Here is an article I wrote for my newspaper class in High School. It states a lot of things that are obvious, mostly because my audience was not tech-savvy. Because of this my teacher made me define almost EVERYTHING. Sorry for that, but apart from that I think it contains a few things that aren't so obvious.

DRM and Piracy.

Whether it be music, movies, software, video games, or books, all have been influenced by piracy. Piracy, according to the website Techweb.com, is "The illegal copying of software [or music, movies, etc.] for distribution within the organization, or to friends, clubs and other groups, or for duplication and resale." (Techweb.com) Statistics say that $6.1 billion is lost every year due to piracy in just the movie industry alone. Organizations such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) work to stomp out piracy, but they are totally ineffective and blind to the obvious: Piracy will never die.

Piracy has been around almost as long as the internet has, though it was not as user friendly. Only those with a significant amount of knowledge of computers were able to pirate. Pirates had to know how to use and access services such as IRC and USENET, which were not, and are still not well known amongst casual computer users. They are basically ways to communicate and share files with each other. They also require a deep knowledge of and experience with each of the services.
Piracy first took off in 1999 when an 18-year-old college dropout named Shawn Fanning released a program that allowed all computer users easy access to music. (A Brief History of Napster) All a user had to do was type in a box, the artist or song title and click on a result to get music. A user didn't have to be tech-savvy to pirate, all they had to do is type and click. Easy as that. The RIAA was quick to notice and immediately filed a lawsuit against the service on December 7, 1999. It wasn't until 2001 the government ruled that Napster was to be shut down. This case was a turning point for piracy and also the fight against it. Until this event, no laws had been laid down regarding copyright infringement in this new realm... the Internet. The band, U2's guitarist Dave Evans spoke about Napster in an interview with CNN "If they think Napster's bad, I can tell you there's a lot worse coming, The software that is untraceable is just around the corner." And that is exactly what happened.

One tactic to fight against pirates is through DRM, or Digital Rights Management. This is found primarily on music and movies. What it does is place an encryption on each file that limits how and where it is used. The most common DRM is found on music bought on Apple's iTunes music store called QTFairPlay. When you buy a song off of iTunes, it links that file to your iTunes account and you can use it only on computers you have registered (up to a limit of 5). If you try to play it on any other computer than those you have registed, it won’t let you. Registration is a quick process but gets annoying. But thats not it; not only can you only use it on one portable device but that portable device has to be be an Apple product, either an iPod or iPhone. Sure, this prevents buyers of purchasing a song then sharing it with as many friends as he or she wishes, but it also limits the buyer to using only one brand of mp3 player. This is wrong. If someone pays money for a song, they should have the freedom to use use it on any device they own, whether it be Microsoft's Zune or any other music player.

In schools, when a rule is put down, there will always be a group of kids who will try to rebel and break the rules without getting caught. The same applies to piracy. When an encryption is put on music, it is an open invitation to hackers to try and crack it and to be the first one to do so. To them it is a sport and their entertainment. Needless to say, Apple's DRM Fairplay has been cracked. On September 12, 2006, Apple released the 7th version of iTunes and along with it an updated DRM. Within eight hours, the encryption was successfully cracked. Soon afterwards programs such as Jhymn (Java Hear Your Music aNywhere) and QTFairUse popped up allowing non-hackers to easily remove the DRM from their music in a user-friendly interface. With the encryption gone, users could play their purchased music on any computer, any portable device, anywhere. They could even share these files with friends with no problems.

In Feburary 2007, CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs made history when he spoke out against DRM in his essay "Thoughts on Music". In this essay he discussed the cons of DRM. Which included less sales and making it more problematic for the legit buyer to buy and use music. His main point was this:

DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. Though the big four music companies require that all their music sold online be protected with DRMs, these same music companies continue to sell billions of CDs a year which contain completely unprotected music. That’s right! No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.(Thoughts on Music)

Encryptions are often found on video games as well. On August 21, 2007, the video game Bioshock was released with what seemed like an extremely secure anti-piracy system. Upon installation onto the computer, this system would authenticate the game with an official server before the game could be playable. (This also caused problems with people who legitimately bought game). Thirteen days later, the game was successfully cracked and posted online for all to download and play. (2K: We'll Continue Anti-Piracy Measures).

DRM is a tactic that costs a lot of time and money and is just plain ineffective. Most encryptions are cracked in a matter of days. It just a small nuisance to pirates but at the same time makes life harder for those who want to play by the rules and buy music legit.
Another tactic music labels have taken against music pirates is file spoofing. Basically this is when music labels hire companies to distribute "decoy" files of the same size and name of songs. These files are filled with empty data that will not work inside any music player. The idea of these files is to discourage pirates to use P2P (Peer to peer) software to download music. They figure that after a user downloads one of these spoof files, they will get discouraged and give up. The idea that this will work is just ridiculous. With today's internet connections users can download a music file in well under a minute. To try again and attempt to get a real song is nothing. Most pirates will try again and again until they get what they want. Usually it doesn't take very long anyways.

The more "high tech" and advanced pirates use a system of downloading files called Bittorrents. This system connects hundreds and sometimes thousands of users together to deliver files at a very fast rate. The system downloads different pieces of the file from many different other users. Instead of downloading from one source (as if downloading off of a website) you are downloading from thousands of different sources. This type of downloading is most commonly used with large files such as movies, TV shows, music videos and discographies, and software. Many ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have attempted to stop both piracy and users from hogging all their bandwidth by blocking ports and blocking data coming to and from Bit torrent programs. Of course, these Torrent programs have evolved and adapted to these actions. Recently programs have added features to allow users to select any port they wish to download through. Also users are now given the option to encrypt data coming to and from the user. This bypasses the ISPs restrictions by going under their radar. They can't read the data if its encrypted.

The most infamous (and possibly the most ineffective) steps taken against piracy are lawsuits. The MPAA and RIAA have been finding people who pirate and websites that promote piracy and suing them, often times for ridiculous amounts of money. They have targeted colleges and torrent sites alike. The most infamous case is the lawsuit MPAA vs Allofmp3.com. Allofmp3.com is a Russian site that sells high quality illegal music for dirt cheap prices (somewhere around 2-4 cents a song). In December 2006, the MPAA sued the site for 1.7 trillion dollars.(Labels Sue Allofmp3.Com for $1.7 Trillion). Even though they did this, nothing came of it as it was a Russian site. Any group or company located in another country is not subject to the laws of the United States.

Sure "Big Brother" can sue a handful of college students and shut down a P2P site every 6 months, but that has never and will never work to stop piracy. They need to understand that there is simply no way to gain complete control of piracy in the digital, or even come close to it. Pirates and hackers will always find a way to bypass any restrictions that are set in front of them. And those that release their products, be it music, movies, or software, need to realize that no matter what they do, some people will steal and grab it for free while others will gladly pay.

This is for my brother.

Go here and do all this stuff. Its pretty easy.

When you see this part, click on the links that they give you. You can download these two files straight from this page if you want, just click them and make sure they all end up in the same folder.

Download the following files and place them in the Pwnage folder you just created:
- QuickPwn 2.1
- 2.1.0 (3G): iPhone1,2_2.1_5F136_Restore.ipsw

Make sure you read the instructions carefully. Make sure you hold down shift when clicking the restore button.

When you get to the part that has "Add Cydia, Add Installer, Add Replace Boot Logos", make sure all three are clicked. If it asks for a Boot loader image, select the one that I am adding to the bottom of this blog. Save this picture to your desktop and to the folder and then when it asks for a picture select this one. It will be what shows up when you turn your iphone on, trust me it looks cooler than it looks right now.

When you get to the part that tells you to put it in Recovery Mode, it has instructions on screen to show you how to do it. It will tell you as you do it. Power button is the one on top of the phone, and the home button is the circle button.

Then it will start to do stuff and just let it do its thing, it might take a long time. Be patient. You cant break it.

Text me if you have any problems.



http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e276/Rmoore08/race.png

I got home (whatever that is...?) in Driggs, a couple days ago because Freshman Academy at BYU-Idaho just finished so I think I best tell a bit about it. Freshman Academy is basically a 6 week introduction to college. I had to apply for it and those selected (my guess is everyone that applied) were able to attend. During those 6 weeks you attend 3 classes.

Everyone in FA had to take GS 111: Intro to BYU-Idaho (aka BS 111), which met once a week and was taught by a volunteer upperclassmen. The class taught some good doctrine and knowledge but grew repetitive and boring and I felt I was writing and learning about the same thing that was taught the previous week(s). It was a 1 credit class and frankly I wouldn't take it again if given the chance.

Everyone also took a Book of Mormon class. There were a couple teachers (at least 2 that I know of), but I felt I got the better of them. My teacher was Greg Palmer and he was such an amazing teacher and person. He was funny, friendly, and he knew the scriptures so well and knew how to convey what he wanted us to learn in a way that was fun and interesting. He really brought in the Spirit and definately had the skill of making kids cry in class (in a good way), even me once. Besides just teaching he was a really good guy and actually cared about you and your life. He got to know you and asked where you were from and how your classes were going and such. He occasionally held a picnic where he would just come and eat with us and just talk with us about anything. I even saw him at our dorm complex just hanging out with kids in their apartments. He definatly was an awesome guy. I learned so much in his class and I am definately going to try to get into another class of his sometime.

The next class, depending on your Learning Community, differed. I chose Psychology who was taught by Brother Gee. It was an interesting class and he brought some humor to the class with videos from various popular shows/movies (The Office, Mad TV) that were tied into what he was teaching. It was pretty fun but grew old after awhile.

Somethings I noticed and that I thought was interesting while attending BYU-I

  • Prayers before every class
  • Gospel and doctrine tied into a non-religious class
  • How nice people were, especially the faculty and staff
  • There was a Catholic kid....he's brave...
Boys and girls roomed in different aparment complexes (duh..) which were seperated only by a parking lot which made hanging out and assosiating with the ladies very easy and something I did alot. These complexes were the dorms and were alot nicer than I was expecting. Each apartment housed 4 people and had 2 bedrooms, 2 per room. I lucked out and didn't have a ROOMroommate and I got a room to myself. The 2 people that shared the apartment with me were Alex Shumway and Luke Radford, from Lehi, Utah and Middleton, Idaho respectively. They were way fun and were way fun to be crazy with.

Some other people that I hung out alot with: Kris Smith, Tyler Kroff, Jaimee Plaisance, Shelby Titensor, Annamarie Pontius, Hannah Tracy, Amarie Graves, and alot others. I had a blast meeting new people and making lots of new friends. My track is Winter/Summer but I decided to stay there during the Fall and take nightclasses and work while still enjoying the college life.

Thats all I can think of to say for now.
Peace!

Just finished listening to the first session of Apple's WWDC this year. Here's my favorite announcements:

After a couple hours of beating around the bush and showing off the SDK and a couple of iPhone games (basically boring stuff), and a moment of Windows bashing, they finally announced the new features of the iPhone 2.0.

The first. 3G. This is great as it will allow faster surfing of the web and also will allow for more bandwidth consuming apps. He also did a comparison of the speeds between EDGE and 3G and found that 3G is 2.8 times faster than EDGE. Thats a HUGE difference. And in this example, an email attachment was 3.5 times faster to download. Wow.

The next improvement was the battery life. 300 hours of standby, 24 hours of audio, and 7 hours of video. Very impressive and slightly improved from the first iPhone.

Physically, the new iPhone looks.....great. Slightly thicker, but who really cares? The best change about the physical look at it is the flush headphone jack. No more having to use Apple's headphones, you can use your own! Which is great because I love my Sennheisers.

Demand for an iPhone in other countries has been great throughout the whole world. Steve Jobs made this comment/joke.

"We've sold iPhone in six countries so far, but believe me, they're in use ALL over the world."
Yes sir, your are correct =)
"It's clear there is a demand."

Steve then announced that the iPhone will be available (legally this time =p) in over 70 different countries.

"We'll be rolling it out in 70 countries in the next several months. Next time you're in Malta and you need an iPhone 3G, it'll be there for ya."

Personally, my favorite addition to the iPhone 2.0 is the GPS. This is a great feature and will be used by tons. GPS + Maps is just what everyone wants. Not much was said but it is clear that there will be maps for easy navigating wherever you may be. Also GPS will be integrated with the website loopt. This shows, via GPS, where your friends are on a map, along with communication. A very interesting web 2.0 site and could be fun, and useful to you. I could see this and twitter being weaved together to form an awesome mashup.

But what sealed the deal for me is this:

"The number one reason people didn't buy iPhones is because they just can't afford it (56%). So as we arrive at iPhone's 1st birthday -- we're going to take it to the next level."

"iPhone started off at $599 for an 8GB device, which now sells for $399 -- we want to make it even more affordable. I'm happy to tell you the 8GB model will sell for $199."

A price cut in HALF?! Done. I'm getting one. You sir drive a hard bargain. There will also be a 16GB version for $299. Which Jobs says "-- for that model we have a white one."

Those were the best of show of the first session of WWDC and I will be listening to the next session in a couple hours. Jobs will be talking about the new update to OS X (Snow Leopard). I'm just hoping he doesn't announce a new MacBook Pro, as I just bought mine.

Ryan Moore

UPDATE: I'd also like to note that all the pictures, quotes, and information was gathered from here at Engadget. Thanks to them for the live updates and pictures! The commentary, on the other hand, is all me.

Also I will be NOT listening to the second session as it is closed and not open to PR. Bummer.

The real reason your company’s computer guy doesn’t want to work on your personal PC.

read more | digg story

After 3.5 hours of Saturday school I decided to check out iWeb. So I made and am hosting a site now which looks pretty snazzy. You can check it out here at http://xenon3.dyndns.org This is going to change soon and I am hoping to change it to x3.somethingHERE.org. And eventually I will have a real domain name such as X3.com or something like that. In the meantime I have an Alpha version of my site up. Got one link so far and that is to my blog. Check it out and be patient its going to be slow loading up.

Also for the home page I had to have a picture so I whipped this up in Photoshop.

So in government class today we had our final exam. At the end there was an essay question
to answer. It asked "Imagine you are the President of the United States and have to deal with public debt. Discuss your ideas about it and state what you would do to eliminate it."

Here, is my answer I wrote:

I am president of the United States. Yes the president does write in purple ink. Crazy huh? I think the huge public debt is ridiculous. It is over 9 Trillion dollars. I can’t even count that high. I doubt it will ever get paid back. But if it was possible, this is what I’d do.
I would raise taxes and make new ones. Remember, this is what I would do if I absolutely had to pay back our debt. People would get really pissed and would start having seditious speeches about how they are going to gather an army of very angry taxpayers and kill me. In which case I would dispatch a SWAT team to gather them up and put their criminal behinds in jail for life followed by a little bit of capital punishment for each one of them. That’ll teach em.
Anyways, I would raise taxes and invent new ones. I would tax companies such as Microsoft and Google. Reason? Because they are more loaded than Hilary Clinton’s speeches are with BULL CRAP. I would then find illegal drug cartels and sue them for everything they’ve got and then confiscate all their drugs. I would then do some research and find out that all the Brits are a bunch of stoners and I would secretly sell all the crack to the English people. You know it would sell well. Its ENGLAND.
If you have ever seen Ocean’s 11 you would know that it is a great movie with some lovely acting. If you haven’t seen it get your lazy arse into a movie store and rent the thing before I put you in prison for life for no apparent reason. I’m the president. Thats my job. The movie shows 11 people rob three casinos in Las Vegas: The Bellagio, the MGM Grand, and.. I forgot the last tone. YES! I know it is a federal offense not to know. But you forget. I’m the president and I just pardoned myself. Back off. You don’t realize how easy it is to get off the hook when you’re president. Remember Bill? Exactly. Anyways. Yes I would rob casinos.
With the theft, the drug dealing, and the taxing of every living creature and computer company, we should pay off our debt in approximately 75 years. Why so long you ask? Because in case you haven’t noticed 9 Trillion dollars is alot of money. Why is “Trillion” capitalized you ask? Because its such a big number it has earned the right to enter the Capitalization realm. Who’s in this realm you ask? God, the Internet, Google, Will Smith (well before he decided to join that Scientology cult, now we just put “will smith” down instead), Robin Hood, Captain Hook, Waffle, Captain Jack Sparrow, Carnivore. Yes. “Trillion” is in that realm with all of those other words. It is godly. If you don’t know how much a Trillion is get your sorry self back into a public school that us, the government (notice I didn’t capitalize that word), doesn’t support or care about as much as we should. Then ask your underpaid math teacher how much a Trillion is.
If you have any more questions you can call me at 1-800-GO-DIE-YOU-STUPID-COMPLAINING-US-CITIZEN or email me at PRESIDENT@FAKE-EMAILS.COM.

THANK YOU.

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