Outline for April 11, 2007

Question: Movies on DVDs are usually encoded to prevent you from copying them. When you play the DVD, the software on your Windows system or your DVD player decodes the movie. This protects the copyright owner's rights because you cannot make unauthorized copies of the movie. However, no such mechanism exists for Linux systems, which is why you cannot play many DVD movies on Linux. A Norwegian teenager figured out how to decipher the movies, and wrote a program for his Linux system to play his DVDs. Was what he did ethical?

  1. Greetings and felicitations!
  2. How a disk stores data (continued)
    1. Directory
    2. Space for files
    3. Reading, writing files
    4. Deleting files, and erasing files securely
  3. Managing disks
    1. Defragmentation
    2. Compressing files
  4. Compack disks
    1. What it holds
    2. Tracks and spirals
    3. CD-R (recordable), CD-RW(rewritable)
  5. Digital versatile disks
    1. Originally held video ("digital video disks")
    2. Several formats: DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
    3. Holds 4.7GB single-layer, 8.6GB dual-layer
    4. Movies on DVDs enciphered to protect them, authorized DVD players can decipher them


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