[Some geek]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davesrose /img/forum/go_quote.gif But that was one of my points!!! Medical techs are too busy to be playing mp3s on the computer they're using to diagnose on

OH OK... So a potential life threating bug is out there but we should just ignore it because, after all, med techs are busy people and they would NEVER play MP3s.

YIKES. What logic.

 

[Jokieman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by m_memmory /img/forum/go_quote.gif The other thing is ... they are putting all this hardware into place in an attempt to stop piracy and the like. Has anything like this ever happened in the past and worked? I reckon that other people will find a way around this... I mean consoles were setup so that they couldn't be copied - so the hackers etc came up with a mod chip that meant they play copied games and cracked the games so that they could be copied. I can't see anything truly working for long in this fight against the people who are determined to copy things. No matter how many people you have working on this copy protection schemes there are many many more people working to break them.

Nothing has worked so far. The closest success has been the Nano actually, and i'm sure eventually the rockbox developers will get around to cracking the encryption.

Companies are wasting billions of dollars every year and they have yet to come up with anything that has been 100% successful, and dare I say, the harder they try, the more people will take it as a challenge to break their backs.

If they do manage to come up with something that works, people won't use it, and so it will die anyway. hehe.

Doesn't matter much to me anyway. I waited until 3 years after XP came out to upgrade to it, and I'm sure it'll be that long before I decide to upgrade to something else. I'm old enough to remember the horrors of upgrading to Windows 95 and all the hassles and blue screens of death that involved, I'll just sit back and let the "must have now" people deal with all the headaches. hehehehe.

 

[CSMR]

If you play an HDCP protected file does the operating system degrade the output of unrelated applications?

 

[Davesrose]

OK, since I don't have a lot of time to respond to both the long edits/ points to both Some geek and Jokieman, I'll try to answer as best as I can here.

To Jokieman....the more likely scenario where "premium content" would be factored in would be the graphics world. My background is medical illustration and animation, so I have experience in both the medical OR and graphics. I also work with a medical simulation company, so I know a little about voxel based data.

To me, a more likely scenario of when a person would be listening to a questionable mp3 and minipulating a hi-res image would be a graphic artist sitting down at the computer. And there are plenty of professional graphic associations that would be sueing Microsoft if that was the case: Avid, Autodesk, Adobe, The Graphic Artist Guild.....etc.

Now since I'm more of the medical/ graphics side....that's right, I don't know how Vista could corrupt an image. And it seems that it might come into play when a questionable mp3 is played on a Vista a computer. Jokieman, since the bueracracy of a hospital is such that it takes a long time for an OS to be put up....wouldn't it stand to reason that by the time Vista does make it to hospitals, that all this would already be sorted out??

I'm just disparaging this doom and gloom....you can be sure that both the graphics and medical world would be knocking on Microsoft's door if playing a mp3 would corrupt an image!!! How am I B.S.ing saying that we shouldn't be sticking to questionable analogies???

 

[Some geek]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CSMR /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you play an HDCP protected file does the operating system degrade the output of unrelated applications?

Yes and no....

(to be more precise)

If the operating system THINKS a component is "leaking" (exposing to copying) what they call "premium content" then it can do any number of things to plug the leak up to and INCLUDING crippling the performance of multiple components in the computer.

So for example if the OS decides you have a bootleg SACD in the machine, the res of your monitor can be reduced.

But that's not even the end of it....

Whats scarer is that they can (so far) do it ON SOMEONE ELSE"S COMPUTER.

So if the type video card you use is found to have a bug in it that it might "leak" premium content, (so far) MS can disable EVERY VIDEO CARD LIKE IT EVER MADE even if you purchased everything legit.

Granted that is what has been dubbed the "nuclear option" MS could never do it POLITICALLY but technologically they can.

And why did they write it that way if they would never use it?

 

[craiglester]

ahem, SACD cannot be played on a computer. and as for bootleg SACD, anyone ever seen one?

 

[CSMR]

That rather clarifies the discussion. Medical imaging isn't specially affected. Yes it is a rather unlikely situation if the drivers in question are Intel, ATI or NVidia; that would bring a lot of businesses down throughout the world. I am not worried about this but I suppose risk estimates are subjective. Maybe it could be used against dubious little companies or hacked drivers.
It would seem that just disabling HDCP if any components are not secure would be a better thing to do and surely not very difficult.

 

[Some geek]

Quote:

Originally Posted by craiglester /img/forum/go_quote.gif ahem, SACD cannot be played on a computer. and as for bootleg SACD, anyone ever seen one?

ok bootleg blueray whatever. The point still stands.

Want to check my typos too?

 

[Some geek]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CSMR /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yes it is a rather unlikely situation

Absolutely. So is getting hit by lightning. But I still don't play golf in a thunderstorm.

But it is "our" job (the geeks of the world) to hammer stuff like this out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CSMR /img/forum/go_quote.gif if the drivers in question are Intel, ATI or NVidia; that would bring a lot of businesses down throughout the world.

Um yeah. The odds of a hit are low but potential costs are high.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CSMR /img/forum/go_quote.gif I am not worried about this but I suppose risk estimates are subjective.

I'm not overly worried either. But the Marines teach you to "Honor the Threat." (in other words don't discount a threat a threat because you perceive it to be small, it can bite you)

Look up "Sony Root kit" if you think things like this can't go a step too far. It's the community of geeks out there that keeps things like this in check.

 

[Davesrose]

OK Some geek.....let's try to have some resolution here. Now you're trying to sort what bugs Vista might have with what it deems "premium content". You have a valid point there. Now if you and the author were to just do that, then it wouldn't come off as being just an opinionated daitribe to me. Now it mainly was the medical analogy, that sent me off. The author was certainly only trying to be sensational with that. So it adds less credibility to everything else IMHO. Our flaming isn't helping either

Lets just stick to real evidence about how Vista is worst with DRM then other devices (because lets face it, DRM and HDCP are everywhere now). Alright

 

[CSMR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Some geek /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm not overly worried either. But the Marines teach you to "Honor the Threat." (in other words don't discount a threat a threat because you perceive it to be small, it can bite you) Look up "Sony Root kit" if you think things like this can't go a step too far. It's the community of geeks out there that keeps things like this in check.

Sometimes. Here business would also prevent this; that was what I was implying. I am pretty much an expected utility person as regards risk but there are theories where people give very small risks a much higher weighting than this.

 

[Some geek]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davesrose /img/forum/go_quote.gif Now it mainly was the medical analogy, that sent me off. The author was certainly only trying to be sensational with that. So it adds less credibility to everything else IMHO.

NO NO NO NO NOPE! You have the Engineer in me awake.

OK Do you remember a while back when the Pentium Processor had a bug in it where it returned errors when you divided numbers by 9?

Intel downplayed the bug at the time, but that bug was responsible for a satellite launch missile crashing into the ocean. (costing million of dollars)

The author cites the example of when a Windows NT box left the Aegis missile cruiser USS Yorktown dead in the water.

(I'm not trying to pick a fight, I appreciate your tone) But these things effect real life.

His example is quite valid. We (society) count on technology every day. Any realistically potential problem is important. That a digital artifact can be mistaken on an X-ray is a very real danger.

(BTW When I taught engineering classes, I stressed to my students that we trusted our lives in the most simple machines thousands of times per month. They didn't understand. -- But think of how much trust you place in your break pedal every single day. Your life, your family's life... All resting on that single piece of metal that can break at any moment..... If you think about it too much you'll never drive again.

 

[Some geek]

BTW- I'm the wrong guy to ask about flawed medical imaging. I'll PM you the details if you care but my wife was basically told she was going to die and had surgery that she didn't need do to flawed medical imaging.

And the machines they used on her were work working just fine at the time. :-/

 

[Davesrose]

OK, OK Some geek

You and the author like striking the fear of god to get your points across

I guess that works for a lot of people, but since I'm of a skeptical nature....I always just examine and see if it's possible or not. And the medical analogy was just too much for me.

So all I can say is that Microsoft is a big corporation. And it seems like there may be problems that lie with Vista's utilization of DRM and HDCP....both technologies lumped on to everything by Intel and the movie/ record companies. So maybe enough doom and gloom from the author can do something. But I think action from other companies do even more. If the problems are as wide spread as the author claims, then it's evident that Microsoft would have to work on bug fixes. Especially if it's true that graphics do get effected by playing mp3s on Vista: there are so many groups that will be knocking on Microsoft's door if that's the case. We don't have to worry about when it gets to being in medical centers by then. There are so many other things to worry about what goes on in the OR, but I wont' get into that

 

[Davesrose]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Some geek /img/forum/go_quote.gif BTW- I'm the wrong guy to ask about flawed medical imaging. I'll PM you the details if you care but my wife was basically told she was going to die and had surgery that she didn't need do to flawed medical imaging. And the machines they used on her were work working just fine at the time. :-/

I wonder if it was a mix up with another patient......that happens a lot

But that's why I think it's always the OR docs/nurses that should be the gate keepers for that. Unfortunately, sometimes they can be too busy to catch a wrong name or whatever. We've heard the stories about how they accidently aputated a wrong limb. So many variables, but mishaps in the hospital usually tends to be a slip up with a person. Then again, medical imaging still has a long way to go in capturing accurate details. A surgeon always has to see the cancer with his naked eye to know how much to remove: a scan doesn't show the full borders of a growth.