Comments on: TI Uses Copyright Law to Attack TI Calculator Enthusiasts

By: The Comrade

The Comrade — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:42:17 +0000

Xeno is an extremely fascinating writer and thinker. Clearly insane, but fascinating.

By: hereoneis

hereoneis — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:20:36 +0000

I helped crack these keys. I used my computer and electricity to bruteforce the solution. they are already out there. heres one
TI-83 Plus/Silver Edition OS Signing Key:
n=82EF4009ED7CAC2A5EE12B5F8E8AD9A0AB9CC9F4F3E44B7E8BF2D57A2F2BEACE83424E1CFF0D2A5A7E2E53CB926D61F347DFAA4B35B205B5881CEB40B328E58F
p=B709D3A0CD2FEC08EAFCCF540D8A100BB38E5E091D646ADB7B14D021096FFCD
q=B7207BD184E0B5A0B89832AA68849B29EDFB03FBA2E8917B176504F08A96246CB
e=11
d=4D0534BA8BB2BFA0740BFB6562E843C7EC7A58AE351CE11D43438CA239DD99276CD125FEBAEE5D2696579FA3A3958FF4FC54C685EAA91723BC8888F292947BA1

my understanding is TI must find this post and ask you to take it down. so let them do the work.

By: Matt C.

Matt C. — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 06:31:13 +0000

Nothing quite like those slow, 80s style, low resolution, graphing calculators (TI-83) with 24KB of RAM! People could run more capable and flexable software on their iPhones if they wanted to. Not much innovation in the TI camp. I don’t know of many people who use their calculators outside the education establishment. Most engineers and mathematicians use Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, etc… The enthusiasts should simply come up with a better calculator and put TI out of the calculator business. It wouldn’t take much.

By: Shay

Shay — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:44:27 +0000

Xeno7777777 wrote, "What ia needed; expand the Sherman Anti-Trust act to cover such as T.I.'s nasty little monopolistic attempts; merge the Sherman Anti-Trust Act with the RICO Act [...]" You're saying we need more government interference?!? The problem here is the government's interference with the owners of these calculators in the first place! Without laws like the DMCA, TI couldn't do a damn thing to forcefully stop users from unlocking their calculators and putting their own programs on them. They could employ code signing as they currently do, but users would still be free to unlock this scheme.

It's a given that companies are selfish and will do whatever they can to bring in more profit, just as it's a given that customers will do whatever they can to pay less for products and make full use of what they bought. The key is to avoid giving either party any power beyond deciding what they do with their own property. Let TI lock their products down as much as they want, but once someone buys it, it's no longer TI's property, so the buyer can then do whatever he wants with it.

When you have the government step in and give either party power beyond control of owned property, you get problems like this. If you overlook this, you might think that the government is the solution, since the so-called free market isn't working. But it's not a free market, and that's why it's not working.

By: Thinker

Thinker — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:04:21 +0000

I feel like going through Xeno’s gobbledygook contrapuntally…but it speaks for itself quite well.

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:14:10 +0000

Xeno, I think you should have taken the left turn (pun intended) at Albuquerque. This is the Mises Institute; firedoglake is that-a-way.

By: Xeno7777777

Xeno7777777 — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:09:54 +0000

What ia needed; expand the Sherman Anti-Trust act to cover such as T.I.’s nasty little monopolistic attempts; merge the Sherman Anti-Trust Act with the RICO Act; add the 150 year sentences, such as Bernard Madoff won; Add hanging; shut down Harvard Business School, and all other Business Schools; Abolish all software patents. Abolish all Other Patents owned by industry leading companies, and their closest competitors. Invalidate all degrees issued by US Schools and Departments of Education, Abolish All US Philosophy Departments, and their Degrees. mandate that All Universities Classics depart,ments teach Aristotle and the Natural Law. Round up all with Non-Aristotle Ph.D’s in Philosophy; put them into desert prisons, such as in Death Valley, or Alice Springs. Round up all Non-Aristotle, non-Ph.D. Scholars, and do likewise. Repeal the George W. Bush tax cuts, Retroactively. A Heritage Foundation advised George W. Bush how to Bankrupt the US Government, and Social Security. Expropriate all the property of the Heritage Foundation, and all similar Foundations which are Non-von Mises, and/or Non-Aristotelian. Drawup lists of their donars; taxthdn severalhundred percent on their passt donations.
Drw up a list of All George W Bush political doners with amounts corrected forinflatiom, and tax them several hundred percent. Send a predator Drone after Murdoch up in Toronto, Canada. Take all broadcast radio channels for emergency responders; police, sheriffs, firemen, paramedics, ambulances, and aviation. Let people rely on satellite radio,. which has much higher quality; Tax any spoken words, so as to allow more air-time for music, less for Gibberish. Require all professionals, including licensed clergy, lawyers, and all medical people to have a major in Aristotle and The Natural Law. Moses required his Levites, to own no propertym and to retire at age 50, so thhey would not be corrupted by their property, nor by their arteriosclerosis. but Bridtish Military Histiorian Basil A.Liddell Hart, in his sstudies of history, found that No Great Commander of history, won any Great Battles, after the age of Forty-Five years, so that is the age at which American Levite’s (Bureaucrats, Judges) need to retire.. States and Counties are Medieval Institutions, and need to be replaced by French Style Departments, of about Six Hundred Thousand Persons each. Big States like California, New York, Texas, and Florida, sorely lack Equal Representation in the US Senate. Tampa’s County, Hillsbourogh, is larger than seven states, and nearly as big as the eighth. With such disproportionate representation in the US Senate, it is hard to take dsthe Us Senate Seriously. No wonder Senator Max Baucus cannot get a Bi-Partisan majority. Bi-Partisanship, occurred only under Eisenhower and Nixon, and perhaps Teddy Roosevelt. The US Senate and its obscene small state favoritism, needs to either be “Fixed,” or “Eliminated!”

By: J Cortez

J Cortez — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:51:40 +0000

This reminds me of the crazy pop music icon, Prince. He has a history of routinely suing his own fans for setting up fan websites.

By: Shay

Shay — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 05:59:25 +0000

The DMCA was meant to prevent bypassing of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) systems, so that people couldn't freely copy content. But in this case, users are bypassing protection so that they can get rid of the original software and replace it with their own. In this case, I believe they already were able to do this, and this latest step was just a streamlining so that an average calculator user could replace the original software much more easily. It's ridiculous. The buyer owns the calculator and should be able to do whatever the hell he wants with it, including improving it!

By: Jason Gordon

Jason Gordon — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 05:40:37 +0000

The free innovation provided by the hobbyists is being squandered. A great [MIT] video here: Democratizing Innovation by Eric von Hippel