You Gotta Love This

[Chris]

This is great:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/05/21/bc.media.cd.piracy.reut.reut/index.html

[pc-0x90]

So, naturally anyone at defcon carrying a sharpie will be brought up on DMCA charges of carrying a copyright circumvention device ;)

[octalpus]

Sharpies are a necessity of Defcon. Otherwise, people would have no fear of passing out!

[GackMan]

just got a 12-pack... assorted colors.

http://www.sanfordcorp.com/sanford/consumer/jhtml/product/displayproduct.jhtml?id=prod681178

sharpies rock...

-.-

[converge]

vendors could go wild off this

get your dc10 copyright circumvention tools here... (warning, do not sniff extensively, may cause cancer and brilliant coding advances)

[russ]

If that were the case, Mr. Gates would have already bought Sharpie out and turned it into another M$ branch dedicated to the advancement of "Easy to use" computer crap.

[simple3]

I remeber seeing an article a few years back about how it was more difficult for a minor to buy a marker than it was to buy a knife in california. This was due to anti-graffiti type laws, but now if a sharpie is an circumvention device, it might be even more difficult to purchase art supplies. hmm. maybe they will make people apply for a license to posses a magic marker now? are you a licensed artist sir, i'm gonna have to see some identification to sell you that marker. Ahhhhhh!?!?!?

simple3

[FAWCR]

Has anybody noticed that stories like this are actually hitting the mainstream newscasts? I remember a few years ago, that info like this would never be on the news. Now it seems that news stations are picking up tech stories like this.

Listening to 98 rock on the drive in this morning and they were not only discussing the story, but how it works, and the implications of having a sharpe in your computer bag along with sony cd's.

The shadows are getting thinner!!

[nulltone]

Originally posted by EMP
Has anybody noticed that stories like this are actually hitting the mainstream newscasts? I remember a few years ago, that info like this would never be on the news. Now it seems that news stations are picking up tech stories like this.

Listening to 98 rock on the drive in this morning and they were not only discussing the story, but how it works, and the implications of having a sharpe in your computer bag along with sony cd's.....


Ok, well, there is reason for this rise in computer related news coverage. It has paralled the rise in the casual file-sharer population. After Napster, Morpheus, Gnutella, all that stuff, file sharing has become much easier. This has attracted a larger portion of computer users, users who could not handle IRC or other mediums.
Over the last 3 years, more and more people have started downloading things from these easy-to-use programs. The majority of the things downloaded, are MP3s.
A radio station doesn't really want to air a story unless its listeners can relate to it in some way. With the rise of people following an MP3 culture, the media (Radio, TV, Print, etc) are more than willing to print a story.
That is my theory of why the media has been covering stories like this.

[zero]

Originally posted by nulltone


Ok, well, there is reason for this rise in computer related news coverage. It has paralled the rise in the casual file-sharer population. After Napster, Morpheus, Gnutella, all that stuff, file sharing has become much easier. .......

I disagree. The explosion of the internet around 1995 brought connected computers to everyone. Suddenly the casual user had to worry about various virii and hack attacks. Before that there was some worry about data in large connected systems, but most consumers didn't really worry about it as it wasn't directly thee problem.

These days things like the ILOVEYOU virus can wreck havok on the casual user - everyone uses email. And, because of the commoditizing of these services, everytime there is some problem, especially because the casual users doesn't know better, the news media can hype it and strike fear into their viewers.....and face it, fear sells, and sells well.

[converge]

Actually... you're both right in my opinion. It was the Melissa virus that created the scare and announcement of every script/attachment virus that might exist.. before it really hit users in this manner, often through office/outlook, the general public didn't care; viruses were just things random people got and were fixed by the technician when you brought it in for service.

On the other hand, the Napster popularity oversensitized the public to the issue of information ownership; some guarding it with their hearts and others pushing with all their might... before then "pirating" was something that those sleazy cheap bastards (me included) did, or that foreign countries did to Microsoft software via resale of unauthorized product.

Stories of hacking show up in news, but still in the usual glamorized, sugarcoated sense of media showism. Even then, these stories mostly break when they effect "consumers" in some way, for all those victim bearing / evil corporation / elderly person scam stories

[FAWCR]

I agree with all of the comments on this. In my opinion there are 4 reason:

1 - GUI driven programs that brought the technology to the masses that don't want learn code. First it was the "sound byte" that intrigued the public and marketing. Now it is "connectivity" the ability for the masses to stay in contact with people that they would normally have forgotten about.

2 - The new wave of youth that has taken to computers the way my parents generation took to television. It makes the world smaller, news from Vietnam took 2-3 days before we heard it. Now we because of the Internet, we can watch missiles strike in near real time.

3 - Cororations that see the Internet as a profit tool are chasing/pushing laws to limit the freedom of the Internet and generate an income. MS has the reputation of the computer golith, but they were just smart enough to get the marketing moving on a GUI for the masses.

4 - Joe Public has seen the glamorizaiton of hacking and after Sept 11th we are now being grouped into the "good" hackers trying to protect or the "terrorist" hackers using the Internet for evil.

Just a simple opinion by a simple mind. :confused:

[nulltone]

Zero:
Actually, we are both right.
When I wrote up my little theory, I was looking at that one article as an isolated incident. Therefore, my theory was based on the idea of a file-sharing generation.
Your theory covered the broader picture: Why has computer security been covered by the media, unlike before? And your explanation (and the explanation of others in this thread) are valid.
Bottom line is, in general, yes, you are right. The average computer user HAS to worry about computer security. Specifically, the rise in piracy and intellectual property media coverage can be explained by my theory.

[astcell]

I'd love to buy Sharpies and hand them out to everyone at the con except I just sent my last $20,000. to Nigeria to help get some money out...they told me I'd be rich....still waiting.

[converge]

word has it there may be a couple more months involved... I'm starting to wonder though