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The porn industry is in a bind

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Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#101

Post by TeMPOraL »

rdancer wrote: post #97
mindcrime wrote: post #16

Forget about the porn for a minute gang... this is, to me, the key insight in the story: VR and its cousin, “augmented reality,” are controlled by the big corporations. Facebook owns the Oculus Rift. Microsoft built the Hololens. Google does Google Glass. These will treat porn at least like Android treats porn—or maybe even like Glass treated porn when O’Connell unveiled his app. In other words, they won’t allow it t…

If you care about hackability, you can buy a completely open hardware development board for under $100 delivered. That's roughly $45 in 1985 US dollars. Android device makers from China maybe haven't been told about their own inability to pump out clones. Somebody should let them know. A VM instance from Digital Ocean costs $5/month. Go buy a dozen, and install Xenix on all of them. All your platforms up to about 199…

> Android device makers from China maybe haven't been told about their own inability to pump out clones. Somebody should let them know.

Oh they know about it. They just don't give a fuck. What is the US going to do, sue them?

(Actually, the Chinese government started cracking down on that industry, because it pisses off the West too much and thus "hurts economy".)

As for the rest of your comment, this is the golden age we're having, but we're seeing more and more signs that the big companies - both technology and media ones - are trying to put an end to it. One reason is that "cost of unreliability can easily exceed the cost of the device, many times over, and the single biggest point of failure are trojan horses & operator errors." The other is that it's easier to make money off people if you lock them down behind dumbed down devices and your own propertiary ecosystem. Yet another is that people like media but don't like to pay MAFIAA for it. Surveillance is also a an issue. This all adds up in a way that threatens the future hackability of stuff.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#102

Post by TeMPOraL »

scintill76 wrote: post #100
pandaman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I guess the signed bootloader is the 100% protection. Too bad PS3 did not have one, right?

The PS3 does have a crypto key, but it was recovered by hackers because Sony reused nonces in ECDSA signatures: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sci.crypt/3isJl28Slr... Apple's probably isn't susceptible, especially with the PS3 failure in recent memory.

Yup. Companies are pushing unlocking the devices into seriously illegal territory. Yes, in principle you can unlock anything - you can always kidnap the CEO and beat him with $4 crowbar until he gives you the key. In practice we would like to be able to do it without harming people.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#103

Post by WildUtah »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #26
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, it appears that many people, both end users, power users and programmers alike, have made up their minds and want their computers to be appliances instead of tools. In fact, strict regimentation, curation and immutable defaults are in wide demand by consumers of all demographics. Having to manually tune something is considered ever more blasphemous these days. I think we will end up losing a lot in thi…

> And all of this happening while many beat their chests demanding that programming be made a compulsory subject in public schools. What a sickening irony. Indeed. Also note how the typical curriculum offered by proponents is geared towards teaching people to create things that will be ad-supported or will be providing ads. I wish to know if there's a way to fight back somehow. Maybe not to reverse the trend, but to…

Senator Fritz Hollings (D-Disney) in 2001 introduced the SSSCA, the bill to take away all the pansy freedom of speech provisions of the DMCA and really lock down computers for the legitimate big business that should control programming. It was Hollings's 35th year as the junior senator from South Carolina and -- as chairman of the Commerce Committee -- he had really decided to crack down.

The SSSCA as introduced would have prohibited, with criminal penalties, the possession without a license of a compiler capable of producing programs that could process, copy, or decrypt data in media files. Every Turing-complete programming language in the country would have required a special federal license to use. Finally, only licensed, bonded, qualified, and tracked professionals taking responsibility for their actions could violate our precious copyrights.

But Hollings wasn't as spry as his senior colleague from South Carolina and retired before he could finish his final good work for the corporations that made him. Even that business so famously unashamed that its own mascot is a rodent would have to settle for waiting a little longer to achieve its aims.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#104

Post by erikb »

mindcrime wrote: post #16

Forget about the porn for a minute gang... this is, to me, the key insight in the story: VR and its cousin, “augmented reality,” are controlled by the big corporations. Facebook owns the Oculus Rift. Microsoft built the Hololens. Google does Google Glass. These will treat porn at least like Android treats porn—or maybe even like Glass treated porn when O’Connell unveiled his app. In other words, they won’t allow it t…

But is losing control really that bad? Often we don't want control as much as we want to do more stuff. We don't have control about our food, but we are as fat as never before. We don't have control over what happens with our taxes, but still live for most people in the western world is stable, there are roads, public transport, doctors. I don't think people really want to keep control over their computers.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#105

Post by erikb »

rdancer wrote: post #12

The fine article talks about the losers of the trade war. The winners are OK. If you look where the money is, it's with MindGeek (formerly known as Manwin), a company that has through the years bought bought most of the tube/cam sites, owns Brazzers and other content producers. For sure, tired unattractive content won't make it. But then you have the true artists of fucking, like James Deen, Pierre Woodman, and those…

Do people really follow porn stars? I always found the whole bunch really unattractive and their "art" as boring as early afternoon public tv programs.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#106

Post by pandaman »

scintill76 wrote: post #100
pandaman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I guess the signed bootloader is the 100% protection. Too bad PS3 did not have one, right?

The PS3 does have a crypto key, but it was recovered by hackers because Sony reused nonces in ECDSA signatures: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sci.crypt/3isJl28Slr... Apple's probably isn't susceptible, especially with the PS3 failure in recent memory.

I am not an Apple user but I cannot help but notice some kind of "jailbreak" business going on there. Could it, perhaps, involve breaching iPhone security in some way that could lead to loading arbitrary code with system privileged and even modyfing the OS itself? It sure looks this way from a cursory googling. It appears Apple had been and still is susceptible to various attacks. As is every other company.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#107

Post by stickfigure »

sandworm101 wrote: post #25

Never trust articles about porn. I've never seen one that represented more than a myopic view. It's a very diverse industry. I hope that Kink implodes. That side of the industry started as an almost joke. Bush, pre-911 Bush, talked about going after violent porn. So a couple producers got together and said: "Well, lets give them a target." They had first amendment lawyers primed for battle. Then 9/11, and the feds ne…

I worked for Kink for about a year and a half in the mid 2000s. The owner, and a handful of the people in the videos, are friends of mine.

Your characterization of the company is wildly inaccurate. The company started with one kind of shy British guy who liked to tie up girls & get tied up more than he liked writing banking software. There weren't any lawyers - not even through the end of my tenure in 2007 - and if you ever watch any of the early material, it's almost comically Ed Woodish in production value. Peter hacked together the original website software himself. It was innovative in the sense that that Kink had one of the earlier affiliate programs in adult, but the main focus was always on producing content that was genuine - for people into that kind of thing. Those interviews that you call "comical" aren't made up.

Furthermore, "...customers are leaving for content that even Kink wouldn't touch" offensively paints folks into BDSM as miscreants. It's also not true. Kink's audience is leaving, but for content that is free. Porn economics have changed; tastes probably not so much.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#108

Post by kristofferR »

sandworm101 wrote: post #57
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see how that'd be painful, though not the fault of the producers. Is Kink and Insex-level stuff the worst of legal/gray area pornography that you have to analyze, because that'd be surprising.

I don't know about worst. There is some pretty strange stuff out of japan, but it isn't as violent. There are a couple Russian websites that make Kink look like Disney in terms of violence, but they aren't a sexual with it. They are annoying because they don't comply with s2257 recordkeeping requirements. Most people would be shocked at how many overseas sites don't comply. That law only applies to "actual sexually e…

Why would people be shocked about that?

I really hope most people aren't expecting US web sites to follow Russian media laws (and vice versa), that would be horribly undemocratic.

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#109

Post by trhway »

>“The first fiction ever published on a printing press was an erotic tale. And from there: super 8 film, Polaroid, home video, digital, video on demand—”

what do you think these figurines were 20000 years ago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines

"Most of them have small heads, wide hips, and legs that taper to a point. Various figurines exaggerate the abdomen, hips, breasts, thighs, or vulva. In contrast, arms and feet are often absent, and the head is usually small and faceless."

Re: The porn industry is in a bind

#110

Post by jug »

erikb wrote: post #105
rdancer wrote: post #12

The fine article talks about the losers of the trade war. The winners are OK. If you look where the money is, it's with MindGeek (formerly known as Manwin), a company that has through the years bought bought most of the tube/cam sites, owns Brazzers and other content producers. For sure, tired unattractive content won't make it. But then you have the true artists of fucking, like James Deen, Pierre Woodman, and those…

Do people really follow porn stars? I always found the whole bunch really unattractive and their "art" as boring as early afternoon public tv programs.

I follow @stoya and @Kayden_Kross on Twitter. :D

They shatter the prejudices about porn stars with almost every tweet. It's a bit weird though. To follow these smart, funny girls and then be able to switch website and see them have hardcore sex.

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