Z-Library is back, alas

[ApK]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

I'm not sure where that leaved us. The "strike" against Z-Library was merely a pyrrhus win that actually left them more resilient and in a better position than before. And even if they were to go away, there are hundreds of similar places that will take over.

You noticed that, eh?

Similar to the way the recording industry "won" when it sued Napster...except that Napster totally disrupted the recording industry and changed the way music is sold and consumed to this day.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

I'm not sure where that leaved us. The "strike" against Z-Library was merely a pyrrhus win that actually left them more resilient and in a better position than before. And even if they were to go away, there are hundreds of similar places that will take over.

The "strike" was simply seizing the domain. There were other methods (albeit less convenient) to access it.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by kandwo

I mostly read PD books or books available from my library. On the rare occasion I want something else I'm not going to buy an e-book. Why? They are overpriced, have DRM, are watermarked ("so we know if you have shared it illegally"), etc. So I should pay to be treated like a criminal when the pirates are offering a good service and treating me like a human being? No, thank you.

While not about piracy etc, you neglected to mention the positive side of e-books. Easily accessed on several devices at the same time, adjustable font sizes, line spacing, margins, etc. Being able to read them on front lite devices that mean they can be read anywhere, regardless of ambient lighting.

My experience with e-books since 2009 has been that they are generally not more expensive than their new print counterparts. There are exceptions, but hasn't been the rule. E-books, even with the DRM, are worth more to me than print books. The negatives about e-books and their laws/rules are outweighed greatly by their positives.

We moved to a new house a little over a year ago. I'm very glad I no longer own shelves and shelves of print books. I can't imagine having to pack and carry the amount of boxes it would take to move a few thousand books.

You may have legitimate complaints about e-books, but they still do not justify piracy.

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

We moved to a new house a little over a year ago. I'm very glad I no longer own shelves and shelves of print books. I can't imagine having to pack and carry the amount of boxes it would take to move a few thousand books.

It all depends on the space available.
Reading in a room full of books is like listening in a concert hall.
Even if you use a reader to do this.

[DuskyRose]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

We moved to a new house a little over a year ago. I'm very glad I no longer own shelves and shelves of print books. I can't imagine having to pack and carry the amount of boxes it would take to move a few thousand books.

We're ex-military, and moved on average every 18 months during the 11 years we were in. Because of weight restrictions when moving overseas, and having kids, I had to give away almost all my books except for one box.

Which was the only box to arrived water damaged and moldy 9 months later. Of course.

The base library was better than nothing of course, but not well stocked. Mostly it had books left from those moving back home. No real index. No covers left. I just decided to start with the "A" authors and take a chance.

I was miserable, even with English bookstores on base. They were expensive.

And having seen my grandparents size-down more and more as they grew older, books at the nursing homes wasn't a thing. No room. And while my mother did her best to supply her mother and mother-in-law with library books, they ususally hated what she chose.

Since then, having my books with me as I move around has been a huge blessing. I don't have ebook copies of all the physical books I have around me, but I have the majority. That'll do. When I get to the nursing home stage, my daughter will have control of whatever eink reader and books I have, and can update or replace the machines as needed.

My eReader, what ever type that'll be in the distant future, will probably be the last thing I ever actually own. I'm content knowing that it's possible.

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by rantanplan

I'm not sure where that leaved us. The "strike" against Z-Library was merely a pyrrhus win that actually left them more resilient and in a better position than before. And even if they were to go away, there are hundreds of similar places that will take over.

I think it is too early to say that Z-Library is in a better position than before.

The private sub-domain thing is raising eyebrows. It adds to the financial cost of running the site, whilst increasing the complexity of keeping the site up.

In terms of content, there are at least two other vendors that have more digital material than Z-Library, and offer that digital material gratis.

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by haertig

Hey, we shouldn't laugh. Remember when Kuerig built DRM into their coffee makers so you could only use their coffee pods? It was easy enough to bypass for people that had an IQ above 17, but they did try to implement it!

Both Lowe's and Home Depot are planning to DRM the hardware they sell.
They are doing that to reduce shop-lifiting. The average store loses a million dollars per quarter in shoplifted merchandise, with a projected increase of between 3% and 5% per quarter.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

Both Lowe's and Home Depot are planning to DRM the hardware they sell.
They are doing that to reduce shop-lifiting. The average store loses a million dollars per quarter in shoplifted merchandise, with a projected increase of between 3% and 5% per quarter.

"Now Home Depot is experimenting further with DRM at the point of sale. The company has started embedding chips in many of the major tool brands it sells (DeWalt, Milwaukee). And unless the tool is enabled by a Bluetooth-based system at the register, it simply won’t work when you take it home:"

From a 2 year old article:https://www.techdirt.com/2021/08/05/...ibly-go-wrong/

[Quoth]

Since a high percentage of shoplifting in some retail sectors is by the staff, I can't see this working well.
Also it creates a vulnerability where a bad actor can disable your equipment later.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Since a high percentage of shoplifting in some retail sectors is by the staff, I can't see this working well.

It seems like it would work pretty well to me. The tool will need to be processed at a cash register. A staff member has to signed in to use the register. Lots of ways for the thief to be caught.

Originally Posted by Quoth

Also it creates a vulnerability where a bad actor can disable your equipment later.

Agreed, although if someone has physical access to your tools they can probably find a way to break them if they want to.

[Quoth]

BT range can be extended to 100 meters easily. No physical access is needed. An extension of ransomware.

There is a reason many retailers have a camera on the till operator. I did install retail "security" for a while. Chain / franchises have a bigger problem than a locally owned shop as often there is no local management, just some of the operators are also supervisors. So I'm sceptical, but it's a misuse of technology even it is effective. All DRM is.

[DiapDealer]

It seems more likely to me that a bad actor would simply steal your functioning tool at that point. Especially since they'd have to be fairly close to it to rewrite the embedded chip's instructions.

We probably won't ever know for sure, but if, after two years (in the case of Home Depot), we've not heard any horror stories from their tool customers, then I'd have to assume that their rollout of "hardware drm" has had a negligible effect on customers. Either that, or there were so many problems they had to silently abandon the idea. The latter doesn't seem likely to me since there's 2023 reports of Lowes rolling out a similar (but not bluetooth) implementation.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Quoth

BT range can be extended to 100 meters easily. No physical access is needed. An extension of ransomware..

Not with only half of the equation (transmitter/reciever). That embedded chip has to be written to by equipment at checkout for a reason other than logistics. And it's likely that reason is a tiny antenna on that chip. Most IoT chips with bluetooth/WiFi (ESP8266/ESP32) have horrible range without an external antenna. A one-time throwaway chip like they would be using in their powertools in this application would likely have even less capabilities. Precisely because they would have no reason to undo the activation. I would be surprised if the bluetooth is even left enabled once the chip is authorized at checkout. There'd certainly be no reason to leave it on after that. Not a reason that doesn't require tinfoil hats anyway.

Not that I'm generally in support of technology being used in this manner, mind you. I just don't see consumers being realistically put out, or affected at all really, by bad actors in this particular application.

[isarl]

My feelings are similarly practical; it seems unlikely that Home Depot is using this to be predatory against legitimate customers. But in combination with the tendency for more and more products that were once actual purchases, conferring legal ownership of a thing, to become limited-term usage licenses – i.e., rent-seeking behaviour – in this context, it does concern me a small amount. How long before, like heated seats in cars, certain features of your power tools are locked out behind a subscription fee?

[Quoth]

If you use a dish or other high gain aerial it boosts signal both ways. Also been done with WiFi to 10 km (personally done with a mesh dish only at one end on chimney stack) and RFId tags.
Miscreants and researchers use either truck with canvas side or fibreglass panel.

No boost to power on gadget needed. Indeed illegal power levels on a WiFi airpoint with a regular aerial is pointless as the laptop/tablet/phone power is limited. But a high gain aerial or dish at one end boosts reception. You are 100% correct that purely boosting power at one end of a two way link is pointless, but a higher gain aerial boosts receive signal and improves S/N.

I also have a satellite reception system that uses a 120 cm dish rather than much smaller dishes used in Ireland for Freesat or Sky Ireland. In London they use an even smaller dish for the same Satellite signals. My big dish is so that 5 satellites, including ones beamed at other EU countries, can be simultaneously fed to our satellite distribution system, so that the family in different rooms can watch different satellites at the same time. The 1.2m (120cm) can get signals four times weaker than is possible on a 60cm dish.

Our two way backup internet over terrestrial 10.5 GHz microwave is 13 km path on a system designed for up to 9km, so it uses a 35 cm dish instead of the standard 10 cm x 20 cm printed panel array (actually the standard system uses separate one for TX and RX, but the waveguide at the dish focus has separate 1/4 wave stubs for H and V signals to the TX & RX on the box with panels removed using SMA hardline cables at 10.4 GHz approx). The outdoor box converts to 485 MHz (RX, download) and 40 MHz approx (TX, upload). Then the indoor modem is cunningly a DOCSIS 3.0 Cable modem. It's been running since 2006, though last year they replaced the DOCSIS 2.0 modem. It was our main internet till we got fibre and we still use it for phone calls as well as it being a backup.

Radio Amateurs now bounce 144 MHz digital signals off the moon to each other using as low as 20W with arrays of aerials, though 200 W is normal.

The effectiveness of dish size rises with frequency. Though loss is an inverse square law, the dish gain for a given frequency is proportional to area, thus proportional to square of diameter.