Posted on 01/09/2006 1:38:08 PM PST by Stultis
Do what we do here, we lock out the USB's from all users but those with admin access. Same with cd's.
I just posted on another thread my befuddlement re: ipods. It's an mp3 player, right? What's all the hype for? I don't get it. What's so special about it? And there are other places to buy music online, like real rhapsody. What makes ipod such a must have?
That doesn't work in most environments. In our offices, our input devices, printers, scanners, and other equipment are all USB or Firewire, so locking out USB from non-admins essentially makes the computer nonfunctional. Connecting a USB device is merely a matter of unplugging the printer and plugging in your USB fob. I have a 5Gb USB flash drive on my keychain and could copy most of our client data in about two minutes if I were so inclined.
Since most HW manufacturers are moving away from PS/2 as a viable plug option for input devices, this problem is going to get far bigger.
Good question. I don't have iPod myself, so I'd be interested in the explaination also. I presume it just makes things easier/faster/more-user-freindly that could be done on other equipment as well?
It's mostly the seamless integration of the system, though Apple did do a great job coming up with a seamless interface. You pop up your iTunes application, pick your song, and the whole thing automatically downloads and installs itself. No messing with transfers or quibbling over what folders to hide your songs in. The iPod made downloading music to the player easy for those who don't know, and more importantly don't care, how it all works on the backend. They just want to pick a song and go, and Apple was the first to deliver it.
For the technically knowledgeable user, the iPod offers nothing that other players and services don't. For everyone else, it offers "pop the CD in" convenience of a CD walkman without the annoying skips or the hassle of changing disks.
Why does this writer have a job?? Why didn't he come right out and say what he was trying to get across? Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them....
Readers shouldn't have to struggle to get the point!!!
</rant>
See #7.
marketing.
the reason why the public won't buy into DRM - its has to be EVERYWHERE to be effective, and allow the consumer to move seamlessly from device to device. From the TVs in my house, recorded to my Tivo, DVDs I want to play in the house in multiple rooms, take into the player in the minivan, play on a portable device, music in the house, the car, etc. There is no single signed hardware solution that is going to cover all these possibilities - people don't want to carry around some kind of "DRM key" that they have to plug into their various devices to authenticate them so they can play their purchased media.
"Apple has already made DRM cool by providing value to the consumer, so now they're going to extend that idea. Apple is looking to use the Trusted Computing Group's Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to tie Apple software to their hardware. The TPM provides a cryptographic mechanism to prevent an unauthorized operating system from booting. Further, the OS can look for the TPM and, if it isn't found, the OS could refuse to boot."
Could this be the death knell of open source?
Agreed on the ps2, but everything is networked here so it works for now.
Maybe it's that the headline doesn't match the point of the article...what does the iPod being user friendly have to do with security in the future???
"I just posted on another thread my befuddlement re: ipods. It's an mp3 player, right? What's all the hype for? I don't get it. What's so special about it? And there are other places to buy music online, like real rhapsody. What makes ipod such a must have?"
Answer: awesome marketing.
That's how you get people to pay 30%-50% MORE for something with a branded name versus the same thing from a relative "unknown" manufacturer.
Just proof of how gullible some people are.
MSFT and Intel already have that targeted with LongHorn, similar approach to the software/hardware relationship that the XBOX uses - the software can only run on signed hardware.
when this happens, the chinese will make an Intel chip clone without DRM to allow open source OS to run on them.
is that the russian site?
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