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.
ill have to upgrade my computers video card. Right now it can only see the univese in 8-bit mode. I don't think salmon is one of those colors.
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.
I knew it all along; God is a She!
I Personally Recommend ML
So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Someone should inform the offices of the world.
On the other hand, don't. I'd rather have beige everything than salmon. How did they determine it was salmon, anyway? Are they sure it isn't coral? Or sunset pink? Or...
Someone find a box of crayons for these researchers. In the name of research, of course.
Just to clear things up:
Trailers used to be shown after a film, thus the name trailers they trail the film. But as you've I'm sure noticed most people leave the theatre well before the credits reach the top of the screen. So theatres started to show "previews" the exact same thing only before the movie. This had the added bonus of keeping people entertained. And in resent years earning ticket sales to movies people wouldn't other wise be cought dead in (wing commander anyone???)
I just had to point this out after the talk of a preview (not a trailer) but it would be after the movie.
-Mike
Oreilly@foxnews.com
tell them you hate DMCA and why
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
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
Decidedly Salmon is a great band name.
Fat people are harder to kidnap.
The man in question, pleading guilty under both Copyright law and the DMCA for illegally copying video tapes, faces the following sentances:
What was so lacking in the punishment for violating the copyright laws that the DMCA was needed?
This and the Blizzard BNETD case show, IMHO, that the DMCA is nothing more than a legal weapon paid for the entertainment industry to chill any speech or action that they feel cuts into their profits. It does not impact the 'for-profit' pirates that actually cost the industry revenue, it tramples on the average consumer.
Copying copyrighted video tapes was illegal before the DMCA. There is no need for an additional law like the DMCA to put "fear" into the pirates like this guy. They face stricter punishments for violating copyright laws than they do the DMCA. The DMCA just broadens the scope to include that so-called gray area that is the average consumer wanting to time-shift/space-shift their belongings, which happens to cut into the entertainment industries profits.
Fuck the DMCA and Jack Valenti and Hillary Rosen.
---
Segmentation Fault ( core dumped )
The correct url is here.
good work guys! Salmon it is... right, so now we know its size, mass, expansion rate, age, density, constituents (most), and now color .... could we maybe figure out its smell?
how does one change his
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.
Arguably, the CD-Key is used to authenticate the client to allow them access to the battle.net servers, and their resources.
My server, my resources, my decision about who I let on it, and how I verify them.
The onus is on the player, imo, in a keygen situation. The player is the one infringing by using a keygen and infringing copyright - bnetd is simply reverse-engineering and providing a plug-compatible solution.
(that's one point of view, in any case)
I love the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is easily my favourite book. I vastly enjoyed BBC Radio 4's adaptation of it, and I quite enjoyed the animated film.
With that in mind, I can't understand why people loved Peter Jackson's film so much. I tried to remain open minded, but I found it incredibly hard not to just walk out in anger.
He completely ruined the spirit of the tale, and quite unecessarily at that. Most of his changes were totally not needed. Once he decided to remove Tom Bombadil/The Barrow Downs he easily had enough time to remain true to the story, and so many of his alterations took longer to correct later on in the story than he would have ever have saved if he'd just left it be.
That is one of the main problems with making alterations to a story as deep as The Lord of the Rings, if you remove one thing, all the other parts of the story connected to it have to be altered, which cause more alterations later on.
Plus since when has 4 Oscars been a "snub"?
It's not ok for hobbyists to write free software? It's free, uses none of blizzard's code, and it's primary purpose is undebatably legal. I have never used it to bypass copy controls, nor any of my friends... it just helps get around IPX only network play. Maybe vivendi plans on attacking the authors of IPXtunnel though.
Failure to include copyright controls in your own work is not the same as NOPing them out of someone elses software.
Really? And we all thought we were joking originally when we said the universe was flesh-toned. Or... was that the internet?
That was close! I already have my tickets for my 5th screening tomorrow (Friday).
How is what bnetd doing OK in any way?
Perhaps you should read EFF's response, and possibly even Title 17, Chapter 12 where it says (as referenced by the EFF letter):
1201 (c) Other Rights, Etc., Not Affected.
... (3)
1201 (f) Reverse Engineering... (3)
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Vivendi knows it, and the EFF knows it, and it's easily made obvious by this overwhelmingly clear statement:
We have reviewed the arguments in your letter, and do not find them convincing. We continue to believe [that bnetd is] an infringement of VUG's copyrights. Those activities implicate a number of VUG's exclusive rights under copyright... etc etc.
Their response is classic, and I love their lawyer.
It would be more helpful in the future, however, if rather than summarily claiming that you believe that "the activities engaged in by www.bnetd.org" violate "a number" of your copyrights, you would state specifically what portions of the website and which particular files you believe are infringing, which of your copyrights you believe are infringed and how. We are also uncertain about the exact nature of the technological protection measure you believe has been circumvented...
The CD-Key protection isn't really a "protection measure" per se. You can install the game without using a valid key, you can even play the single-player mode (well, there IS no SP mode in the beta, but you know what I mean) without a true key. Ergo, a circumvention has only occurred if I loaded a program that caused your official server to validate my fake key.
Vivendi knows this, and that's why they're unclear about the "several copyrights" that were infringed. The copyrights were to the "for" method, the "if" statement, the "void" function type and the "main()" function, is the only thing I can see here...
But I suppose I shouldn't joke about that, or we'll have some bright guy trying to patent them, eh?
Bah. I find this highly amusing....
Am I the only person on this site that wants to see a movie when it comes out?!? There's so much drama about a preview of Towers or whenever there's a trailer for Clone Wars. Why do you want to see the best scenes in a movie 6 months before you'll get to see the rest?!
["Marge, I agree with you - in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory." - Homer]
Good stuff.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Follow-up to the Larsen ice-shelf disintegrating story: another BBC report says Cambridge scientists have discovered that the ice-caps (those that float on the sea, anyway) are melting from beneath - due to warmer sea-water - as well as from above, due to warmer air temperatures. The sea-level won't rise just because floating sea-ice melts - obviously - but glaciers and icesheets on land that are propped up by sea ice will slide into the ocean more quickly without them, which willraise sea levels. And of course Larsen is just another canary data-point pointing the same way as most studies from the last 15 years.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Did anyone notice how INCREDIBLY unprofessional the letter from Blizzard/Vivendi was? Seriously, it basically amounted to "nope, we're right, you're wrong, post the software and we'll send Blizzard cops to go arrest you!" Then, I cracked up when I saw the EFF letter, which politely begins "Um, I hope this is going to the right place, considering you didn't have a return address...."
Vivendi didn't address ANY of their claims, specifically the point that 1201(c) and 1201(f) clearly ALLOW software such as bnetd (they might as well have specifically given this as an example of what the DMCA does NOT prevent) - just saying "no, you suck, go away." They also misinterpreted 17 U.S.C. it looks like, thinking that bnetd only had 10 business days to respond or they can't file a counter notification, whereas the statute is saying that the offending material can't be redistributed in less than 10 days after sending a counter notification.
Vivendi's actions are going to look really bad from a court's perspective - they're being very aggressive and holding their cards all to their chest, so if they do sue, and try to pull some trick, a judge isn't going to be very lenient.
I am very glad that the EFF is handling this, though - it would've been very difficult, if not impossible, for bnetd to handle it themselves.
but the laws are (or should be) decided upon actual code, rather than vague notions.
Currently, the way Intel decides who they "allow" onto their system is determined by how they configure their mail servers. There are exceptions for cracking and some very weak (civil) penalties for unsolicited commercial email. That's it.
But instead, they sued after the fact for "trespassing" -- when there's no law to suit your case, just make the crime fit the law.
The fact that Intel might be able to get away with this is, in my opinion, more troubling than the actual emails which were sent out. Imagine if a company could sue for trespassing anyone who sent an email through it's servers, that management afterwards decided they didn't like. Can Taco sue the trolls around here, when they play games to bypass the lameness filter? If I get pissed off, and write an email to my working group, can I be sued for trespassing? What if I write an email and ask someone else to forward it -- will that party be trespassing? I think the whole approach is wrong. If Intel uses an intra-net that's firewalled off, and someone hacks into it to send an email -- well, fine that's trespassing. But for an internet and mail server connected to the net, trespassing is just ludicrous. Until some anti-spam laws are actually passed that do not restrict themselves to commercial email, they should have no case. And I hope you see the folly of passing any such law.
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Isn't that Sesame Street's new software venture?
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
Somebody please correct me on this, but since XML is just text, and text is not compressed (usually) .. how can a XML based db even be plausible when compared to a 'standard' database that compresses date, indexes it, etc etc etc...
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
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."
Johns Hopkins Administration: Okay, what are you guys working on now?
Astronomers (quickly alt-tabbing from Return to Castle Wolfenstein to a spreadsheet): Uhhh... we're calculating... the... color of the universe! We'll need at least two weeks.
JHA: Right then. Talk to you in two weeks.
Astronomer 1: Whew. How're we gonna figure out the color of the universe?
Astronomer 2: Who cares? It's turquoise. Now be quiet. I'm sniping.
[two weeks later]
Astronomer 1: Hey check it out! The Warcraft III beta is out!
[JH Admin comes in]
JHA: Hey guys, got your report on the universe being turquoise. Great work.
Astronomer 2: Yeah, um, we've got a problem. We think it might be beige. We've got to do spectral graphalisys and whatnot. we'll need another two weeks.
JHA: Okay.
etc...
c-hack.com |
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.
According to TORN, most places will be able to see the trailer friday, not saturday.
why is everyone is so hysterical about global warming? do they not know that this is part of the larger ice-age cycle that repeats about every 20k years? we're in the warming period. we go from nearly covered in ice to nearly devoid of ice (with huge sea-level fluctuations) and then back again. is there some kind of expectation that this change is linear? that there will be no bursts of exponential change followed by other plateaus? that these kinds of global changes will not create increased levels of extinction? hey, maybe humans are influencing the cycle. maybe we've shortened it a few thousand years. maybe nobody really knows jack shit but needs something to bitch about between commercials.
any politician that is not strongly in favor of alternate forms of energy is a dick. not because fossil fuels are inherently evil (ok, the corps behind them may be), but more importantly, they're never going to get us off this idiot-infested rock. oh, and they're not renewable. go nuclear! it's god's favorite power source. check out, oh, say, the rest of the universe if you're in doubt. hey, god can't be wrong.
um, that's about it.
A: That only works on Blizzard games which have the TCP/IP option, which isn't true for all of them.
B: That's not a game server - that's connecting to play with friends. Blizzard provided a functionality for playing with a game server - they can't restrict it and say "uh, no, only ours." I could give reams of reasons why this is valid, but I only need to give one. It's fair use.
I've read in an article down here in NZ that the trailer/preview will be at the end of the movie, but before the credits.
Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem
at a screening of Ice Age (funny movie BTW)
looked pretty cool.
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
http://boycottblizzard.org/
I also have a link from there to a petition that I would appreciate signatures by anyone against the use of the DMCA by
Blizzard (Vivendi Universal Games) in this case (even if you don't plan on boycotting).
I'm really glad this started a thread. For the
most part I was ignorant of the details of
the bnetd/blizzard controversy. My post was
not meant to be a troll. The question was answered.
The existence of a single positive use (TCP LAN
play) may be a good reason for its existence.
The real problem that people are struggling
with here is that ownership of information
doesn't make sense. That is why everyone
here is so hell bent against the DMCA,
because, the way I see it, the DMCA puts teeth
into that ownership. I don't really agree
with the DMCA, but if you really belive in
content ownership, I can see how the DMCA
makes sense.
People don't really believe (me included)
that it really makes sense that you can own
an idea. Before the last five years, before
sharing big sets of ideas (digital content)
was so easy -- it wasn't really a problem for
the content owners.
I see the DMCA, and recent legislation, as a
symptom of a more fundamental problem -- most
people instinctively don't believe that its
OK to own ideas. It flys against a basic
fundamental nature.
It used to be that individuals survived
through cooperation, sharing -- for hundred of
thousands of years our species all shared to
survive. Only in the last 6,000 years has
the norm shifted to one of individuals
competing to survive. Not sharing to survive.
Welcome to business 101.
see my site
As of a few days ago, the fan website has been banned any discussion of the legality of bnetd in their chatroom, #diabloii on irc.wiregrass.com. Furthermore, when many of the regular members protested this action by included [censored] or [oppressed] in their nicknames, they were banned. The nickname modifications that resulted in being banned include: [bnetd], [censored], [oppressed], and [not_battle_net] (there may have been others).
A posting to their forums mentioning the censorship was deleted, and the account of the poster (myself) is no longer allowed to post (not a big deal, I created the account specifically for that purpose). Don't petty tyrants surpress news of censorship, too?
As it stands, discussing bnetd is forbidden in the chat room. Protesting the censorship in any way is forbidden. Discussing bnetd or the censorship in the forums is forbidden.
Under a different account, I posted a rebuttal to their recent anti-bnetd article. I wonder if they will censor that as well?
-- Will program for bandwidth
Sorry, but IPX REALLY sucks. Network performance is terrible if you're on a local LAN and want to connect to someone across the Internet (with Kali, let's say), especially if that person is on a slow modem. Under IPX, everyone's performance is synced to the person with the slowest network connection. Battle.Net is also pretty bad -- laggy as hell, unstable, and filled with people where the average maturity seems to be that of a 12-year old. Setting up a bnetd server on my box was the best way for myself and a small circle of friends to connect together, have our own ladder games, and play in our own private environment. It probably wouldn't have been necessary if Starcraft came with a TCP/IP option, but it doesn't. (for that matter, why doesn't the TCP/IP option in Diablo2 accept hostnames instead of IP addresses?)
Less than an hour ago astronomers at Johns Hopkins University, using revised spectral data from the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey, have announced the corrected result: The universe is a pale shade of lemon.
After the latest press conference some color experts were asking how it could possibly be yellow. The head astronomer explained that it was a red-shift effect. "My assistant Bob can explain it to you, he entered the red-shift adjustments..." Bob: "Me? I didn't enter them. You were supposed to do that" Head astronomer: "You didn't? Oh shit..."
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
it's highly unlikely that humans will stop the rise of the seas. it's basically inevitable, unavoidable and unstoppable. we're quibbling over the timeframe. however, no one can tell you exactly (or even approximately) how much human activity has influenced this progression, if in fact it has.
the problem is that humans have this pesky habit of building their civilizations right along the shoreline. it's not a good long-term plan when you're in the thawing cycle. building further north becomes problematic during the freezing cycle because glaciers tend to be fairly persistent and, oh, huge and unstoppable.
humans have this other rather irksome habit of being, on the whole, fairly short-sighted. most civilizations aren't really planned. no where is it ingrained in our personalities to go out of our way to make sure our current agenda has any real positive bearing on future generations. and don't go thinking you're going to make a difference. the power is in the hands of the governments and megacorps.
behold the USA, pinnacle of "Democracy" and "Freedom"! how much of the wrangling that occurs in Washington, DC every day has the enlightened future of humans in mind? bingo if you said, "zippo, zilch and nada". it's grubbing for money and power with the occasional kissing of babies and touching of cripples to please the electorate. and no where else is any better.
oh, wait, it looks like florida is flooding. well, we just didn't see that coming. quick, who do we blame? who can I use this against? sorry, until we have a global change of consciousness and get past our basic animal instincts, it'll be slow and perilous going.
my perspective is that although battle.net is free atm. the plan to star charging for it in the future
mmorpg games make a nice tidy sum from their player base, I pay for two different ones every month. Sony have had nearly £300 from me so far to play Everquest.
Mark my words, battle.net will not remain free and I predict that it will change with the release of WC3.
bnetd is a real threat to that and the piracy thing is just a smokescreen .
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
// fotr.c
#include "tt.h"
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Sure. But I don't see purely LAN games too often myself. Often it's "people on a LAN... and a guy halfway across the country." That was the nice thing about Kali -- even though people might be scattered, from the game's perspective they were all on the local LAN.
Some of Blizz's games are synchronous, like the starcraft you mentioned, so your friend with the modem is going to slow down everyone else, IPX vs. TCP/IP is irrelevant in this case.
Actually with Starcraft, that is not the case. When you connect with Battle.Net, a slow modem user does not slow down the other users like he would if he were using IPX. If the net-connection is completely unresponsive, then the game freezes for everyone until the lagger is dropped or unlags, but that is the extent to which a slow modem user (aren't they all? ;) ) lags the game. The behavior is completely different for an IPX game.
Nearly all of Blizz's games are peer-to-peer, again the starcraft you mention, so battle.net is not lagging your game.
You're right, but the part I was refering to was the initial game setup which occurs on Battle.Net -- gathering in a channel, hosting a game, letting people join... then finally when the game starts it's out of Battle.Net's hands. I've had nights where I gathered a small handful of friends, and we weren't even able to start a game together. When Battle.Net lags, it will often incorrectly claim a game doesn't exist (I think a lot of famous misleading error message like "game doesn't exist" and "character not found" are generic catchall error responses). When I tracerouted uswest.battle.net, the trace was perfectly clean... until the very last hop, where the times spiked by at least half a second. Packet loss was pretty high as well. Fortunately that's not the norm, but it's very annoying when it happens. That night of frustration when we couldn't start a Starcraft game (Kali wouldn't work since one of my friends was on a modem) was the night I decided to compile and setup the bnetd server. We haven't looked back since.
You are mistaken, Starcraft does have TCP/IP LAN play. It was added about the time the MacOS X version was released.
Starcraft, as of the current version, only has local TCP/IP capabilities. DiabloII has true TCP/IP over the Internet, but Starcraft's UDP support is still limited to the local lan. (though I've yet to try this with Kali -- might be interesting to see if it doesn't lag anymore)
Under Sumner v. US Postal (3rd or 9th circuit) an employee is protected in reasonable protests for their rights. In Payne v. McLemore picketing against racial discrimination was held to be protected. Is sending lots of email more intrusive than picketing?
The Supreme Court in Robison v. Shell Oil considers that protections extend to ex-employees.
My argument (and seems to be the AFL-CIO's) that this is a protected act, and did this cross the line or being overly intrusive.
Though Intel argues that it is tens of thousands of emails, it is not that many per person and only 450 requested removal.
Fight Spammers!