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America Online

Hacking AOL From The Inside 124

Posted by timothy from the make-my-mom-/_337! dept.
gizmo_mathboy writes: "It looks like the people that brought you Gnutella and Winamp, Nullsoft, are having fun hacking AOL code after AOL absorbed them. The story is here." One old idea this illustrates is that large, merger-ridden companies like AOL are hard to categorize simply -- they simply have too many parts, not all of which will ever be in complete concert. This kind of semi-allowed internal hacking could be the most valuable thing at AOL right now, though.
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Hacking AOL From The Inside More

Hacking AOL From The Inside

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  • So, after making millions and millions of dollars selling their company to the highest bidder, they still consider themselves "legitimate nihilistic media terrorists" whom history will "no doubt canonize".

    If they mean shot out of a canon (not the real definition, I know, but we can hope) then I'm all for it. These guys are not only trying to both have their cake and eat it, they're trying to eat that cake after they've sold it!

    One more target for the clue stick.
    ---
  • No, one RIP in a few hours (depending).

    As opposed to using MusicMatch or something, which lets you rip your CD to a crappy-quality MP3 with skips and pops in faster than real time!

    I figure if I'm going to bother to RIP a CD I may as well do it right...

    ---------------------------------------------

  • Smart guys... (Score:5)

    by brianvan ( 42539 ) on Monday October 23, 2000 @09:05AM (#682626)
    I thought it was highly interesting when AOL bought Nullsoft. I equated it to their purchase of Netscape... even though some people might have a problem with that analogy, I'd say that the amount of people using Winamp at the time was probably about equal to the number of people using Netscape. (Market share aside... although Sonique wasn't as popular and there were no other decent MP3 players for Windows at the time)

    Netscape withered and died, though. A lot of good talent left the company. But with Nullsoft, the whole team went over... and they're still there.

    Now, it's only a matter of "When's Justin Frankel gonna get fired?" Don't get me wrong, he's a genius and a hero in a lot of respects (Shawn Fanning doesn't hold a candle to him, IMO) but he has a knack for doing things to piss off the big corporations... including those that are in the same company as his now. This is a GOOD thing... generally, the stuff that he has made has went pretty far (Winamp, Shoutcast, Gnutella... that's one hell of a resume) but one day someone in another branch of that giant media conglomerate is going to overreact and demand Justin's termination.

    It's not as if that would matter, though. So far, anything of his that AOL has shot down made it into the public domain, anyway. He's smart enough to know how to get things out there too, under the radar of AOL until it's too late.

    Nullsoft is proof that good things can come out of corporate America, that large corporations don't always go for the loot at the expense of innovation. I'm not saying that AOL actively supports Nullsoft, but their general hands-off approach is almost surprising, considering since they own the company, they can just send a few managers in there to look over everyone's shoulder and make sure that they're not writing the Next Big Thing in Copyright Violations...
  • There is a good version of Winamp for *nix... it's called XMMS!

  • Kill winamp now; make room for free alternatives (Score:3)

    by Anne Marie ( 239347 ) on Monday October 23, 2000 @10:07AM (#682628)
    If AOL kills winamp, then more people will switch to freeamp [freeamp.org], a free and superior project. I'll be the first to lose no sleep.
  • Have you checked Xmms [xmms.org]? It's every bit as good as winamp and it's for Unix. The plugins are coming along nicely. Winamp wouldn't be any better about the plugins because they would all have to be rewritten anyway to run on Unix. I really like the plugin that lets you use K-jofol skins with it. I also like the Palm Amp plugin. I like to use my Palm Pilot for controlling the music while I'm working on full screen programs.

  • The reporter said that WinAmp supplies you with all of the software you need to make an illegal copy. Even though it can convert MP3s to WAVs, that doesn't aid in any way the copying of a CD you have.


    Refrag

  • For a long time I felt AOL was the evil empire, but they really have raised themselves a few notches in my book.

    Not Evil Empire, think Roman Empire. Oh sure, Rome had its orgies, slavery, egomaniacal emperors, and gladiatorial games but they also had one of the most vibrant and advanced civilizations of their day and paved the way for modern Western society.

    AOL could turn out the same way. Oh sure, Steve Case will continue to sucker in clueless newbies into his empire with inferior but easy to use Internet access; raking in cash and censoring the word "breast" chatrooms while pedophiles prowl his online service unmolested. But AOL is also nurturing some of the most exciting software development today. It's all part of the big chaos of the online scene with both good and bad coming from the same big corporate tent.
  • Keep your friends close and your enemies closer

    --
    brevity is the soul of ...

  • The only thing AOL is good for are all the free "coasters" they thoughtfully include with computer magazines.

    Not so! You can also use them as frisbies or build yourself your own, homemade disco ball out of them.

  • Re:Ahem (Score:2)

    by ewhac ( 5844 )

    I don't really want to know what someone's going to do with that "raw material" and the "putting things together in a creative way" part if you don't mind. I haven't had dinner yet...

    Well, one extremely obvious application would be to decompose the images into component parts (faces, hair, arms, legs, etc.), then cobble up a "screen blanker" that morphs each part independently. That is, the face would morph to another face; the left arm would morph to another left arm, etc.

    Not only would this make an interesting piece of eye candy, it would also serve as a subtle social critique on pr0n in general (i.e. the people in the photos are stripped of their individuality and humanity, reduced to a set of interchangeable parts).

    Schwab

  • I vote for drunk and somewhat retarded

  • File Format = Felony

    More like File Format = Civil Liability when MP3 is licensed [mp3licensing.com] and Vorbis isn't [vorbis.com].

  • LOL - I laughed until I stopped =)
  • According to the credo posted in blood-red lettering on Nullsoft's Web site, they consider themselves ``legitimate nihilistic media terrorists'' whom history will ``no doubt canonize''.

    Speaking of journalistic integrity, somebody needs to show these people what colour blood is, because unless they've been seriously abusing their bodies, that ain't blood-red.

  • Roman Empire? Two words - Marcus Aurelius
  • I see it now! thanks ^_^
    I was looking in their plugins section. Silly me. GO NULLSOFT!

  • 7 and a half megs?! whoa doggie. Have some consideration for those of us who have slow connections. Winamp Lite is less than a meg.
  • What players do you suggest then?
    sonique crashes on me, and hogs too much memory
    Windows Media player? Talk about bloat!

    Nullsofts got a good product, and I'm glad it's free.

  • ``Just to be a hair subversive,'' she said, ``it tends to keep you honest.''

    Er, mind translating?

  • And I say, more power to 'em. I'm working on a way to have people feed me as much cake as I want for no reason.

  • 7 and a half megs?!

    I have MP3s bigger than that.

    If you only want to is listen to a few MP3s, you probably don't need MMJB. But if you have lots o MP3s that aren't organized particularly well, it is great. It can scan your HD for MP3s and create a library with Artist, Title, Album, Genre info from the ID3 tags. This is the main thing I like about it.

    You can also use it to rip and burn CDs easily. (Though a few snobs may bitch about the quality, it's certainly as good as anything you're likely to download off Napster.)

  • In this sense, "hair" is similar to "little bit". So, her hair may or may not be in a purple mohawk with green tips. If it is, she is more than just a hair subversive as far as fashion is concerned.

  • Any hacker can do this with softice.
  • AOL ``didn't hire the guys at Nullsoft to decide what is and is not legal behavior for consumers on the Internet,'' Sinnreich said. ``They hired the guys at Nullsoft to think of really cool things that you can do with music online.''

    Nullsoft didn't decide anything. This article is total bull, and the guy who wrote it would be using winamp if he knew better.

  • I love the comment that matchbox 20's album that has winamp on it give someone tools to "ILLEGALLY PIRATE" the music.

    I can copy all my cd's 10000000 times legally you morons!, I can convert the music to whatever format I want. If I give it away or sell it then it's illegal.

    Someone please slap these stupid reporters that think anything mp3 is illegal.
  • This isn't a duplicate story... granted, a lot of it may be old news, but it's not a dupe.

    That said, I think they should have a checkbox in the user settings called "Repeat Stories" that we can uncheck if we so choose...

    (for that matter, we should have a new Dialectizer that transforms Slashdot Grammar into correct grammar...)

  • are you nuts? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "This kind of semi-allowed internal hacking could be the most valuable thing at AOL right now, though."

    Certainly their huge capital reserves, brand, market cap, subscriber base, and much more all outvalue a few internal hackers. Are you on crack or something?
  • You need to stop smoking some crack.

    Wow, burn one cd in only a few hours? What a deal!
  • "It was an odd admission considering that the Winamp player doesn't distinguish between playing legal and illegal MP3s either."

    Shit, I better hide my cassette recorder/VCR/Radio/TV/etc. next time the cops are in the area, after all neither do these distinguish legal and illegal....

    Stupidity does not prevent you from becoming a reporter.
  • Of course it has a ripper. Enable the wav plugin to write a wave file of what you are playing. You could burn it to CD now but of course you can already make a direct copy with the software you got with your burner. You would still need an encoder if you want MP3s.

  • The Truth (Score:3)

    by empesey ( 207806 ) on Monday October 23, 2000 @09:15AM (#682655) Homepage
    One old idea this illustrates is that large, merger-ridden companies like AOL are hard to categorize simply -- they simply have too many parts

    I notice he was careful not to say "too many moving parts.
  • "pedophiles prowl his online service unmolested"

    heh
  • You mention orgies like it's a bad thing.

  • Re:Bloody idiots, the lot of 'em (Score:4)

    by talesout ( 179672 ) on Monday October 23, 2000 @10:23AM (#682658) Homepage
    I'm sorry, but your post begs the question:

    "Is there such a thing as a clue cannon?"

    God knows some people need a clue at least as big and massive as a cannon ball to even start to think clearly.
  • Or you could use nero, and skip all that WAV business... Nifty software, Nero.

    http://www.ahead.de/

  • Re:Not Evil Empire (Re: AOL/good thing) (Score:5)

    by YKnot ( 181580 ) on Monday October 23, 2000 @10:26AM (#682661)

    Oh sure, Rome had its orgies, slavery, egomaniacal emperors, and gladiatorial games but they also had one of the most vibrant and advanced civilizations of their day and paved the way for modern Western society.

    What exactly is bad about having an advanced civilization and paving the way for modern Western society?

  • It's rare to find an article that says so little in so many words.

  • When asked, "What do you think of Western Civilization?" . . .
    Ghandi replied, "I think it would be a good idea."

  • But freeamp is missing one very important feature for me... The ability to play regular audio CDs. Until it does, I won't switch.
  • How does freeamp compare with xmms?
  • When a big company buys you out, it usually has a stipulation in the purchase that the principals stay around. See, Justin is getting paid to do what he wants. What's more, he can only get fired to be released from the contract. He's probably got a 3 year term in the purchase, to stick around. There's only an upside for him.

    --

    The company I work for got bought, and they had the CEO stick around doing nothing because of the purchase contract.
  • What players do you suggest then?

    musicmatch.com [musicmatch.com]

  • There are prostitution conventions??? Where do I preregister?
  • A lot of people are freaking out about this- you can rip the cd with winamp, sort of. If you select the "disk-writer-out" plug-in, then winamp will write the output of the session to a wave file instead of playing it. It won't encode mp3's or anything, but you *can* make a very large and cumbersome digital copy of the music on your cd to store on your computer with winamp.

  • It ships (downloads, whateva...) with a plugin that lets it rip cds, or any audio it's playing to wav format.



    Catch me on AIM: SigningiS
  • Guess I wouldn't know as I'm using a Fraunhaer(sp?!?) MP3Enc for MP3 encoding. Like I said, the free encoders suck for my kind of music, they leave all kinds of high end noise in the finished product.
  • Why would AOL tell Nullsoft how to program Winamp? Naturally Nullsoft have to tow the AOL line regarding marketing tie-ins etc., but from day to day they can do their own thang pretty much how they like. From that perspective AOL is pretty benevolant.

    As regards why jwz left Netscape (another AOL), you should ask him since it was more likely to do with internal politics than AOL interference because they hardly interfere at all.

  • I always thought of AOL as the annoying company that keeps sending me coasters-I'm happy to see there are a few innovators in that monster.
  • This really shows badly for AOL that their own departments are hacking their main product line. If the folks at Nullsoft are truely so unhappy with whom they have partnered/been bought by that they turn to AOL for apps to mess with someone up high OBVIOUSLY wasn't listening to the folks on the ground floor...

    Sounds like some damn money grubbing management doesn't care what their employees think about where their going. I bet the high-ups bailed after the big check can in the mail too...

    Capitalism...Aint it great!

  • I've never been able to figure this one out . . . it seems that everything Nullsoft produces is directly counter to AOL's business interests. So why did AOL buy it? Why does AOL continue to allow Nullsoft to have a separate existence? Well, reading this discussion, a new theory dawned upon me. Perhaps AOL's interests aren't exactly what all of us think that they are. Perhaps (and this is *just* a theory) AOL believes (correctly, IMHO) that it is better positioned than most record labels to weather the mp3 wars. Perhaps AOL believes that IT can supercede Napster, Mp3.com and the traditional record companies to become the major distribution source for digital music, presumably following a subscription model a la its own user fees and the proposed Napster settlement. Has AOL made any movement to acquire Aimster? Jay
  • Great company, great products, now great hacking? Whatever next?? Well, there's always the possible open-sourcing of winamp... or at least a (good) version for *nix... :o)
  • Winamp will convert mp3 files to wavs. Last time I checked, it wouldn't convert cd tracks to wavs.
  • Every article portrays AIMazing as some haxxor ad-blocking software. What is really is, is a plugin which sticks your winamp visualization thingy in AIM, so you can see it while you play mp3s. And yes, as a *consequence* it replaces the ads, "blocking" them. The main point though was to put the visualization thing in your IM, not specifically to block ads (AFAIK).
  • Atlantic Records has even begun to include the Winamp program on some music CDs, such as Matchbox 20's latest release, ``Mad Season.'' This basically provides all the software someone with a CD burner would need to make illegal, high-quality copies.


    WinAmp doesn't enable you to make any sort of copies. WinAmp doesn't include a ripper, doesn't include an encoder, and doesn't include burner software. WinAmp is a playback utility.

    The guy also mentioned that WinAmp doesn't distinguish between legal and illegal files. That's because it is impossible to do! If WinAmp refused to play MP3s with the copyright flag on, then everyone would encode their MP3s with it off.

    This reporter is either clueless or on medication.


    Refrag
  • I have a Plextor 40x UW SCSI - true digital rips at 20x and a Plextor SCSI Burner 8/2/20 (a little old). I will often dump the disk to an image first - takes a couple minutes - a full CD burn takes less than ten minutes...

    If you are ripping a CD with a crappy IDE drive, you deserve to wait a few hours...
    --

  • No (Score:3)

    by l33t j03 ( 222209 ) <l33tj03@hotmail.com> on Monday October 23, 2000 @08:45AM (#682681) Homepage Journal
    Atlantic Records has even begun to include the Winamp program on some music CDs, such as Matchbox 20's latest release, ``Mad Season.'' This basically provides all the software someone with a CD burner would need to make illegal, high-quality copies.

    What kind of dumb shit is that? Does Winamp rip CDs and encode MP3 now? I though it just played MP3s.

  • Get a real drive that supports high-speed error-correcting digital ripping (think Plextor) and do it better with less errors. If you don't have the hardware to do it, why bother?

    --


  • put some pr0n on all those free aol discs,..
    ...dave

  • Hold on one second. (Score:3)

    by JurriAlt137n ( 236883 ) on Monday October 23, 2000 @08:46AM (#682684)
    So there's this group of hackers creating cool pieces of free software while being condoned and payed by AOL. So if this is true, then this is AOL actually doing a good thing. First, that can't be true. Second, what's it doing on Slashdot? Don't tell me the discussion on journalistic integrity is going to affect you people?!?

    It is the end of The Dot as we know it, it is the end of The Dot as we know it, and I feel fine..

  • Huh? (Score:4)

    by Tower ( 37395 ) on Monday October 23, 2000 @08:48AM (#682685)
    "Atlantic Records has even begun to include the Winamp program on some music CDs, such as Matchbox 20's latest release, ``Mad Season.'' This basically provides all the software someone with a CD burner would need to make illegal, high-quality copies."

    Funny - I've never needed winamp to make copies of any disk (software or audio). CD->CD copy works - - and most burning programs let you dump to a HD img if you need it... they don't ship a blank CD, either. Just another misleading statement.

    --
  • that the powers that be up at AOL dont try to get their paws in Winamp. Ive been using that program since my win 3.1 days and have watched it grow. If AOL was to start telling these people how to code it..... Just look at what happened to netscape when they got bought out. A good documentary about big biz mucking up good sw projects is on jamie zawinkis [jwz.org] (sp?) page. he was one of the original developers at netscape and eventually left in disgust.

    "sex on tv is bad, you might fall off..."
  • No, EAC a CD in a few hours, particularly if you have a badly burned CD.

    Then I burn it on my 2x2x6x Phillips.

    Just how many CDs have you duped and burned in the last month?

    I figure I've EAC'ed about 20, and burned about 100.

  • Winamp and legal/illegal content (Score:5)

    by Another MacHack ( 32639 ) on Monday October 23, 2000 @08:48AM (#682688)
    "It was an odd admission considering that the Winamp player doesn't distinguish between playing legal and illegal MP3s either."

    Funny, neither does my walkman.
  • Mozilla is definatly a good thing even if you think it's too slow. AOL is funding this massivly large open source project and in the course paying for the development of tools (BugZilla, TinderBox, lxr, bonsai) that can benefit all OSS.

    For a long time I felt AOL was the evil empire, but they really have raised themselves a few notches in my book.

    Tony

  • cred? (Score:1)

    by yali ( 209015 )

    Could this be AOL's attempt to get some "street cred" by sponsoring a bunch of hackers? Kind of like Sprite running commercials telling us not to believe the hype commercials, or lifelong politicians portraying themselves as "outsiders"?

  • That would be against their business model. I have set up computer systems for single guys and what is the first thing they ask? How do you get pr0n? If they were to provide that on the aol discs they'd probably lose at least 25% of the market as people will just wait for the next months junk mail, ahem pr0nfest, ahem frisbee, ahem aol disk. The nullsoft hackers wouldn't be allowed to do something that devestating, nullsoft is there to only give the illusion of a free spirited company.

  • Re:I just hope... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    And you'll also notice that JWZ also admitted that, to some degree, it was better for everyone that AOL bought NSCP. NSCP was fucked on its own, as it was. It was on its last pair of borrowed legs. AOL didn't screw up NSv4.x, it was there already, and AOL didn't screw up the mozilla project, either. II'm as liberal as the next guy, but your "pass the blame" game has gotta stop.
  • The only thing AOL is good for are all the free "coasters" they thoughtfully include with computer magazines. Hacking AOL from within? I don't know if I'd care to admit that as it's tanatmount to admitting that I actually used their service. ...........
  • I rarely get underrungs or diginoise this way.

    Get a Plextor Plexwriter 12/10/32A. With its new Burn-Proof technology (essentially it stops the write if it runs out of data, then resumes), you'll never make another coaster. I've had one for months, and I can do anything on the computer that I want without messing up a write. You can even do a CD-to-CD with no problemos. Love this product (and no, I have no financial interest in the company or product.)

  • Very smart guys. If I were Steve Case I would take a totally hands-off approach, so long as Nullsoft is happy and producing good shit. I bet AOL could find good ways to use and promote this stuff without stifling them. Maybe they learned their lesson after buying, and destroying, Netscape.
  • Noooooo - I would never have time to review them - Received way too many of them
  • Well, MP3 the format isn't illegal in and of itself. You can still make copies legally for yourself. As you said, it is 'units shipped' that you are charged for. If you aren't distributing, then you don't have any reason to worry about using MP3.

    Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of Vorbis (I haven't used it yet, but am keeping my eye on it), but I have spent hundreds of hours (not really, hundreds of hours of batch time on my Linux server at home) encoding all of my CDs to MP3 so that I don't have to constantly fiddle with the CDs themselves (and I did purchase a legal MP3 encoder to do this work, the 'free' ones give me really sucky, squeaky quality). It's going to take some convincing to get me to switch without a real reason. And thus far this entire, *MP3 is illegal* thing just doesn't seem real to me. If the format itself ever is outlawed, and Vorbis begins to take its place, it won't be long before Vorbis is outlawed as well.

    It is the concept of copying which seems to bother the big corporations. And unfortunately at the moment, the big corporations are all that really matter in the US. God knows the law is bought and paid for by them. Just a few more years and they should be able to remove that pesky voting process where people even have the illusion that they matter.

    Everybody knows that government is there to protect the poor abused big businesses from the big bad and nasty consumers. That's what this entire, *MP3 should be illegal* thing is really about. Forget fair use. If you want to listen to a song on your home stereo and in your car you should have to pay for it twice! Now, if they could just convince people that this is *for their own good*.
  • Excuse me? pass the blame game? No sir, I believe in giving credit where its due, but also pointing out the BS that 'the man', 'big biz', or whatever pulls. In fact, I dont think i yell loud enough. Sorry, but when it comes to the little guy vs the multi-billion dollar corporation, I take the side of the little guy. There is no such thing as corporate loyalty any more, there is no such thing as customer service any more, and we are all basically marked as mindless drones who'll buy or believe anything. I will not bite my tounge. brad nowell said it best "the day that i die is the day that i shut my mouth and put down my guitar".....

    "sex on tv is bad, you might fall off..."
  • Its up there, in the free section.

    http://www.nullsoft.com/free/aimazing/ [nullsoft.com]
  • When is the mainstream media going to stop qualifying MP3s?

    Any time you read an article, or hear a news report about Napster/Gnutella/Metallica/Dre/whatever they always mention mp3, followed by "A type of computer file that makes downloading music on the internet easier." Don't people know that by now? When will it end?

    Can you imagine if everytime they mentioned Internet they still had to follow with "..a set of standards used to connect computers throughout the world together forming a giant network community."
  • And yet other people, like me, use them to put their own files on. Backing up my various writings and projects is nice and easy when I want to reinstall Win, and burning a cd beats the hell out of using super-expensive zip disks for filesharing...
  • Rippers and encoders are available as plugins.

    But I think WinAmp was there for playing CDA, now MP3. They probably shipped it with a nise M20 skin, some vis plugins, and WinAmp's minibrowser would link from CDDB to the M20 site.
  • The dumbest online service "everyone uses" buys the dumbest MP3 player "everyone uses". It's fitting, in a way.

    Winamp was advanced when everyone was still fighting with Winplay3, but today it's sorely become diluted with useless bloat and features of questionable value. There are many players out there now that can manage your MP3 collection, rip CDs, and even burn audio CDs without needing to change programs.

    And when it comes to player-only software, Winamp is Sonique's bitch-boy.
  • People have pointed out a number of factual errors in this article, as well as a rather fugly misrepresentation of a quote, and other mistakes. I'm not here to go over them again. Those really bothered me, but I was willing to use my moderator points to whore-up other folkses' comments.

    Then I remembered the thing that really peeved me and made me want to fling four-letter constructions at the "reporter" was his misuse of 'nonplussed .' [m-w.com] I don't know why, but it really annoyed me. This isn't a flame or a troll as much as it is a confession. To wit:

    And for now, in public at least, AOL seems nonplussed by Nullsoft's antics. "Nobody's slapped their hand yet."

    [pedantry] Nonplussed does NOT mean unimpressed. It means perplexed... boggled... rendered speechless. [/pedantry]

    I think the problem I have is, how do people like this get jobs writing stories for places like the AP? For chrissake, this is a 10th-grade vocabulary word. A journalist should at least have the same basic command of the English language as a High School senior! It really represents the deterioration of the news media in general: at first it was the idea of news as entertainment, then we had tabloid style coverage, next was sensational scare tactics and tease trailers on TV, then when the internet got anyone with a phone and a keyboard involved, regard for accuracy and truth went out the window, even at the New York Friggin Times. Now on top of it all we have to deal with uneducated writers and reporters?

    Aaaargh!

    I'm nonplussed!


  • Could this be AOL's attempt to get some "street cred" by sponsoring a bunch of hackers? Kind of like Sprite running commercials telling us not to believe the hype commercials, or lifelong politicians portraying themselves as "outsiders"?

    This is exactly what it is, Suck recently ran a great article [suck.com] on this phenomenon. Basically, Americans like to think of their heroes as outsiders. No matter how well-connected you are, the system is set up so that you can reinvent yourself as a renegade.

    Why? Because this country was founded by wealthy, well-connected men who modeled themselves as rebels in order to rally the people to their cause.

    That's how AOL wants to be seen, as being on the cutting edge of technology, so they'll put up with Justin Frankel's antics so long as they can point to him and say, "You see, we're not like those other corporate sheep. We're outsiders who take chances!" He is worth more to AOL as a human marketing tool than he is as a brilliant programmer. Frankel have to pull some seriously illegal crap before AOL would give up what he represents.
  • Wait for your next AOL coaster to arrive. Like selling drugs, the first 500 hours will be free, and then it will only cost you $20/month for unlimited access.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Winamp has been free for a while now. About a month after I payed my ten clams to Justin, actually. Doh!



    Catch me on AIM: SigningiS
  • Your sig is from the one where the aliens abduct Clinton and Bush and try to run themselves. Nice. -- Don't EVEN mod me down for this. I wanted to tell this person, but didn't think their email was valid. Thanks peeps.
  • From the site:
    • Atlantic Records has even begun to include the Winamp program on

    • some music CDs, such as Matchbox 20's latest release, ``Mad
      Season.'' This basically provides all the software someone with a
      CD burner would need to make illegal, high-quality copies.

    I'm sorry? When did winamp *make* mp3's? And since when could you burn cd's from winamp?
    Whatever they're on, it should be illegal - unless you're (insert name of relevant drug-using "star" here).

    "I am so cool, you could keep a side of meat in me for a month

  • Is it possible that nullsoft made some sort of agreement to keep their working environment in tact when AOL sought to take them over? Tivoli did something similar when IBM took them over. If so, that would have been a neat trick. If they did, they should be commended and imitated.
  • If you have a badly burned CD:
    1) Why rip from that one - get a better one
    2) a real drive will still help. A plextor ripping at half of it's normal speed for extra error correction will still take less than 20 minutes to rip a full 70 minutes of music.

    I don't work for Plextor, but ever since I purchased the 12/20 back in 1996, I'll never buy another brand - they work better, more reliably, and last longer than other readers or burners I've had.

    --
  • I do a bitwise verify after a disk rip for each track, and verify the sound for any discrepancies. I also re-rip the burnt disc and verify that against the original (repeat error screening). I've never had any problems with the burns, except for Imation media (never any other kind), or my old HP SureStore 6020i (there's a class action suit against HP for that drive, among others).

    I've never used EAC, but I might have to check that out.
    --
  • After the Time Warner Merger, Nullsoft will be back in the news... hehehe... I can't wait!


    -- Don't you hate it when people comment on other people's .sigs??
  • ...that besides buying Nullsoft, AOL acquired a clue at the same time?
    Heh. "You bring the money, I'll bring my big ol' Clue Stick." LOL.

  • Re:Ahem (Score:3)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Monday October 23, 2000 @08:49AM (#682720) Homepage Journal

    Well, if that's how you're going to define "profit," then yes, we all live in an ocean of unlimited wealth, free for the asking.

    But just consuming stuff tends to get kind of one-dimensional and boring after a while. The important next question is, "What can you do with it?" By which I mean, can you take all that raw material and put it together in new, creative ways?

    The value is not in the artifact, but in the imagination.

    Schwab


  • Sounds like some damn money grubbing management doesn't care what their employees think about where their going. I bet the high-ups bailed after the big check can in the mail too...

    you don't have a lot of work experience, do you?

    some? try all.
    ...dave
  • I never knew this..but cool!
    -----------------------------------
    MP3 = Illegal
    -----------------------------------
    3 letters = 6 letters -- Close enough for a braindead reporter!
    No letters match -- Close enough for a believer in this following!
    File Format = Felony -- No match but when's the last time a staff writer made sense? Hehe 3 F's!
    Music = Intellectual Property -- Not in my belief, but sure in a Luddite's!
    -----------------------------------
    Obviously the real equations here are:
    Media reporter = Head up ass
    Technology analyst = Brainwashed
    -----------------------------------
    Try that on your calculator!

    Definitions:
    XML: Leading the way to make the web a ebiz thing
  • ... If they put, on that 660MB disk, something of some public merit, this could be regarded as a "Public Service."

    As it stands, the last AOL CD that came in sparkled nicely in the microwave, and I was able to rescue a quite nice CD case of the style usually used for DVDs...

  • Misquote by Article (Score:4)

    by Meridun ( 120516 ) on Monday October 23, 2000 @10:02AM (#682734) Homepage
    This sort of pissed me off that the article rewrote the nullsoft quote in such a way that changed what I perceive it meant.

    Article's Quote:

    According to the credo posted in blood-red lettering on Nullsoft's Web site, they consider themselves ``legitimate nihilistic media terrorists'' whom history will ``no doubt canonize''.
    The REAL Quote:
    we didn't get into this 'space' cuz we're internet gold seeking cockos.

    We're legitimate nihilistic media terrorists as history will no doubt canonize us.
    -Rob Lord, June 9, 2000

    Somehow, I think that the meaning changes a bit here, don't you? The article seems to want to portray them as hackers who are glory hounds, whereas, I think their real quote reveals that they KNOW they will have their public image assassinated at every chance no matter what happens (as this example blatantly shows)

  • Hacking away from the inside can be the only thing that keeps you sane. When I found that our corporate http proxies were blocking chiark [greenend.org.uk] I started playing with ways to avoid them. So far I am winning (witness this post), but I have had the interesting experience of having my home IP address blocked at the corporate firewall.

    Sometimes it doesn't seem fair. After all, if they had any brains at all they wouldn't be working in information security, would they? But they have all the budget, and all the hardware, so it evens out.

    At the time of writing, this is the first non-troll post.

    --

  • Move along, nothing new to see here... (Score:4)

    by b0z ( 191086 ) on Monday October 23, 2000 @08:52AM (#682743) Homepage Journal
    I'm not trying to be a troll or anything...just that this is not new information really. For those of you that read the discussion and not the article it basically deals with the following:

    - Winamp can be used to listen to illegal mp3's
    - Shoutcast can be used to play copyrighted music and not pay any royalties
    - Gnutella exists
    - The guys from nullsoft released a winamp plugin to change the AOL Instant Messenger ads with something else.

    There really isn't much new information here, it portrays the guys at Nullsoft as whimsical, ecentric, crazy kids while showing AOL to be the mature but understanding adult that is simply putting up with their youthful antics with a grin.

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