The GPL may be enforceable, at least till Telstra continues to distribute the devices on outright sale. DTH operators, on the other hand, make their customers sign a contract that specifies that the Set Top Boxes / DVRs being provided are solely the property of the operator, and are being leased to the customer with minimal rights being transferred. Most of these devices use the Linux kernel and other GPL / open source tools to function.

In such a case, the operator may take a plea that by leasing the device, it is not Distributing the software, and therefore is not liable for compliance with GPL. This plea may be used even if there is no provision for return, replacement or repair of the device beyond its warranty period, and the payment made by the customer is equal to the market price for similar equipment.

I am not sure if the excuse mentioned by the operator is legally tenable (in whichever jurisdiction), but it sure does put a stop to many people's impulses to tweak and tinker.

Now, I have received a free HD DVR with my TV purchase, and I can't even try to hack it to do more or expose its guts. What a shame.

THIS is the perfect opportunity for someone to use the phrase "When are you?"

Donate eyes, liver, kidneys or whichever organs can survive 'death', and cremate the remainder. There will only be a finite number of corpses that medical research can accept.

On the other hand, if we cease to exist when we die, how can we decide what to do with the corpse after death? It should be left to the family members or community or government to decide how to recycle or treat the waste.

Next up: flamewars about inheritance and communism

That ain't Bollywood, even if the title says so. It is a patently Tamil movie.

From TFA:
"How can we put the site down? The only means that we can put the site down is [by launching a] denial-of-service [attack]. Basically we have to flood [the site] with millions and millions of requests and put the site down."

They are not sending *one* well-designed exploit, but millions and millions of 'requests'.

Hey, they could just post the links on /. instead and we'll do the DoS for them!

I was talking about the legitimacy of files being shared on such sites, and not the possibility of shutting them down.

By the way, the assholes in question use DoS attacks, because DDos attacks might mean they have created a botnet.

Although a slim chance, a file-sharing site may have legitimate users. A DoS attack by analogy would be like pushing hordes of protesters inside a mall where some shops may be selling pirated CDs. At least the mall can restrict the right to entry and lodge a police complaint if people try to force their way in, while this may not be possible in the virtual world.

Would it be possible for the site owner to notify ISPs about this unwanted traffic and try to get some IP addresses blacklisted?

If political parties can hold entire cities and states to ransom for their jingoistic agendas like enforcing the use of their regional languages, or as a protest to some trivial insult to some historic figures, or for banning a book that 'hurts' their 'religious or cultural feelings', or thrash people up for trying to celebrate Valentine's Day, there is no doubt a DoS attack would be condoned even if illegal.

Ironically, certain aspects of the Indian cyber laws are really draconian, paranoid and against free speech (which is only a right with stipulations in India). Unfortunately, nobody cares.

Idiots even think the UID program will help thwart terrorism, and they don't realise that it would only be another tool in hands of politicians, bureaucrats and the police to harass citizens even more than they are doing now.

They do it on http://www.magnatune.com/ but then rock stars would rather be rock stars than be good artists.

AC speaks up against hypocrisy. Should have been brave enough to post under own ID.

Yes, but what stops us from trying? Thanks for the very valid points, anyway.

I was wondering about that ever since watching the robotic prosthetics on NHK and especially the said TED video. Would it be possible to tap into nerves on a patch of skin (e.g. where the missing appendage should have been) and 'train' the brain to read impulses there, rather than directly meddle with it surgically?

Sci-fi time.

Everybody must have seen this video on TED:

http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_brainwaves.html

If you can read the electrical impulses non-intrusively and with a lightweight headgear, and then use an adaptive algorithm to learn an individual's 'fingerprint' brainwave patterns, you can easily use the technology to control everything from powered wheelchairs to those cool animatronic prosthetics developed by the Japanese. Of course, you will also need some corrective algorithms so that empathically generated signals do not start to control the hardware ;)