Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Bnetd, Salmon, Towers
All I'm certain of is my true love's hair. CompaniaHill writes: "As previously reported on /., first they though it was turquoise. Then they found an error in their early calculations, and announced it was really beige. But doubts lingered, and color experts pointed out that an objective color as viewed from the theoretical blackness of space would appear different when viewed on Earth in typical daylight. So adjustments were made, and calculations were revised and rechecked by color scientists Michael Brill of McClendon Automation Inc. and Mark Fairchild of the Munsell Color Science Laboratories. And now, at last, Ivan Baldry and Karl Glazebrook, astronomers at Johns Hopkins University, using spectral data from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, have announced the final result: The universe is decidedly salmon. Really."
The milestones are getting closer together. Dare Obasanjo writes: "Xindice (http://xml.apache.org/xindice), the Apache native XML database has finally reached version 1.0. Xindice used to be called dbXML and was mentioned in my article on XML and databases."
Three From the Courts TheFrood writes: "It looks as though the battle between Blizzard and bnetd (as reported in previous stories here(1), here(2), and here(3))is heating up. Vivendi has sent another letter to the EFF, which has wasted no time responding."
ElitusPrime writes with an update in the strange case of Ken Hamidi, the Intel employee whose mass-mail to Intel employees brought charges of trespassing. Now the California Supreme Court may take another look at the case. Says ElitusPrime: "If this guy is put in jail, I can think of more then a few other spammers that need to go up the creek with him..."
In a very different case, pagan26 writes: "It seem that DMCA will have its day in court. With ElmcoSoft."
Well, at least you can trust their word, right? Masem writes: "According to MSNBC, the developers of the spyware program WinWhatWhere will no longer have their install program trample the bits of anti-spyware programs, after word broke that this behavior was occurring. However, no word has been made by a similar spyware program developed by SpectreSoft that does similar damage."
I will fork out to see this, happily. Pingsmoth writes "It looks like the faithful fans of Peter Jackson and Tolkien will be able to catch a glimpse of The Two Towers this Saturday. Lordoftherings.net is reporting, through a video of Peter Jackson, that a preview (read: not a trailer) of The Two Towers will be shown in theatres this Saturday, presumably attached to The Fellowship of the Ring. Maybe at the end? At any rate, it looks like I'll be seeing the film at least seven times now, and it's a good thing I got a morning shift tomorrow." For a more colorful description of this 4-minute tease, check out Ain't it Cool News' version.
Commercial speech deservces less protection than non-commercial speech. In addition, complaints about employment practices may come under protection by the ADA, FMLA, Title VII, and the NLRA.
But, this intersect with the rights of Intel to have control over their mail servers. Maybe the lawmakers should look at this case when drafting anti-spam statutes.
Fight Spammers!
baaaa.. everyone is sheep of the movie industry.
I would think that this is a way to get people to see movies repeatedly in the theater at the inflated price... your average geek can see LOTR on some pirated version by now, so all the replay value has to be added via these teasers n'previews.
You are drooling because of a very short piece of film, and you are allowing yourself to be marketed to. The fansites could be very useful centers of discussion and analysis, if they weren't so breathlessly following announcements of a teaser of a trailer.
Goat sex free since 2001
How is what bnetd doing OK in any way?
You're either a troll, or someone incredibly ignorant. Did it occur to you that Vivendi might just be firing off BULLSHIT in their letters? Reading a legal document from the bad guy isn't going to give you an accurate profile of the entirety of the situation. Hence, your ignorance.
Bnetd wasn't created to pirate Blizzard games any more than DeCSS was created to pirate DVDs. It was created so people playing Blizzard games could have multiplayer games on local LANs without having to rely on battle.net.
Blizzard is just using the lack of CD key authentication as a reason to kill the project. Bnetd asked Blizzard to provide a means to authenticate CD keys, and Blizzard refused. So what happens? Bnetd functions happily without it.
They tried to take their ball and run home, but they made their OWN ball. Boo hoo for Blizzard.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
I thought the Salmon of Doubt would be more appropriate...
Russ %-)
... and never, ever play leapfrog with a unicorn.
You know, as a rabid Tolkien fan who has been rereading the books for 30 years, I really have a problem with people like you. You do not know how to let go and enjoy the movie for what it is: a wonderful adaptation of the book, and much better than we could have expected, given past attempts (especially the horrid animated versions).
Plus, it's a good movie in its own right; millions who have never read the books saw it and enjoyed it as a movie. Obviously Peter Jackson is doing something right.
Complaining about what was left out - especially Tom Bombadil or the Barrow Downs - is just plain silly. There is no way Jackson - or anyone - could have included that material without totally bogging the storyline down and ruining the movie. It had to go.
Similarly, the other changes were necessary to make the story flow as a movie script. There is no way of avoiding these necessary changes.
I suggest you do what I did: see the movie again. I enjoyed it the first time, but spent too much time obsessing over every little thing that was changed. By the second and third viewing I was simply enjoying the movie, and not worrying about the changes.
Blizzard's FAQ on their site unfortunately makes me believe that they do know, though I think they're mainly just being told what their lawyers tell them.
What I'd LIKE to point out to them is that there are several solutions (hello! math!) where they can guarantee that only legal copies are being used on battle.net, and provide an easy way for bnetd to prevent illegal copies there as well.
(Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I'm aware hackers could work around this, but it would take a lot of effort, and they'd have to hack both bnetd and their own client, so then it's not so easy)
You could easily give the CD-KEY to a blizzard keychecking server, which then not only figures out if the key is correct, but then generates a unique number, which, when hashed together with the original CD-KEY on the client, activates the product. Blizzard then forwards the result back to the bnetd server, and the bnetd server passes it back to the client. If it's incorrect, the client doesn't run (here's the key - the CLIENT doesn't run, not the server doesn't allow the client. The DMCA prevents you from bypassing something designed to prevent CLIENT copying, on the CLIENT).
You could hack around this, by altering both the bnetd server, and hacking the client to do it as well, but that's complicated and then Blizzard could go after people who are distributing the hacks that do that, rather than bnetd, because THAT would be clearly illegal.
This is better than a simple blind "accept/reject" system because it requires that any battle.net server has to communicate with Blizzard (or figure out the algorithm behind the Battle.net check/second key generation, which can be made quite difficult) and Blizzard guarantees that things are OK.
Email systems are designed to accept email messages from arbitrary sources. Calling it "trespassing" is a major distortion of the meaning of the word. The EFF has a press release on the Intel vs Hamidi case.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Yeah, they're so disbanded that they've just finished putting up a new website.
Idiot.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.