en perspectiva su propia vida y sus propias desgracias personales.

Digo esto por dos cosas. Una porque siempre que se dicen esas cosas, me pongo a pensar en que, claro, ver las desgracias terribles que han sufrido otras personas sirve para que uno se sienta agradecido por su propia vida y todo eso... Pero no puedo evitar pensar que, por otro lado, una cosa no quita la otra. Claro que la desgracia de las personas que sufren enfermedades como la ataxia espinocerebral es terrible, pero también lo es, por ejemplo, el hecho de que una relación que considerabas fundamental en tu vida y de la que dependías en más de un sentido se muera, como me pasa a mí con S.. A lo mejor tengo un cuerpo sano y puedo hablar y escribir y caminar a voluntad, pero eso no quita que me sienta sola y que sienta que mi vida no tiene valor. Porque muchas veces, aunque pueda hacer todo eso que a lo mejor Aya no podía, no tiene mucho sentido poder hacerlas si no sirven para nada y si no tienen una justificación o sentido... No sé cómo explicarlo. Es algo que ni yo misma he aclarado del todo conmigo misma, pero que inevitablemente surge en mi mente cuando hablamos del ejemplo que da la niñita de esa serie y la enseñanza que deja, para que uno no se haga problemas por 'tonteras'. Pero... ¡No son tonteras! A lo mejor no son exactamente igual de terribles que una discapacidad física o mental, una enfermedad terminal o qué sé yo, pero hay cosas que pueden ser igualmente devastadoras y muchas cosas que, aunque no sean así de gráficamente terribles, pueden hacer que una persona se sienta infeliz y pierda el deseo de vivir, como me pasa a mí. :p Aunque, por otro lado, me enojo conmigo misma por pensar eso porque me digo "¿cómo todo el mundo puede sentirse inspirado y agradecer lo que tiene y todo, cuando ve historias como esta? ¿Cómo soy tan mala persona?"... ¬_¬  Al final, otra de las tantas cosas por las que discuto conmigo misma.

La segunda razón por la que me acordé y traje a colación el tema de ese dorama, es porque estuvimos hablando de lo linda que es la música de la serie, lo mucho que a M. le gusta, aunque ella ni siquiera entiende lo que dice y todo. Y estuve pensando que, ya que ando en la onda traductora, debería traducirle al menos la famosa Sangatsu Kokonoka para que supiera lo que dice, ya que le gusta tanto. Al final, traduzco cosas de POT o cosas así, por gusto o para amigos... ¿Cómo no hacer eso por M.? Así que, a lo mejor, antes de hacer algo entretenido, traduzco esa canción. :p De hacerlo, seguro que la postearé acá también así que o-tanoshimi ni. ;)

En fin. Más arriba mencioné que estuve peleando con mi computador anoche... Y sí. Ya del día anterior que andaba mañoso y se había casi trabado entero cuando intenté abrir el Second Life, mientras traducía y bajaba cosas por Bittorrent. Así que lo había dejado, porque era imposible traducir con tanta cosa abierta; nada se movía. ¬¬  Después, cuando lo iba a apagar, dijo que tenía que instalar estúpidas actualizaciones de Windows y se puso a instalar nada menos que el Service Pack 3, para lo que tuvo que hacer una copia del registro y no sé qué otras cosas más. Cuando terminó, dijo que se tenía que re-iniciar, así que lo dejé... Y cuando se prendió, fue muy raro. Primero, puso una pantalla celestosa (en ese tonito de Windows XP tan feo) y dijo "Espere...." misteriosamente. O.o  Traté de tomarle una foto pero la cámara no se alistó lo suficientemente rápido y la pantalla celeste desapareció para dar paso a una pantalla de carga de Windows XP, que también decía "Espere...." abajo. :O

Después de eso, siguió la carga normal del sistema operativo, sonó la musiquita y se prendió. Yo respiré aliviada, porque ya veía que algo raro pasaba (dado lo taimado que andaba el notebook...). Cuando, en eso, miro y veo que, además de estar cargando los programas habituales, sale esto:

La foto salió re-fea, pero decía que estaba configurando algo del Microsoft Outlook Express e instalándole no sé qué... Y yo ni me acordaba que esto tenía el MOE instalado (por cierto, el que canta ahí atrás es el hermosísimo Iw.Ma.-san, en uno de los wallpapers que S. hizo ❤). xD

En todo caso, lo más kowai fue cuando, después de ese cuadrito de diálogo, se abrió esto:

:O

Dos pantallitas de esas de DOS, que se pusieron a moverse por su cuenta y a escribir algunas cosas... Y después se cerraron solas. ._.

Después de eso, el computador siguió funcionando normalmente y no se notó ningún cambio, así que puse a bajar y nos pusimos a ver el DVD. No sería sino hasta ayer en la noche que notaría al menos un cambio, gracias a la tontera de actualización.  ¬¬

Resulta que estaba yo muy infelizmente traduciendo, tratando de poner expresiones cursis del español describiendo ciudades europeas en un japonés medianamente entendible, cuando veo el escudito weón que simboliza que está bajando o tiene actualizaciones de Windows para bajar. Ok, muchas veces aparece y desaparece por su cuenta, porque se supone que tengo configuradas esas leseras para que vea si tiene que bajar algo y me pregunte antes de bajarlo. Esto, para evitar que, arbitrariamente, de repente me diga "Debe reiniciar el equipo para que las actualizaciones instaladas tengan efecto. Reiniciando en 10, 9, 8, 7..." como me decía antes. Recuerdo claramente momentos en que estábamos en PQ en el Maple o haciendo algo delicado y asesino y que el juego se minimizaba de sopetón para dar paso al cuadrito de diálogo diciendo que el computador está a punto de reiniciarse por su cuenta. ¬¬

Pues bien. Yo seguí traduciendo, confiando en que la lesera no se bajaría nada a menos que yo le dijera. De repente, aparece ante mí el maldito cuadro de que las actualizaciones se bajaron y que hay que reiniciar y que está a punto de hacerlo. Rápidamente apreté el "reiniciar más tarde" y me dio rabia, porque yo no le pedí que bajara ninguna lesera y no pensaba reiniciar todavía, porque tenía como mil cosas abiertas (incluido el Winamp) y era una lata cerrarlo todo, reiniciar y volver a abrirlo todo y no quería perder tiempo para ver si podía terminar la traducción ese día. Lo malo es que, después de que aparece esa lesera una vez, vuelve a aparecer cada cierto rato, amenazando con reiniciar. Pero filo. Me olvidé y seguí trabajando. Cada cierto rato, el mensajito me webeaba, yo apretaba el "reiniciar más tarde", despotricaba contra él y seguía traduciendo. Hasta que M. nos llamó a tomar once. Yo estaba metida en una descripción particularmente difícil de una ciudad de Dalmacia que jamás había escuchado (y cuyo nombre en japonés conocía todavía menos...) así que ya, guardé y me senté a tomar once con ellas. De repente, en medio de la comida, la música que tocaba el Winamp dejó de sonar -aunque yo no me percaté de ello inmediatamente- y se escucha la demoniaca musiquita de "cerrar windows"...

...

.........

Todas nos miramos y S. dijo "se reinició el computador" mientras yo me daba una palmada en la frente. ¡SE REINICIÓ EL COMPUTADOR PORQUE ME OLVIDÉ DE QUE ESTABA LA ESTÚPIDA ACTUALIZACIÓN PIDIENDO REINICIAR DESDE HACÍA HORAS! Y se reinició sin importar que tenía abierto el Firefox, el Babylon, el Open Office, el Winamp y algo más... -_- Me dio una furia gigantezca, que tuve que hacer un esfuerzo por controlar porque estábamos comiendo y todo. Grr...

No contento con eso, la estupidez de computador se quedó en la pantalla de "Windows se está cerrando" como por media hora y no parecía estar pegado pero tampoco parecía estar cerrándose realmente... Y yo me estaba desesperando porque el rato pasaba y yo perdía tiempo de traducir y no iba a terminar ese día y quería terminar antes de que S. dejara de hacer sus cosas y se pusiera a jugar a la Wii, para poder sentarme yo también y relajamente y entretenerme... Y el computador dale que dale, "Windows se está cerrando"... ¡Waaaa!

Al final, apreté el botón de apagado. Dejé que descansara dos minutos y lo volví a prender, para revisar qué embarrada había dejado con su reiniciada espontánea, porque no me acordaba si había guardado lo que había traducido (las últimas frases; guardo con regularidad, pero no estaba segura de haber guardado JUSTO antes de irme a comer) ni nada... Cuando abrí el Open Office, me dijo que necesitaba 'recuperar' mi documento y, por suerte, lo pudo recuperar sin problemas y ahí estaba, enterito. Con eso respiré un poco más tranquila, porque lo que me horrorizaba era la idea de que se perdieran aquellas frases que con tanto trabajo había estado traduciendo al japonés y que ya me tenían hinchada... @_@  Las demás cosas daban lo mismo. Sólo el Winamp se olvidó de la playlist que había estado tocando y volvió a los archivos que tenía antes, pero eso era lo de menos. ¬¬

Aproveché de buscar en la configuración y ver qué demonios había pasado que las actualizaciones se habían bajado e instalado por su cuenta... Y claro, estaban configuradas de nuevo para "revisar todos los días a tal hora" y bajarse e instalarse y hacer todo por su cuenta ¡las muy &$&#@! Así que las desactivé, junto con insultarlas de muchas maneras diferentes. ¬¬  Porquerías...

Después de eso, pude seguir traduciendo por un rato, hasta que S. decidió dejar sus cosas y ponerse a jugar y entonces yo también salí de mi odioso infierno traductoril y me entretuve viéndola jugar toda la noche. (FIN).

xD

Y... Algo más iba a decir y se me olvidó. :p Y como se me olvidó, creo que lo dejaré hasta acá, por ahora. A ver si traduzco la canción y después pienso qué hacer: si ir a probar suerte al SL, ir al Flyff, buscar otro juego (M.C. me recomendó Ragnarok Online pero todavía no me decido...), ir a leer, buscar alguna serie que ver, leer alguno de los one-shots que me bajé o qué. :p También me habían dado ganas de jugar a Los Sims, pero sin tener un sim de Iw.Ma.-san y no poder usar a Hi.Wa. ni tener a Ak.Yo. como que se me quitan las ganas.. :(

Pero bueno... ¡Me alegro de estar de vuelta por las esferas blogísticas! Aunque me fui sólo por dos días. xD

Cuidense y nos leemos. :)

]]> http://foolip.org/blog/?p=240 Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:47:39 +0000 Philip http://blog.foolip.org/2008/10/03/how-to-download-chinese-music/ So you've learned some Chinese, seen a few Zhang Yimou movies and now you want to see what Chinese music has to offer? In this article I'll share some experiences on how to find and download Chinese music. "Chinese" is used in the broadest possible sense -- including music from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and overseas communities performed in any Chinese dialect.

Anyone who has ever tried finding Chinese music on English language file-sharing networks knows that it is a pointless exercise which will fail 98% of the time. Therefore, I will cover only on the Chinese language alternatives and we will be searching using Chinese. This means that if you can't read any Chinese you're going to have a hard time following this guide.

As an example in this article we'll be looking for music by Jay Chou, the unchallenged king of mandopop. If you only know the artist's "English" name then Wikipedia will usually be of help; from the Jay Chou article we learn that his name is 周杰倫 in traditional Chinese and 周杰伦 in simplified. The distinction between traditional and simplified Chinese is sometimes important, as I will point out below.

Baidu MP3

Baidu is a mainland China search engine with a large number of services and a very strong standing in the local market. One of those services is Baidu MP3, which indexes music files on the web. This might sound illegal somehow but it isn't and it shouldn't be under any sane copyright regime. However, western countries' copyright regimes are increasingly insane and our record labels have gotten used to bullying others into doing as they want. Presumably in order to stay off their radar Baidu MP3 sometimes block searches from outside China. If you're not in China and can't find any music when following the below instructions, skip ahead to the proxy section.

Now let's get down to business. Baidu MP3 is a great place to start when you want quick results and quality is not critical. Go to http://mp3.baidu.com/ and you'll see something like this:

Just enter the enter the artist name (周杰伦) in the search box. Baidu is clever enough to understand either traditional or simplified Chinese, but the results will always be in simplified Chinese as it's a mainland service. If you're only interested in MP3 files, select the "mp3" option. The search results will look something like this:

From left to right, the colums are:

• 歌曲名 song title (e.g. 青花瓷) – click this to download an individual track
• 歌手名 artist name (e.g. 周杰伦) – browse the artist discography and most popular songs
• 专辑名 album title (e.g. 我很忙) – show the full track listing for the album
• 试听 sample – listen without downloading (not very useful)
• 歌词 lyrics – useful, but Mojim.com is better
• 铃声 mobile ringtone – you probably don't want this
• 大小 file size – bigger usually means better quality
• 格式 file format – use mp3 for portability, you don't want wma or rm
• 链接速度 connection speed – the more the merrier

In the simplest case you simply click on one of the songs and start downloading, but you often need to try a few different servers before finding a file of acceptable quality and download speed. The artist and album pages are useful for exploring new artists, but I would advise against collecting full albums from these listings as the files would be of uneven quality and have inconsistent metadata (ID3 tags).

The 歌曲TOP500 (top 500 songs) is also well worth mentioning. The chart is based on the number of downloads and is – due to the service's popularity – arguably the best measure of what's hot in China right now. Other useful top charts include 新歌TOP100 (top 100 new songs) and 歌手TOP200 (top 200 artists).

See also Sinosplice for an older Baidu MP3 guide.

Chinese Proxy Server

If you find that you can't get any search results from Baidu, I would suggest first trying one of the other methods below. However, in the rare case where you really need Baidu, you can still do it no matter where you are geographically. Just like many Chinese netizens use proxy servers to get out of China, we can use a proxy server to get in to China. I've been able to use Baidu MP3 using web proxies from mainland China, Taiwan and Korea. Others may work too, so finding and configuring a proxy which works for you shouldn't take more than 5 minutes.

Do note that the only place where you actually need a proxy is when searching. When downloading you aren't connecting to Baidu so you can get much better speed if you turn the proxy off. As this requires switching the proxy on and off repeatedly, I suggest using a browser/extension which makes this convenient. In Opera you can use Tools>Quick Preferences>Enable Proxy Servers (or F12+r) to toggle the proxy. Using Firefox+FoxyProxy it seems that you can use a proxy only for mp3.baidu.com, which is even better.

Again, if using a proxy seems like a lot of trouble, just keep reading for some other services which may serve you better.

VeryCD

When I had been in Beijing for only a few days I was at a meet-up for new expats and friendly Chinese. I got on the topic of music with a Chinese guy and he soon suggested that I visit VeryCD. That was in 2006, and VeryCD is still the file sharing portal in China. It indexes files on the eDonkey network and just about everybody seems to use it.

It's quite easy to use VeryCD: just type the artist name at the top and search away. Unlike Baidu, VeryCD doesn't handle traditional Chinese very well, so make sure that you're copying/inputting simplified Chinese or you may not find what you're looking for. Except for that, the search box is very clever and will even suggest additional search terms as you type.

As an example let's look for Jay Chou's 2006 album Still Fantasy – 依然范特西. Searching for 周杰伦 依然范特西 will find the album in both MP3 and APE format, as well as a bonus DVD, karaoke videos, etc. Jay Chou is exceptionally popular so the results won't always be this good, but you'll almost always be able to find something. Go to any of those results and you'll find a box like this:

These are the files you are looking for, but since VeryCD is just a fancy index for the eDonkey network you need an eDonkey client to actually download anything. I recommend aMule for all operating systems except Windows, where eMule might be better. After you've installed the client, simply clicking on the links should add the files to your download queue. Usually aMule will be able to find a peer sharing the file in question and start downloading. It's not always fast, but it will finish in the end if you're patient. Here I've downloaded and extracted the 320 kbps version:

Basically, that's all there is to it. One nice feature worth mentioning is that VeryCD provides RSS feeds for all pages, including categories and search results. For example, you can subscribe to the Chinese music category or Jay Chou search results, which is very useful for staying up to date with very little effort. Paradise for the music fanatic!

Kad

Now that you have aMule/eMule installed, there is another method well worth mentioning. Kad is a distributed network for indexing and searching eDonkey files. If you can't find what you're looking for on VeryCD, try using aMule/eMule to search in the Kad network. In the search view, select type "Kad". You also need to pay attention to traditional/simplified Chinese as there is no automatic conversion. I suggest doing one search in traditional and one in simplified to cover all the options.

Here I've found a karaoke (KTV) version of a song I like. Even for things that you can find on VeryCD, searching the Kad network will sometimes give you better quality or alternate versions. If you find that an album in both a mainland version (大陸版/大陆版) and a Taiwan version (台灣版/台湾版) go with the Taiwan release as mainland releases are often bastardized by removing/renaming tracks to please the censors. Hong Kong versions (香港版) sometimes contain Cantonese bonus tracks, which might be nice.

Recommendations

You shouldn't have any problem finding music now, but if you don't know where to start I can recommend a few of my favorite artists:

• Mayday/五月天 is a Taiwanese rock band who perform in both Mandarin and Min Nan dialect. I am ridiculously fond of their song Rainbow/彩虹 from the album People Life, Ocean Wind/人生海海.
• Jay Chou/周杰倫/周杰伦 is extremely popular, but his style may take some getting used to. New album Capricorn coming out October 9!
• Wang Leehom/王力宏 is a successful Taiwanese American artist who also starred in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution.
• Michael Wong/光良 is a Malaysian Chinese singer who specializes in love ballads. His newer albums are only so-so though.
• Eason Chan/陳奕迅/陈奕迅 is a Hong Kong artist with a nice voice. I especially like his 2007 Mandarin album Admit It/認了吧.
• Faith Yang/楊乃文/杨乃文 is a Taiwanese singer with a good voice, good songs and none of the painfully "cute" image that most other female Chinese artists have. I think of her as Taiwan's Alanis Morisette, but as I don't really like Morisette the comparison only goes so far...

The list could go on, but if you don't trust my taste in music (who would?) do have a look at Baidu's top 200 artists to see what people in China are listening to instead.

Tagging

The variations in character encodings, translations, romanizations, mixture of traditional and simplified Chinese and plain errors that you can find "in the wild" makes it necessary to clean up the tags (metadata) of your files. Unless you do this it's going to be a mess when you want to play your music in a player which uses the tags to sort things (as many portable players do). The best tool for consistent tags that I know of is MusicBrainz, even though far from all Chinese music is in the MusicBrainz database. Still, it is better than trying to fix everything by hand and you'll probably want to use it for all your non-Chinese music anyway.

That concludes this guide. I hope that it makes sense and that it will be of use.

Karaoke is possibly the best social activity ever (五月天 - 彩虹)

Recentemente tra i milioni di file condivisi da gli utenti della Baia sono comparse anche le foto di una autopsia di due bambini e la Baia è stata prontamente sollecitata a rimuovere ogni riferimento a tali contenuti.

Sunde si è opposto a tale censura dichiarando che non stava a loro giudicare cosa i cittadini potessero o non potessero condividere:

"Le persone possono esprimersi e diffondere il materiale che ritengono importante - ha sottolineato Sunde - è una delle cause per cui combattiamo e anche se questo diritto può essere impugnato per infastidire qualcuno è più importante che venga garantito piuttosto che venga negato"

Successivamente Sunde ha accettato di presenziare ad una trasmissione televisiva per trasmettere e spiegare anche tramite i media tradizionali questi concetti facendosi promettere dall'emittente che avrebbe avuto il tempo e lo spazio all'interno della trasmissione per illustrare agli ascoltatori il funzionamento dello Scambio Informativo sulla Rete.

Purtroppo ad interromperlo è stato direttamente il padre dei due bambini uccisi proiettato su un maxi-schermo che non ci ha pensato due volte ad intimare l'amministratore della Baia affinchè le immagini venissero rimosse.

Sentendosi tradito dalla promessa mancata Sunde ha deciso di troncare ogni rapporto con i media tradizionali e ritirarsi in silenzio stampa:

"Non abbiamo alcun interesse a comparire sui media tradizionali poiché è lampante che non siano degni di fiducia nè intendano diventarlo".

Fonte: Punto Informatico

• ABC
• NBC
• CBS
• FOX
• HULU
• FANCAST
• JOOST
• BITTORRENT

Podcast now, transcript to follow.

Ma i vantaggi di questo sofware sono molteplici: innanzi tutto è open source, quindi la community degli sviluppatori ne migliora costantemente le funzionalità e le prestazioni.

Inoltre dispone di una rete proprietaria, ma supporta anche il protocollo BitTorrent.

Ares fornisce un sistema accessorio di chat per la comunicazione tra gli utenti che permette anche di creare delle chat room private di condivisione dei file.

Il programma è disponibile per Windows e Mac, ma è anche possibile installarlo su Linux con Wine, fate riferimento a questo articolo

Link | Ares

In talking to people since OiNK, one of the most popular private BitTorrent trackers, was shut down by police a year ago, I've come to suspect something. In particular, that a combination of more stringent measures to deter torrents as well as the loss of perhaps the most well-run tracker on the internet was causing people to turn to alternative methods of file-sharing. Well, it looks like I may have been on to something.

ars technica reported earlier today that not only is P2P traffic slowing down, accounting for a lower percentage of overall internet traffic than it used to, but DDL (Direct Download) services like Rapidshare and Mediafire are growing at a stunning rate. DDL allows people to simply download a file stored at one location by clicking on it - that's it. There's no sharing involved, no having to reassemble pieces of downloaded files, no having to wait for seeders - it's just there for the taking, plus it's often very fast. And, of course, there's one major allure.

Unlike with P2P traffic, investigators can't easily grab the IP addresses of those downloading DDL files, and they can't grab copies of the files themselves in order to look for copyright infringement.

P2P, despite the ire directed against it by content owners, at least allows them a window into online behavior. DDL services close the window and plaster over it, and only a sledgehammer from a subpoena (or the cooperation of an ISP) can open it back up. 

I'd be really curious to see the first case where the RIAA or MPAA tries to sue someone for downloading from a DDL service. Not only is it difficult to locate IP addresses of people downloading off DDL and acquire "evidence" (since you're not sharing, they can't download your files as evidence of wrongdoing), but these DDL services have legitimate uses at heart; they're really file transfer sites. To try to restrict DDL traffic in the same way that ISPs do with torrents by throttling their customers would cause many legitimate transfers to be disrupted. It's like opening and examining everybody's mail simply because there's the possibility of something illegal being sent.

BitTorrent is far from dead, of course, as it's still the preferred file sharing method for millions. However, this is just the latest example of the file sharing hydra staying ahead of the game. The loss of OiNK and the sudden uncertainty surrounding private BitTorrent trackers has caused some to take the next step and look for something that will take the authorities even longer to crack.

Once they figure out it exists, that is.

P2P growth slowing as infringement goes deeper undercover [ars technica]

CHINA — A Chinese man was fined $277 for a 30-minute adult video found on his hard drive, according to a report.

Chinese authorities were looking for “harmful information” from a new business’ IP address when they discovered the video on Ren Chaoqi’s computer, according to CNET.com.

Chaoqi told the authorities he obtained the video through BitTorrent.

The fine “has apparently ignited a controversy on some Chinese-language websites,” according to CNET, which quotes another article that details online opinion polls that are overwhelmingly in Chaoqi’s favor.

According to an Internet survey conducted by Sina.com, in which 55,259 persons voted, 96.52 percent (53,251 persons) thought that "this person did not illegally distribute and exhibit pornographic videos and that the negligible impact should not have incurred such a heavy fine."

The report isn't clear on what law was used to fine Chaoqi. At first, it was under a law designed to punish someone for obtaining illegal revenue, but Ren told media that the video was purely for personal viewing.

Later, the citation said the offense was copying illegal material. Unless settings are specifically set up for someone to be a "leech" only, downloading from BitTorrent also includes transmitting, according to the CNET report.

Ren told a reporter he is waiting for an administrative review that he hopes will lead to a lower fine — or no fine at all.

Torrent Freak can be found here.

BitTorrent 4.27.2 Bram Cohen, Greg Hazel Matt Chisholm, David Harrison, Steven Hazel, Andrew Loewenstern BitTorrent, Inc.

BitTorrent 개발자 Bram Cohen이 참여하는 무료 오픈소스 멀티플랫폼 BitTorrent 클라이언트.

PeerGuardian 1.5b1 (2008-02-12) Brian Bergstrand | Phoenix Labs

I-Blocklist 목록에 있는 의심스러운 IP를 막아주는 유틸리티. P2P 등을 사용할 때 보안을 위해 사용할 수 있다.

설치시 관리자 권한 필요.

필터 목록 중에 Microsoft가 있다. Microsoft Live Messenger의 접속도 차단하므로 MSN 사용자는 이 옵션을 꺼야 한다.

Topic 1: Torrents

Those of you who are cool or just part of youth culture know what a torrent file is. Some of you may not know exactly what a seeder or leecher is, or care about what your ratio is. Let me give you a VERY brief explanation of what a torrent is, in case you don't already know. Well, remember Napster? That revolutionary software which reached its ultimate peak/popularity when I was in middle school or early high school? Remember Metallica getting all angry and submitting a list of users it wanted dropped from the service after it was found that they had their songs? Well I was one of them (yeah I know, kinda lame that I had downloaded Metallica)...then I also remember ways to get around that. But anyway...Napster sparked a whole slew of Peer-to-Peer software "file sharing" programs like it that allowed users to download a wide array of pirated software and music. The problem with napster is that it kept a central collection of IP addresses and catalogs of files you were sharing (or something like that). Then came programs like Limewire and...I can't remember any of the other ones because I stopped using them a long while ago....but these programs got rid of some of the legal issues surrounding napster involving central computers. Then, programs such as the pay service of napster, itunes, and rhapsody appeared. These were 100% legal, but you had to pay for shit...

Torrents are the napster of this age...and much harder for the record industry to track. There is no central computer keeping a tally of what you download and from where...and there is no one service provider...they are found throughout the internet. There are numbers of torrent programs out there and a number of torrent websites to search for media. Among the most popular websites are The Pirate Bay, Demonoid, and Isohunt. These sites simply provide a search engine of torrents. A torrent file sets up a network between several different computers to allow data transfer. Those who have the file(s) readily available within this network are known as seeders...those downloading are known as leechers. Networks are set up and data transfer initialized through a tracker program. I use the program Vuze, formerly known as Azureus. The downside of this method of file sharing is that seeds on a particular group of files usually dies out because people don't usually feel the need to continue seeding (sharing) the stuff they just downloaded.

I love torrents...in fact I just downloaded a tribute album to Operation Ivy and a tribute album to Choking Victim. I don't exactly know of the exact processes of a torrent and tracker...but the above was based off of what I could extrapolate from having used it. Another upside of torrents is that you can find music that is hard to find and may not be available on your precious itunes. Well...on to the next topic...this wasn't so much of a heavily opinion induced rant.

Topic 2: Punk Fusion

People who know me, know I love punk rock music...and those who know me better know I love Punk Fusion genres. This includes Ska-Punk, Celtic-Punk, and more. Punk energy, tempo, and lyrics are what I crave. Mixing these elements with other genres of music I enjoy provide me with a musical orgasm. I even play in a punk band that used to be primarily punk/ska. Some of the best artists of the punk genre implement punk fusion such as The Clash, Rancid, Operation Ivy, The Pogues, Dropkick Murphys, World Inferno/Friendship Society, The Real McKenzies, Neck, Fishbone, Choking Victim/Leftover Crack (and other variations of the same), Intro5pect, Refused, and others I can't recall at the moment.

The Clash has been the best at infusing several different genres with punk...such as dub, ska, reggae, funk, folk, and weird techno-like stuff. Another notable band is Choking Victim/Leftover crack (and other "crack rocksteady" bands) who play a mix of punk, crust-punk, ska-punk, and hardcore. Dropkick Murphys are a testament of the growing popularity of punk in the way of fusion. Celtic music appears to be on the rise and Dropkick Murphys have been accumulating fans at an alarming rate since the movie The Departed came out. Something is very unique about punk fusion...its like a punk attitude with class. Not to rag on straight up punk...I love it...but punk fusion adds something a little more to the same old routine that has been done thousands of times before. Evolution....genres are splitting off but still deeply rooted in the past.

Is it ok for that laptop to stay on 24/7, its on a wood bedside cupboard, and its plugged in, im not sure if it's damaging the battery, should i take the battery out? what happens then if the power goes off.

Oh well, if the power does go off the router will reset anyway and my IP will change.

Today im playing Half-Life 2 Episode 2, iv done all the rest. (HL1, HL2, EP1)

(No pic of laptop, cba to use my K800i, take out the memory card, transfer, replace memory card, resize the pic and upload.)

Miro es una aplicación multiplataforma gracias a la cual nos podemos suscribir a los feeds de las series que solamos ver, o los podcast que solamos escuchar, para que las descargue automáticamente cuando sea publicado un nuevo episodio. De esta manera no tenemos que hacer absolutamente nada, simplemente dejar corriendo el programa. Sencillo, ¿no? Además el propio programa también es un reproductor de audio y vídeo, con lo que podemos crearnos listas de reproducción con los capítulos que queramos.

Así da gusto ver televisión: cuando, donde y tantas veces como yo quiera ver un episodio. Me parece lo mas cómodo que hay.

But at the same time I'm a software user. I use both open source software (free as in speech because I like to tweak it, and free as in beer because I'm cheap and I like beer) and commercial software that my wife thinks I spend too much money on. And I hate Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. Hate it. It's inconvenient, intrusive and hey - I paid for the product and I don't want DRM. For me that is reason enough.
Okay, I think most of us can agree that DRM is annoying and intrusive but how is that a threat to information security? Glad you asked. From a recent article on the Harvard Law Zeroday blog:

EA could help end DRM

The backlash over DRM has finally started to gather serious momentum. Everyday consumers started a campaign to give the highly anticipated game Spore one-star ratings on Amazon. Thousands of Amazon users labeled Spore a poor choice because of the SecuROM DRM system that is forced onto PC users machines that purchase the game. EA has backpedaled a bit and eased the restrictions on the number of installs per machine. They have even made a verbal (but unenforceable) promise to disable the DRM system by patch should they ever end of life the product. But so far EA refuses to give in to consumer demand that they simply get rid of the DRM system. They hold on to the claim that DRM helps reduce piracy. Yet 30 seconds of searching on a popular torrent site shows not only Spore but a cracked copy that totally removes all DRM from the game.
This is possibly the most insulting bit for consumers. People who are pirating the game actually enjoy more freedom in the sense that their system does not have SecuROM permanently installed onto the hard drive. In the recent class action suit the defendants publicly document how the DRM used in Spore remains installed even after the game has been removed from the users computer. SecuROM also operates at “Ring 0″ which is to say the core of the kernel layer which is clever in that it is hard to bypass the program yet dangerous because anything that goes wrong will completely destroy the users session. All of these facts are not made plain to consumers before purchasing the game. Only after they have purchased the game and start installation will they have the chance to read about the DRM system in the EULA. Retailers almost never allow returns on software once opened which leaves consumers who don’t agree with the surprise DRM in a very bad position.

I see, it's that nasty malware that they foist on users' machines that is the security threat. Sorry, good guess, but no cigar. That's nasty for sure, but there is a very real and significant threat that is inherent to all intrusive DRM. To illustrate this I will defer to someone familiar with Electronic Arts (EA) software and who has way more gamer cred than me, my son Nick Webster. He reviewed the article above and responded thusly:

Atari implemented the same sort of system on Alone in the Dark. AITD didn’t get any cracks and remained untorrentable largely due to the suckiness of the game, crackers didn’t waste their time on such a poor excuse for a game.
That MIGHT be why EA is claiming DRM works, cuz no one stole Atari’s AITD. You can clearly see their logic, “They had this really BAD game that no one wants to play, but it had DRM so no one stole it. DRM MUST WORK!!!”. Assuming you haven’t suffered brain damage you can obviously see where their logic is wrong. The REAL solution to keep people from stealing your game WAS hit upon in AITD, though, just make the game BAD and have Yahtzee FLAME it that seems to help.
My general tactic with all of this is to just NOT EVER buy EA games. So far the only game I’ve  seen with any sort of REASONABLE DRM is UT3. They let you install it on as many comps as you want, you just can’t have more than 15 people logged ONLINE with your code at ONCE. Seems fair, right?
Or if you MUST be nasty about your DRM the BEST tactic is the old school one, leave some music on the CD that will be needed to load the game. Then the no-cd-cracks will hinder game play and frustrate the player, as Daemon Tools requires lots of work to get it to actually let you play games OFF the ISO.
Anyway… as a side note I DID go rate spore a 1 on Amazon the current rating for the game is like 1.5 stars… glad to see there are a lot of us out there.

Note: apparently Yahtzee doesn't like Spore much either - so Nick could be on to something here!

Still not see it? I'm not surprised. It's because Nick and the Zeroday author were both vague yet obvious in suggesting how to deal with intrusive DRM: They don't - they torrent a cracked version of the software. This is where the very real and present security threat lies. Not only are warez sites notorious for purveying malware, but there are companies like MediaDefender that actually inject "spoof files into the [torrent distributors] network without permission ... as part of its antipiracy efforts to dilute the pool of pirated content online". Yikes! In fact this particular "antipiracy" effort caused a serious Denial of Service (DOS) attack on the popular - and completely legitimate - Revision3 network. So what happens when an employee decides to download a Spore crack from a warez site on your corporate network? Or what happens when your kid decides to grab it on your home network (note to self - check those firewall and IDS logs!).

The bottom line is this - at best DRM is ineffective and is counterproductive to the vendors antipiracy efforts. It is ineffective because people who want to steal your software and bypass the DRM can do it quite easily and it is counterproductive to your antipiracy efforts because it's easier for users to deal with the pirates than it is to deal with the DRM. And what about the real sales lost due to DRM. Not the bogus sales lost to piracy (I posit that people who steal your software would not have paid for it, ergo they cannot be counted as lost sales), but the real sales. Some due in part to the free advertising you get from piracy. That's right, I can't count the number of software packages I have purchased after trying a "borrowed" copy. Nowadays I rarely have to resort to anything as nefarious as "borrowing" software since most shareware (I'm partial to small independent software developers) now employ a "try before you buy" model where I can try the full unencumbered program for several weeks before buying it. Just ask my wife how effective this model is - based on my software spending habits. But even though I can easily "borrow" a copy of Spore to try it out before I pony up $50 American, I absolutely will not consider it as long as EA insists on forcing the DRM on me. I may, however, go to Amazon and give Spore a 1-star rating.

But the point of this rant is: When your company implements a strictly self-serving mechanism that not only is ineffective in accomplishing it's intended purpose, but has the (presumably) unintended consequence of promoting risky and (potentially) illegal behavior that increases the threat exposure on the network, I have a real problem with that. Sure we can disallow all P2P activity on our business networks - but what about users who need access to legitimate groups that rely on torrents to distribute their software like the Fedora project? Or we can teach our children that stealing software is wrong and they should always pay for it - but what about software that forcibly installs malware like EA's SecuROM? I think the better lesson is "vote with your wallet" - don't buy bad stuff that you don't want - especially if it's bundled with something you do want.

So how about it, EA? Why not do everyone a service and just say "no!" to stupid ideas like DRM. You won't have to pay for it, and we won't have to put up with it. Sounds like a win-win to me. And maybe I'll consider buying your software instead of flaming you. Hey fifty bucks is fifty bucks. Or do you really need to suck up to Sony that badly. Whoa I better stop here - I feel a great conspiracy theory coming on.

I'm a big fan of Neal Stephenson and had heard he'd just come out with his new book, Anathem, so I thought I'd have a look if Audible had it.  A quick search turned up an unabridged version.  Great!  Log in with my account, search for "Anathem" and... No matches found.  Did you mean "Anthem"?

Huh?  Try search for Stephenson, search by category, try the advanced search... Nothing!  So I check on my laptop, find the product code, edit the URL in my signed in windows and sure enough - there it is!  Only now, it tells me I can't buy this title because of some arbitrary restriction that I'm in South Africa, or not in the US, or whatever.

In fact, not only can I not buy the title with cash, I can't even buy it with credits I've already paid for.  These credits cost me the same as anyone in the US, but they are apparently worth less because I'm geographically disadvantaged.

The iTunes store practices similar discrimination, going to great lengths to ensure that nobody oversteps political boundaries in their attempts to hand over money.  Which would be fine, if we had the same selection and features everywhere.

We actually have an iTunes store now, in South Africa, but there is no music, there are no movies or TV shows, and there is only a small selection of iPhone and iPod Touch applications compared with the US store.  Want to access the US store?  Not without a US address and a US bank account!

I'm sure both Audible and Apple will tell you that it's not their fault - that their rights to sell these works are restricted by the publishers, who practice discriminatory pricing and release schedules to maximize their returns...  That may be true:  It's been apparent for some time that "old media" still does not get the internet age, and movie, music and book publishers are the worse off for it.

I do blame Audible and Apple and anyone else who panders to these ridiculous limitations, though:  They are big enough and powerful enough in these negotiations to just say "no".

You might argue that they owe me nothing - that it may not be in their interest to argue the point since their profit comes largely from the US market anyway, and who am I to be making demands?

You would, of course, be right.  The thing is, though, I don't owe them anything either, and I'm not really too bothered anymore.  Because, you see, after trying to do things legitimately and failing, I discovered something interesting.

Bittorrent, it turns out, does not discriminate.

Heroes rompió todo. Las estadísticas de los sitios de BitTorrent de todo el mundo revelaron que los dos nuevos episodios de la serie fueron descargados por más de un millón de personas de las cuales, un 92%, residen fuera de los Estados Unidos. Claramente las cadenas locales con derechos no van a estar contentos de leer estos porcentajes pero, si los ejecutivos tienen un poco de cerebro, podría ayudar a los espectados. ¿Cómo? Pues si yo fuera ellos me metería de lleno para que los shows hagan, como muchas películas, estrenos mundiales. Pero para eso probablemente falte mucho tiempo.

Jesse Alexander, el productor ejecutivo de Hereos habló con la gente de TorrentFreak y dijo que las personas mirando shows como Lost o Heroes a través de las descargas de BitTorrent son una realidad y que las cadenas deberán reconocer esto y hacer algo para solucionar este “problema” de los espectadores.

Lo mejor de todo es que Heroes tuvo un comienzo de temporada, en Estados Unidos, con una audiencia bastante pobre (9.98 millones de espectadores) para lo que los ejecutivos esperaban. Si tenemos en cuenta que un millón descargó la serie por interent, el porcentaje (casi del 10%) es muy grande.

Most of these downloads go to users outside of the U.S. who have to wait for weeks, if not months, after the U.S. premiere to finally see new episodes on TV. These delays do not just lead to millions of torrent downloads, but also a huge number of streams and downloads from less than legit YouTube clones and one-click hosters. In the light of recent download records, TV studios are slowly waking up to the fact that global release windows just don't work anymore.

This fall season has been particularly good for torrent sites around the globe: Sweden-based Pirate Bay announced a few days ago that it now has 3 million registered users. It also has been connecting a record breaking 14 million simultaneous users ever since the beginning of of this week. New episodes of shows like Grey's Anatomy, Heroes or Smallville are attracting around 30,000 to 35,000 simultaneous swappers each at the time of writing, guaranteeing download speeds that will max out your DSL connection.

The Dutch BitTorrent site Mininova also has gotten a lot of attention from TV-loving downloaders in recent days. Mininova clocked more than 10 million torrent downloads on Tuesday alone - a new record that also put the total number of torrents downloaded from the site ever above 6 billion. Mininova has seen well above 1 million downloads of the first Heroes episodes of the season so far, and new episodes of other new shows show equally strong demand.

Then there is a whole network on sites with Flash TV streams hosted by Chinese YouTube clones and similar sites, plus countless sites linking to copies of new episodes on one-click hosters like RapidShare and Megaupload. It's harder to gather any meaningful statistics from these sites, but it's safe to assume that they serve at least as many users as torrent sites, if not more. One reason for the success of Flash-based pirate sites is that there is no equivalent to Hulu in most other countries. However, we don't have any numbers yet on whether Hulu is also luring U.S. users away from torrent sites.

Some TV networks seem to get that the only way to combat this phenomenon is to offer legal alternatives in a timely fashion. FOX is going to experiment with a simultaneous distribution approach for the next season of 24 that is scheduled to start next January. A German TV network will show the season premiere in real time, offering hardcore fans a chance to start another rough day with Jack Bauer in the middle of the night. There will be a repeat the next day, and all following episodes will be scheduled for local primetime, just hours after they hit the airwaves in the US. Episodes are supposedly also available online, albeit for a fee.

The effect of this experiment on 24's global download numbers will probably be limited, especially since the premium cable channel in question doesn't have too many paying viewers in Germany. That means there's a good chance we'll be able to report new torrent records in TV seasons to come. Still, it's a step in the right direction - and maybe even the first serious crack that will eventually lead to global release windows crumbling.

Available from the Swedish torrent Web site The Pirate Bay, the Cocoa-based client has been expected since 2006 when BitTorrent, Inc., bought uTorrent and promised to develop a Mac version. There was little said since then, until this past August when uTorrent developer Greg Hazel announced that a Mac version would be ready ''in a few weeks,'' according to the torrent news Web site TorrentFreak.

Simon Morris, BitTorrent's VP of Product Development, responded to the leak by saying that the version currently in the wild was not supposed to get out and is not recommended for use, although he hopes that people now believe him when he says that there is a Mac uTorrent client in the works. There is an official notification list for eager users available at the uTorrent site. http://mac.utorrent.com/

Certain key features don't work yet, such as searching. Comments about the app on The Pirate Bay confirm its bugginess. So far it only seems to work on Intel-based Macs, and only those running OS X 10.5 or higher. Because this is an extremely early build of the client, it's not clear at this point how it will stand up to established Mac torrent clients such as Transmission, how it compares to its Windows sibling, or even if this means that a BitTorrent-branded Mac client is in the works.

Ironically, you'll need a torrent client to download this torrent client, since it's only available from a torrent Web site.

From: CNET.COM

Le motivazioni specifiche verrranno diffuse a breve: mancata giurisdizione (The Pirate Bay ha sede all'estero) o impossibilità effettiva del sequestro, che è stato piuttosto un oscuramento, le più accreditate.