Episode 588: Touche Tuesday
Oh, Tuesday. You have beaten us again. No, actually, we mean you, dear listeners, who once again prove you're smarter than us. About Canadian copyright law.
Molly Wood Former Executive Editor
Molly Wood was an executive editor at CNET, author of the Molly Rants blog, and host of the tech show, Always On. When she's not enraging fanboys of all stripes, she can be found offering tech opinions on CBS and elsewhere, and offering opinions on everything else to anyone who will listen.
7 min read
Touche, Tuesday. You have beaten us again! No, actually, it's just that you, dear listeners, who once again prove you're smarter than us. About Canadian copyright law. In other news, the Rockies mistake "crushing influx of fans" for a "massive denial of service attack." That is so cute.
--Molly
Listen now: Download today's podcast
--Molly
Listen now: Download today's podcast
 | EPISODE 588 |
TODAY'S LINKS:
TODAY'S VOICE MAIL:
Kyle the Aggie
A little perspective on Vista.
A little perspective on Vista.
Hayden from British Columbia
I got some secret Mac info.
I got some secret Mac info.
Anonymous Canadian
Touche on inducement, ugly American.
Touche on inducement, ugly American.
Tom from Houston
I want something different from Blu-ray.
I want something different from Blu-ray.
TODAY'S E-MAIL:
Colorado Rockies tickets and
'malicious attack'
So I know this will come up, and I am having a hard time finding the numbers to support the 'malicious attack' explanation of the Colorado Rockies ticket fiasco. Here is a portion of my blog entry...
So let's take a look at some numbers...
The spokespeople have been touting they were overloaded by 8.5 million hits in 90 minutes. So this was a malicious attack? Anecdotal evidence says people were trying with more than one browser at a time, or having their family members try in conjunction with them, or both. I personally was trying with seven browser instances. Also, if you were lucky enough to get anything other than a timeout, you most likely got a page that forced a refresh after counting down 60 seconds. So making some conservative estimates:
Let's say the average person had two browsers running, average because a lot will have one but a few, like me, will have seven. Now let's say their average refresh rate was 5 minutes. ... So in a 90 minutes span, the average person with these assumptions would produce the following number of hits:
90 minute span / 5 minutes per hit = 18 hits
18 hits per 2 browsers = 36 hits per user for 8,500,000 hits; this requires only 236,111 users
This comes out to 41.64 percent of the city and county of Denver, or 9.8 percent of the Denver Metro Area, or 5.49 percent of the state of Colorado, or 0.07 percent of the United States.
So where in these numbers is there room for a malicious attack that caused an epic meltdown? Were there only tens of thousands of people vying for 60,000 tickets? Were people only refreshing one browser once every 15 minutes?
So I can't wait to hear more about this 'malicious attack.'
Dan
Denver, Colorado
So I know this will come up, and I am having a hard time finding the numbers to support the 'malicious attack' explanation of the Colorado Rockies ticket fiasco. Here is a portion of my blog entry...
So let's take a look at some numbers...
The spokespeople have been touting they were overloaded by 8.5 million hits in 90 minutes. So this was a malicious attack? Anecdotal evidence says people were trying with more than one browser at a time, or having their family members try in conjunction with them, or both. I personally was trying with seven browser instances. Also, if you were lucky enough to get anything other than a timeout, you most likely got a page that forced a refresh after counting down 60 seconds. So making some conservative estimates:
Let's say the average person had two browsers running, average because a lot will have one but a few, like me, will have seven. Now let's say their average refresh rate was 5 minutes. ... So in a 90 minutes span, the average person with these assumptions would produce the following number of hits:
90 minute span / 5 minutes per hit = 18 hits
18 hits per 2 browsers = 36 hits per user for 8,500,000 hits; this requires only 236,111 users
This comes out to 41.64 percent of the city and county of Denver, or 9.8 percent of the Denver Metro Area, or 5.49 percent of the state of Colorado, or 0.07 percent of the United States.
So where in these numbers is there room for a malicious attack that caused an epic meltdown? Were there only tens of thousands of people vying for 60,000 tickets? Were people only refreshing one browser once every 15 minutes?
So I can't wait to hear more about this 'malicious attack.'
Dan
Denver, Colorado
Master plan for the Buzztown Air
and Space Command (BASC)
Being a rocket scientist, I've written the master plan for the Buzztown Air and Space Command (BASC).
The master plan:
Tim
Being a rocket scientist, I've written the master plan for the Buzztown Air and Space Command (BASC).
The master plan:
- Organize and elect a leader--myself of course.
- Start making technology: rockets, satellites, spaceships, all heavily DRM'ed so that only we can use them.
- Scare Mahalo users into joining us, we might need Veronica.
- Ally with Revision3/Digg users; their users are fanatical (as shown in Tom's Top 5 Fanboys).
- Recruit 4Chan--we'll need some WMDs (weapons of meme destruction) and they know how to create them.
- Go to war with the TWiT Army.
- ?
- Profit and sleep on beds of money like Tom.
Tim
Patents
Patents last for 20 years, including the time that it takes to file it and get it. Since it normally takes anywhere from 3 to 4 years to file a patent, that leaves you with 16 to 17 years of having the patent. I'm a student at the University of Nevada Reno, and Tim Casey has given several lectures about this in my engineering class, which is who I learned that from. Tim Casey wrote patents on the iPod's software about 20 years ago, which is cool! If you want to read a little about him, click this link: http://www.silverskygroup.com/ and then click on about. Thanks, and love the show.
Brian
Patents last for 20 years, including the time that it takes to file it and get it. Since it normally takes anywhere from 3 to 4 years to file a patent, that leaves you with 16 to 17 years of having the patent. I'm a student at the University of Nevada Reno, and Tim Casey has given several lectures about this in my engineering class, which is who I learned that from. Tim Casey wrote patents on the iPod's software about 20 years ago, which is cool! If you want to read a little about him, click this link: http://www.silverskygroup.com/ and then click on about. Thanks, and love the show.
Brian
Sending MP3s?
Hey guys,
Am I mistaken or did Tom induce me to send an illegal MP3 file at the end of episode 587? I would attach an MP3 file showing what he said, but I'm not going to fall into that trap, especially after Molly said that the Internets should be liable (OK, she said Usenet.net) for saying such things. I don't want to be the next Jammy, in my case Boxers, to be sued by the RIAA for MP3 violations.
Love the podcast, netcast, Internet radio show, show that is available in nontraditional media format, or whatever you want to call it.
Peace,
Christopher from the other side of the Caldicott Tunnel
Hey guys,
Am I mistaken or did Tom induce me to send an illegal MP3 file at the end of episode 587? I would attach an MP3 file showing what he said, but I'm not going to fall into that trap, especially after Molly said that the Internets should be liable (OK, she said Usenet.net) for saying such things. I don't want to be the next Jammy, in my case Boxers, to be sued by the RIAA for MP3 violations.
Love the podcast, netcast, Internet radio show, show that is available in nontraditional media format, or whatever you want to call it.
Peace,
Christopher from the other side of the Caldicott Tunnel
Toshiba XBOX 360
Hello Buzz Out Loud crew,
With regards to the Toshiba-branded XBOX360, this idea is quite believable. In the previous generation of consoles, Panasonic licensed from Nintendo the rights to make a DVD-playable GameCube known as the Panasonic Q. The Panasonic Q was only available in Japan, and I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft did the same thing with Toshiba for a Japan-only HD DVD built-in Xbox 360. Could it be that Microsoft is looking at Xbox 360 sales in Japan and is saying to itself "desperate times require desperate measures"?
Thanks for the great podcast!
Alfred
CNET Networks, Inc.
Hello Buzz Out Loud crew,
With regards to the Toshiba-branded XBOX360, this idea is quite believable. In the previous generation of consoles, Panasonic licensed from Nintendo the rights to make a DVD-playable GameCube known as the Panasonic Q. The Panasonic Q was only available in Japan, and I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft did the same thing with Toshiba for a Japan-only HD DVD built-in Xbox 360. Could it be that Microsoft is looking at Xbox 360 sales in Japan and is saying to itself "desperate times require desperate measures"?
Thanks for the great podcast!
Alfred
CNET Networks, Inc.
All the things Molly said she
would get but has not yet...
Dear BOL,
Well, ever since I credited Dan from Toronto with predicting the Apple TV, one little sentence has plagued my mind, specifically, Molly's throw- away line "and maybe you could work on that little project that Tom mentioned", the project being finding out all the stuff that Molly said she would get but has subsequently not. Now, the original idea was a bit constrained and frankly, hard to define, because is a Comcast DVR a service, because you rent the box from Comcast, or a gadget, because it is also a physical piece of hardware in your home? So I have extended the idea to everything Molly ever said she would get but didn't (yet). Please note, this isn't intended to start another wiki war over Molly, who is in fact married to Justin Wood, OK listeners (I tracked this precious bit of trivia from an old Gadgettes, where Molly mentions the slightly weird, but fun-sounding, treasure, birthday hunt thingy that Justin, who she later refers to as her husband). Anyway, back to the list:
Techpriest
Dear BOL,
Well, ever since I credited Dan from Toronto with predicting the Apple TV, one little sentence has plagued my mind, specifically, Molly's throw- away line "and maybe you could work on that little project that Tom mentioned", the project being finding out all the stuff that Molly said she would get but has subsequently not. Now, the original idea was a bit constrained and frankly, hard to define, because is a Comcast DVR a service, because you rent the box from Comcast, or a gadget, because it is also a physical piece of hardware in your home? So I have extended the idea to everything Molly ever said she would get but didn't (yet). Please note, this isn't intended to start another wiki war over Molly, who is in fact married to Justin Wood, OK listeners (I tracked this precious bit of trivia from an old Gadgettes, where Molly mentions the slightly weird, but fun-sounding, treasure, birthday hunt thingy that Justin, who she later refers to as her husband). Anyway, back to the list:
- The infamous Moto Q
- Comcast Triple Play (It was a vague reference, but at certain points in the show, Molly has made reference to her wanting all of the services, even if they were not in the same episode.)
- A Comcast DVR with TiVo software
- The Vudu movies-over-IP box
- A non-Kelly-green-colour BOL T-shirt
- The Google Ultimate super awesome 700Mhz network
- An FCC that acted a little more like Ofcom of the U.K. on the issue of net neutrality
- The Nokia N95
- The Nokia N95 as a giveaway phone on Vodaphone U.K. (Interestingly Vodaphone and Verizon are sister companies, but while Molly hates the "v- groups" U.S. company-Verizon, who she once quoted as "conflict of interest, thou name is verizon!", she seems to be OK with a 30-50 GBP per month contract with the British V-group-Vodaphone company to get hold of a giveaway N95.)
- The Nokia n810 Internet tablet with QWERTY keyboard
- A series 3 (the expensive one, not the TiVo HD) TiVo to be used with CableCard
- A HD-VMD player (Actually, I agree with Molly that HD-VMD will win the HD format war, if any disc-based format is to win at all. As it is commonly known in the media production industry that h.264 can stuff HD goodness on to a regular Red Laser DVD and that this would probably be the best way to go about a HD disc format in terms of cost, ease of use, understandability for the consumer, and an easy transition for Retail Giants, funnily enough, that is almost precisely what HD-VMD is.)
- A hot-dog suit for Eli (Molly stated that she was getting the hotdog suit for Halloween, so she may still get it.)
- The T-Mobile SDA (Buzz Report)
- The T-Mobile MDA (BOL)
- A moving extendable mount for a Vizio HDTV to allow Molly to watch HDTV while cooking
- Sprint phone service that doesn't suck and works in more than one tiny corner of Molly's house
And finally, the last thing in this work-in-progress list of what Molly wants but will probably not get:
Techpriest