BBC hijacks TiVo recorders

Tim May tcmay at got.net
Sat Jun 1 15:52:49 PDT 2002


On Saturday, June 1, 2002, at 03:08  PM, jet wrote:

>> They were even more surprised to find that they won't be allowed to
>> delete the programme for one week, and that more sponsored recordings
>> are on the way.
>> ...
>> <http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/25436.html>
>
> However, the show didn't take up any user space, but was stored in 
> reserved system space that's kept around for use during software 
> upgrades and whatnot.

If TiVO works the same basic way my UltimateTV (Sony/DirectTV) works, 
having "Bubba and Ram Dass," or whatever, always in my  list of recorded 
shows for a week would be a massive annoyance.

You said you worked for TiVo, as I recall. I suggest you point out to 
your corporate bosses the Law of Unintended Consequences. I foresee 
growing irritation, hacks to permanently interfere with TIVo's spam 
recordings, the "Bubba and Doss" show being unfavorably smeared by angry 
TiVO customers, and even a grass roots campaign to monkeywrench TiVO in 
general.

By the way, so far my Ultimate TV hasn't tried any such Big Brother 
tricks on me. Though they may have their own corporate clowns looking 
for revenue enhancement.  Downloaded ads that play before every recorded 
show can be viewed. Schemes to disable fast-forwarding through 
commercials.

--Tim May

"The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the
people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some
rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no
majority has a right to deprive them of." -- Albert Gallatin of the New 
York Historical Society, October 7, 1789





More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list