[LINK] The End of the Web as You Know It

[Rachel Polanskis]

On Tue, 27 Jun 2000, Fred Pilcher wrote:

> At 14:45 27/06/00 +1000, Tony Barry wrote:
> ><http://www.zdnet.com.au/biztech/news/stories/au0003597.html> The End 
> >of the Web as You Know It
> >See a Web article you like? Cut and paste, and presto -- it's part of 
> >your newsletter. Great-looking picture on that site? Right-click and 
> >it's your wallpaper. Too bad those days are over.
> 
> How can a third party program that I haven't installed stop me from copying
> or printing an image or text, whether downloaded or not?

It can't.  Unless the content is somehow encapsulated by a protocol 
that only gives you access to the image or whatever by the use of a plugin
or something.  Then it wouldn't be the web, would it? 

If organisations are that concerned over text or image data being 
snarfed by pirates, wouldn't steganography be a better alternative?

> Is this just another case of dotcom/zdnet hype, or can they actually do it?

Without technical details of how it does the magic cargo thing it's 
a puff piece that I can happily disregard. 

I wonder how it protects against screen captures or OCR or whatever?

Also there is an issue of access here as well.  What if my lowly 486 
can't run the Vyou software, or my Mac?  My Sun?  It all sounds a bit 
restrictive and platform centric to me......


rachel

Rachel Polanskis                 University of Western Sydney, Nepean
Senior UNIX Admin                PO Box 10, Kingswood NSW 2747
Systems && Operations            Information Technology Services, Kingswood
r.polanskis@nepean.uws.edu.au    Phone: +61 (0247) 360 291