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Gamespy Installer Spreads Nimda
NSG writes "Yahoo News is running this story about the Nimda virus infecting some Gamespy Arcade 1.09 installers. Approximately 3,100 infected files were served in a seven hour period. What responsibility does Gamespy have to the users who downloaded the infected file?"
First Post!
If everyone would run Linux this wouldn't be a problem!
Oh well, back to dowloading pr0n...
Pr0n K1ng
i think it's very.... fp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First Post.
-First Post
Viruses in gamespy software? The computer industry in general has demonstrated that the concept of ethics no longer applies when there is money at stake. Read the average EULA: you have to surrender fundamental rights, such as fair use. Worse than that, the developers generally absolve themselves of any responsibility or liability whatsoever -- they won't even guarantee that the software that you have just bought will do what they claim it does! What we're seeing is the culmination of an unfortunate trend. The creators of a piece of software for as long as they control it have a monopoly -- anyone committed to using their product is pretty much at their mercy. And that means money -- lots of money.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Congrats Pron Queen.
Trolling for Brazil.
Don't use Gamespy, use The All Seeing Eye for all your online gaming needs. It is 100x better. Trust me.
I mean, seriously, who downloads this anyway? I make a habit of not trusting any software that has to scan your entire harddrive in order to 'find' games.
If a game doesn't have an ingame browser, then I stick to direct connect, or single player. I shouldn't have to run external programs to play games online.
Still, I think the bad press alone will be Gamespy's punishment on this one. I've seen this news crop up everywhere in the past day or two, and chances are, anyone who reads any kind of net news knows as well.
He wants you to 'install' your penis in there. If you are a little boy, Katz will want to check your anus for viruses and parasites with his meat probe.
Who you callin' an ass clown, cuntface?
Legally anyway. I haven't looked at the EULA for Gamespy (haven't downloaded it, actually), but I'm betting some large odds it'll have some clause in it saying they're not responsible even if it destroys your computer, sets fire to your home, and heralds the End of the World.
Whether this will stand up in court would be interesting to see, though. And the precedent it would set would be very wide ranging.
They're legally immune. From the GameSpy Website:
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable laws, GameSpy and its employees, agents, suppliers, and contractors shall in no event be liable for any claims, charges, demands, damages, liabilities, losses, and expenses of whatever nature and howsoever arising, including without limitation any compensatory, incidental, direct, indirect, special, punitive, or consequential damages, loss of use, loss of data, loss caused by a computer or electronic virus, loss of income or profit, loss of or damage to property, claims of third parties, or other losses of any kind or character, even if GameSpy has been advised of the possibility of such damages or losses, arising out of or in connection with the use of this Web Site, software, or any Web Site with which it is linked. You assume total responsibility for establishing such procedures for data back up and virus checking as you consider necessary.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Rotten bitches. CLITs up, ACs down! Word to your muthas! Daayam!!!11!1!
Who you callin' an ass clown, cuntface?
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I finally bought a nice new PC for gaming instead of my trusty (yet older) mac, and am told I might have Nimda? I have Gamespy Arcade 1.09 installed! I feel like I've just been burned by unprotected sex.
And like an STD I think Gamespy does have a responsibility to alert all their users to the potential infection.
I can't believe GameSpy is doing this. It's sooo passé. Microsoft already did this. Next time GameSpy wants to get infected, it should be original and choose a different virus, maybe W32.Klez.E or even a McAfee homebrew bug, instead of just copying MS because it's an industry leader. Me, I prefer my KaZaA virus, because it has its own EULA.
According to this link at news.com Executive Mark Surfas said the virus infected one of their download servers for two hours on Tuesday and five hours Wednesday night, while they were performing routine service.
Surfas said a total of 3,100 infected files were served, and the company is in the process of notifying everyone who got an infected file and pointing them to free antivirus tools that will disinfect their systems.
Not cool...
Does it go on forever?
So whatever happened to Linux At tech expo open source software is hard to find By John W SchoenMSNBC NEW YORK June 26 Just a few years ago one of the hottest topics at this annual confluence of PC hardware and software makers was the socalled open source alternative to Microsofts industrydominant Windows operating system Soon open source proponents argued PC users would be liberated from the burden of paying for software The Linux operating system and other open source alternatives written by devoted bands of volunteer programmers would be available to anyone for the cost of a download But today Windows is still running on the vast majority of PCs So what happened LINUX HASNT gone away But after attracting widespread attention and generating several moonshot initial public offerings during the tech boom purveyors of Linux software and support have fallen back to earth along with their stocks Earlier this month Red Hat which sells about half of all Linux software reported a loss of 43 million on an 8 percent drop in revenues in the latest quarter as corporate customers continued to squeeze every penny of their computer budgets Ironically those tight budgets have helped fuel adoption of Linux by managers of large corporate technology departments Created by Finish college student Linus Torvalds and continually updated and improved by a loose confederation of programmers who arent paid for their work Linux is available without the steep licensing fees that come with commercially produced software Companies like Red Hat sell upgraded versions and provide technical support but dont charge licensing fees Those continuing upgrades have begun to generate increased interest from costconscious technology managers A recent survey of 800 companies in North America and Western Europe found that some 40 percent said they were either using or testing Linux according to the research firm IDC With some 27 percent of the market Linux is now the second most popular operating system for servers supplanting the decadesold operating system UNIX Microsoft holds the top spot MSNBC is a MicrosoftNBC joint venture Numbers like those have caught the attention of computer hardware makers Last year as the personal computer slogged through the worst sales crash in its history Linux server sales jumped by more than 50 percent to 400 million with IBM leading the pack Linux used to be just a bunch of geeks trying to change the industry said Elizabeth Phillips a HewlettPackard spokesperson Now Linux is becoming more mainstream every day Linux is also shining brightly on the radar screens of software makers like Oracle which is heavily marketing the latest version of its highend corporate enterprise software which generates mainframelike horsepower using clusters of relatively cheap servers running Linux LINUX BOOT CAMP But Linux has hardly made a dent in the desktop and home user markets At PC conventions like this one Microsofts Windows operating system still rules with some 94 percent of the operating system market for desktops and laptop PCs according to IDC Despite its growing popularity among computer professionals its still not completely user friendly Its for geeks said Faber Fedor a New Jerseybased consultant who helps small businesses upgrade to Linux Near the end of a long hallway in the basement of the Jacob Javits Center at a wellattended conference called Linux Boot Camp Fedor walked a roomful of developers and IT managers through the basics and not so basics of converting to the Linux world Until recently interacting with Linux was almost entirely textdriven much like Windows precursor DOS So converting meant learning an arcane vocabulary of computerese to give the PC even the simplest commands But Linux software is getting better and now more closely mimics the Windows world that the vast majority of PC users are accustomed to A Linuxbased opensource email program called Evolution looks pretty much like a standard Windows desktop OpenOffices provide most key features offered by Microsoft Office including a word processor spreadsheet and mail program Fedor says these alternatives offer more than a familiar look and feel We dont get viruses he said Last year viruses cost the business world billions but every one of those was on Windows WOOING THE HOME USER But adopters of Linux still face hurdles living in a Microsoft world High on the list of headaches is incompatibilities with files created with Microsoft products like Word Small software makers like Lindows are trying to help desktop users bridge that divide Still Linux evangelists like Fedor say that as long as new PCs come preloaded with Windows the open source community faces an uphill battle spreading Linux beyond corporate IT departments into the home Linux partisans point to some small victories WalMart recently began selling a house brand PC at rock bottom prices available with Linux for the thriftiest PC buyersThat thrift among home PC buyers though has further hampered the spread of Linux to home desktops Its another reason software developers like Dave Potter of Fountainville Pa prefer writing programs for corporate users He says he doesnt see much point writing Linux applications for individual PC buyers Home users are cheap he said At 4995 youre going to have to sell a whole lot of copies to make it in the market And as Linux proponents continue to try to enlist desktop PC users Microsoft is busy reinventing that desktop With sales of new PCs in their worst slump in decades Microsoft is hoping to reboot Windows sales by leading the charge toward the Tablet PC a sort of PDA on steroids With new technology to recognize and manipulate handwriting and speech Microsoft and its hardware and software partners are hoping to usher in a whole new platform by giving users all the capabilities of ink according to Microsoft Group Vice President Jeff Raikes Microsoft and the rest of the PC industry are hedging their bets by designing several variations of the device from a standalone tablet about the size of a standard piece of paper to a laptop with a display that flips around and folds flat with the screen facing outward The goal is to replace rather than augment existing PCs according to Leland Rockoff a director of Microsofts table PC project We see this as a primary PC he said Theyre not appliances theyre not companions theyre not secondary But Rockoff says the companys strategy with regard to open source software will be the same as it is with Windows XP
-pwpbot
Answer: None
Have you ever read that LONG agreement before you install software? It clearly states this phrase:
NO WARRENTIES EXPRESSED or IMPLIED
idm owns me
I really doubt this will be a serious problem. I'm sure Gamespy will offer a patch for a small monthly fee. Or better yet, maybe if you subscribe to their eXtreme 3d++ platinum gamers edition fileservers for a few bucks maybe they'll sell you someone elses virus scanner demo with no long-term value. Or even better yet, maybe if you purchase one of their programs you can connect to an online scanner paid for and maintained out of someone elses pocket.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
Oh no, 3100 people got Nimda in a Gamespy Arcade installer. Oh no, a virus infected a webserver (who would have imagined something like THAT happening?). Oh no, the users have to download a free virus scanner like AVG to remove it. Oh no, it was their choice to download Gamespy Arcade in the first place.
Oh no, this is absolutely nothing.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
Although many people believe they HAVE to use Gamespy Arcade to play their favorite game online, and some games bundle it on the CD and suggest you install it, most games also include their own in-game browsers and there are also alternatives available which don't try to force you into a chat room when ever you want to look for a game or shove banners in your face, although some (pingtool) are dead.
I was one of the original Gamespy employees from a few years ago, and I never thought I'd see Gamespy as the subject of a /. story. It just goes to show, before long everything ends up on this site. ;)
It doesn't surprise me in the least that this has occured, though I hate to bash on my old company (especially since when I left, I left with enough stock to really want the company to succeed, or liquidate and get it over with, hehe.) Truth be told, the company has always been run by a man who truly couldn't care less about customers, a development manager who can't understand why you don't call virtuals from a constructor, and a project lead who thinks UI coding is the end-all-be-all of computer science. Put them together and you end up with very little experience trying to manage a product that has long since outlived its usefulness.
And before you flame me or whatever, I do know a little bit about which I speak... having written much of the original Arcade myself (though I'm not too proud of the outcome, having followed its progress since I left in '00.)
All in all, you can continue to expect inferior product from an inferior company, shameful as it is. I often lament on how things might have changed were L-Fire and I given a little more freedom to get stuff done. C'est la vie.
/me waits to get flamed by crt and Walla now
--
[McP]KAAOS
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
We weren't following any news of the outside world. None of it really affected us, and we were too busy tocare about it anyhow. Officer Anderson told us anything that had to do with prisons or corrections or slavery, that kind of thing, but beyond that we didn't ask a lot of questions. For me, it was good to get away from the Outside. The only Outside thing I cared about was sports. I knew that Officer Anderson would always let me watch his TV if I asked him, but I didn't have much time for it. I was happy just being with my friends and learning all the things I was learning about how Jackman operated and what we were all gonna do in it. It was good to have a job where I could be around Officer Anderson almost all the time. I wasn't like Justin; I didn't want to BE Officer Anderson, but I kept getting more and more attracted to him. It's not that I was losing my attraction for Paco or the other guys, but Officer Anderson had this special thing about him, and it never went away, any more than my attraction to Paco ever went away. Just the way his uniform fell over his pecs and lay there, green and sort of glowing against his abs, and the way it rippled when he moved and stretched, and the way it felt when I opened it to kiss his nipples, and the way he smelled after he showered and shaved and stiffened his hair with that slippery stuff he used, and the sound his boots made when he walked down the hallway to take me out of the cage and into his bedroom, and the way his cock looked under his trousers, like a huge snake moving under the dark green forest ... I liked to watch him and listen to him and touch him and taste him and smell him, and I got to do it all day long.
I think I got a little carried away in telling you all that, but the point is, I wasn't exactly following the news of the world. So it came as a surprise when Officer Anderson came to the morning meal and opened a newspaper and pointed to an article that said: "APPEAL DENIED FOR DRUG CONSPIRATORS." "Here," he said. "I
think that you'll all be interested in this." So we all stood around the table and read:
"Appeals for the four defendants in the Clay County drug conspiracy trial were rejected yesterday by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, and defendants' attorneys indicated that their clients had exhausted all possibilities of further appeals. The decision marks an end to the well-publicized case, which has been bouncing from one court to another throughout the year. Thomas T. Larson, lead defense attorney, held a press conference late Monday and announced, 'Sadly, it
appears that we have reached the end of the line. The
lower court is now free to impose final sentence.'
"The case involves four socially prominent young men,
convicted of cultivation of illegal drugs, sale of
illegal drugs, and conspiracy to sell illegal drugs.
Under provisions of the Uniform Sentencing Act and the
Personal Responsibility Youth Acts, the four--Mark
Etherege, 23, Peter French, 24, Steven Bentley, 22,
and Troy Hudson, 21--are expected to receive
enslavement for life."
"God Almighty!" David said. "I can't believe it!"
"Oh man!" Paco said. "They've got em! I used to
wonder what Mr. French was doin with all that weed he
had in his field!"
"Mark Etherege!" Justin exclaimed. "The Prom King!"
I'd never seen him so excited. "And this Steven guy ... he must be the one, you know, the guy that ... the
guy that was there when you ... when they did those
things to you, David! And he's the son of a bitch
that used to work the auctions here, the one that ...
Hey! Is he really 'socially prominent'?"
"No, 88," Officer Anderson said, sort of chuckling at
him. "That's just the newspaper. Newspapers never
really say the truth, even about something as simple
as that. It's the other three of these convicts that
are socially prominent."
"Convicts"! Troy was now a convict!
"I can't believe it!" David repeated. "It doesn't
seem possible!" Then something else occurred to him.
"They're comin to Jackman, man! They're all comin to
Jackman!" David and Justin were hugging each other
and jumping up and down.
Paco and I looked at each other. I didn't know what
he was thinking. All I could think was, "Troy is a
convict! Troy is a convict!" Then Paco smiled and
turned to Officer Anderson. "Sir," he said, "I hope
you don't mind me asking you ... how long have you
followed this case, Sir?"
"No, 85, I don't mind your asking. And I'll give you
an answer. I've been following it since before it
started."
"Sir?"
"Not so mysterious. You'll notice the time
indication in the article: 'throughout the year.' The
investigation started soon after you returned from
your work at French's farm, where, as I recall, you
noticed certain indications of illegal conduct."
"Sir Yes Sir!"
"I would not have been concerned with these ...
indications if I had not been so interested in their
peculiar context, as reported by you. Of course, I
had already received reports from 88 and 89 about the
other young ... gentlemen. By that time, Mr. Bentley
had left his job with our auctioneer, presumably to
follow a more remunerative occupation. But there was
no trouble tracking him down. As 88 pointed out, he
wasn't socially prominent, but his business associates
were, and it wasn't difficult to find out what they
were doing. I didn't need to bring up any of the
things they were really doing, despite the fact that
it was those things that interested me the most,
personally. I am thinking about their sexual and
personal betrayals. I believe that those patterns of
action had begun quite a while before. Am I right,
86?"
"Sir Yes Sir!" I said.
I was standing on the street, on that night three
years before. Troy was persuading me to get into that
car. It was only a moment ago, that moment when I
thought I was free .... Had I told Officer Anderson
about that moment? Suddenly I couldn't remember ...
Because I was thinking about that night, and thinking
about Troy ...
"You may think," Officer Anderson continued, "that
your friend Troy Hudson has been convicted of a number
of inconsequential drug violations. But that is only
superficially true. His real offense was betraying a
friend. That is not how the charges read, but that is
WHY he was found and charged and convicted." He laid
his hand on my shoulder. "I want you to know that,
86." He stopped to let me catch up to what he was
saying. Then he went on. "There's something even more
interesting, though. The effect of his betrayal was
to bring you here, where you belong."
"Sir Yes Sir!" I said. Yes, I thought, that's the
interesting thing. So interesting, and so strange.
Maybe Troy didn't want to destroy my life. Maybe he
was just using me, using me as a sidekick, a servant,
a ride to a party, an escape from the cops, and then
something to laugh at and make jokes about. Or maybe
he did want to destroy me, destroy the person I was.
Well, that person was gone, if he ever existed in the
first place. "Jeremy Morgan." Even the name sounded
strange. I'm not sure I ever liked that person.
Maybe I didn't like him any better than Troy did. I
was sure I didn't miss him anymore....
I was doing what I usually do when I think. I had my
arms folded across my chest, and I was looking down at
my chest and arms. They were covered with stripes.
White stripes. Black stripes. Black and white
convict stripes. Across my chest was a set of black
numbers: 10586. Underneath it, I knew, was the same
set of numbers, tattooed across my skin: 10586.
10586: that was me. But just mention the name Troy
Hudson, and I had to remind myself of who I was. And
now Troy Hudson was coming to Jackman.
It was impossible. But it was true.
I looked up. All the others were watching me. Paco
was looking thoughtful and worried. Justin and David
were looking like wolves that just turned up a herd of
deer. Their eyes were glistening; their lips were
wet; they were sweating with pleasure. You could see
they were thinking about everything that remained to
be avenged.
Mark's betrayal and enslavement of Justin.
Mark's, Steve's, and Troy's rape of David.
Troy's betrayal of me.
Peter and Troy's betrayal of Paco and Aaron. Peter's
torture of Paco and Aaron.
Steve's humiliation of all of us.
Now it was time for revenge. The only question was,
why wasn't Jeremy rejoicing? That's what their eyes
were asking me.
"All right, form up!" Officer Anderson ordered. So
we stood at Attention. "Now listen. You too, 86.
You've all got a job to do. These four offenders will
be sentenced today. They should arrive at Jackman
sometime this afternoon. I've dispatched a special
van for their last ride--I don't want people that
important to have to wait. I'll be notified in
advance of their anticipated time of arrival. You
four are the welcoming committee. Work out the
arrangements for yourselves. 88 will be in charge."
"Sir Yes Sir!" Justin said. He was like a kid at his
own birthday party.
Then Officer Anderson turned to me. "This is your
chance, 86," he said. "You're coming full circle."
"Sir?" I said.
"You'll know what I mean," he said.
What could I say? "Sir Yes Sir!"
"And don't look so sad, 86. I want you to enjoy
this."
"Sir Yes Sir!" It was the first time I'd ever been
ordered to enjoy something. But I wasn't sure that I
could.
Officer Anderson went into his office, and the four
of us sat down and started making plans. There wasn't
a lot to plan, really. It was all pretty obvious,
once you thought about it. The only thing that wasn't
obvious was how you looked at it.
While the other guys talked, my mind kept wandering.
I thought about Troy and me when we were in junior
high school. I was a skinny little kid. We were both
that way, but I was skinnier. Anyway, there was a kid
in our class that was twice my size. That's the way
it seemed, anyhow, and he liked to pick on me. One
time he tripped me, and I fell halfway down a flight
of stairs. He stood at the top of the stairs laughing
at me. So I got up and ran after him. He was so
surprised that he ran away. I never caught him, and I
don't know what I would have done if I had. Probably
he would have beat my ass. Anyway, I went over to
Troy's place after school that day, and I told him
what happened. He looked bored. "So what?" he said.
"Who cares? Even if you'd caught him and hit him or
something, it wouldn't mean that he didn't knock you
down the stairs." I thought about that for a minute.
Then I said, "But things like that aren't supposed to
happen. When they happen, you're supposed to do
something." "Who says?" he asked. I thought about
that, too. Then I answered, "I guess that I say."
"But you're not gonna DO anything, are you, fishbait?"
He used to call me "fishbait." He got that from a
movie we saw once. "Well, are you? Are you?" "No," I
said, "I guess I'm not." And that was the end of it.
I hadn't thought about it since it happened. Now I
thought about it, and this strange, excited feeling
came up inside me.
The other guys had finished their plans, and now they
were laughing and making jokes about what was gonna
happen later that day. Everyone had something to say
about the prisoners that were getting sentenced. They
were grinning and looking down at their laps, the way
guys do when they're really, really happy. Then
Justin started singing that old song he liked: "We are
a band of brothers, and native to the soil.... " Good
song, but I couldn't listen. That strange feeling was
growing inside. It's hard to describe; it was like I
wasn't really with them, it was like I was living at
some other time, and I wasn't sure what time it was.
I looked at Justin. This was the skinny, scared kid,
chained up in the prison bus, wearing a nice tie and a
belt with a little silver clasp, and his shoes all
shined..... Now he was a muscular, self-confident
guy, excited and happy, leaning over to kiss his lover
David. David was another strong, self-confident guy.
He didn't look much like the dopey, privileged young
dude who was so surprised when his dick got hard in
the Processing line. Then there was Paco. He was the
one who seemed to have changed the least. He was
still my strong, quiet Paco--but he wasn't a lost,
unlucky kid anymore. He was a guy who was used to
running things in a big important outfit.
They had all stopped to look at me.
"C'mon, 86," Justin said. "Get with the program! This
is our day to howl!" Lately he'd been calling me 86,
the way Officer Anderson did.
"But what's the purpose?" I said."What good will it
do to whack these guys?"
"It's justice, Jeremy," Paco said."That's what we're
here for. Justice."
"I don't know, Paco," I said."It just feels strange,
enjoying a thing like that." Because I was enjoying
it. I was definitely enjoying it. I was enjoying it
even more than I enjoyed chasing that bully in junior
high. Just imagining what was about to happen made me
almost as high as Justin was.
"You mean," Paco asked, "you shouldn't enjoy doing
something that's right?"
"No," I said. "I don't mean that." So then I was
ready.
We had to wait until mid-afternoon before we heard
from Officer Anderson that the prison van was on its
way, and it was hard to get through that last hour of
waiting. We went down to the loading dock about half
an hour early. There was another van being unloaded,
and that was the typical busload of new fish--scared
young guys, fresh out of a county courthouse, trussed
up in irons and reeling from the judge's voice
sentencing them to life as convict slaves. As usual,
a lot of these guys that thought they were so tough a
few hours before had tears running down their faces,
and most of them looked like they were about to puke.
When the Officers started putting them through their
paces, though, they stepped out of their clothes
pretty lively, and within a few minutes they were
lined up naked, ready to be marched inside and put on
the chain. It was then that Paco stepped up to the
Officer in charge and told him that Officer Anderson
had scheduled another delivery for the afternoon.
"Shit, 85!" the Officer said. "I'll never get home
today!" So Paco made himself a hero by telling him
that Officer Anderson had ordered us four to take over
the last processing of the day, and if he and the
other Officers would please just take the latest
arrivals inside and clamp them onto the chain, we
would take it from there. The Officer sort of
half-saluted, the way they'd started to do with us,
and soon they were marching the new fish through the
big steel door. We were left alone on the loading
dock.
It had rained that afternoon, and looking out through
the steel mesh gates we could see the bright green
lawn and the fields beyond still glazed with water,
and a ray of sunlight coming out of the clouds in the
western sky. "It's a great day to be alive, isn't
it?" David said. "Trite but true," Justin answered,
and gave him a kiss. Then we saw the white van coming
down the drive. The gate rolled up; the van pulled
in; the driver hopped out of the cab, gave us that
half-salute, and went back to roll the little ramp
down from the door. This was it. It was time. My
heart was jumping. I had never been so nervous and
excited, even on the day when I was the one inside
that van.
We heard the usual shouts and curses and scuffling
sounds that meant that the Officers were rousting the
convicts out of their cages, cuffing them, and
marching them down the little corridor. There was the
sound of feet rumbling along the floor. Then a body
fell out the back, onto the pavement. It lay there
like a beached animal, trying to figure out how to get
up, now that its legs were shackled securely together
and its hands were cuffed securely behind its back.
One of the Officers climbed down from the door and
looked at the body. "Fucker didn't even hit the
fuckin ramp!" he said. "Git up, you stupid FUCKER!" He
pulled the body up by its hair, then he kicked it in
the ass and it hurtled passed us. It was the first of
the four new fish, and it was not a pretty sight. We
saw a fat, sweaty young man, with a stream of blood
and snot running out of his nose.
"Peter French," Paco said.
So this was the guy that had owned Paco, the guy that
had tortured Paco. The guy heard his name, so he
looked in that direction, the way people do when they
hear something different and they think things may
change. I knew from experience that there'd been no
use of names since he'd heard that judge say, "Peter
French, I sentence you to penal servitude for the rest
of your natural life." He looked at Paco; then his
face turned white. "I want you to stand over THERE!"
the Officer yelled, kicking him on the rump again. "By
the LEFT SIDE of the VAN! Move it, fat boy!" French
stood by the left side of the van. He was staring at
Paco, and his legs were shaking.
Then there were some more curses and another rumble
of feet in the van, and the next convict popped out of
the back. This one managed to find the ramp. He was
tall and handsome, with dark hair swept back from his
forehead, still nicely combed and gelled. He was
wearing a dark suit and a dark tie and a white, white
shirt, and he was coming out of the van with as much
dignity as a guy can have when his limbs are locked in
a set of steel restraints. His eyes roamed swiftly
around the dock. Then they found Justin, and he
staggered backward. I looked sideways. Justin was
smiling and licking his lips. "Mark Etherege," he
said. "Get your ASS in the fuckin LINE!" the Officer
screamed, and his boot landed on another butt.
The third convict out the door was a man that all of
us recognized, although at first, I don't think he
recognized any of us, because he'd fucked with so many
guys in his time. It was Steven Bentley, the auction
boy. The spikey hair, the earring, the crooked little
automatic grin--Steve still had all the equipment. He
had too much style to wear a coat and tie, even to
plead for mercy in the courtroom. Instead, he was
wearing khakis and an open shirt, and a pair of
alligator boots. It'll be real nice, I thought, to
see those boots come off. But first there was
something that Paco wanted to do, in honor of what
Steve had done to me when I met him for the first
time, in conditions not much different from these.
Steve had gotten to "the fuckin LINE" without being
kicked or paddled or dragged by his hair; and he was
standing there with that look that means, "so far, so
good." Then Paco walked up to him and yanked down his
zipper. Steve's eyes got wide, and before he knew
what he was doing he shouted "hey, dude! watch it",
like he could still do something to back it up,
standing with his hands locked behind his back in a
prison loading dock. Paco took a minute to smile at
him; then he reached in and dragged out his dick. It
was hanging down, limp as a fish, and its owner was
gazing down at it with a hopeless expression on his
face. No threats. No jokes. No cocky smile.
"That's how convicts should be seen in public--ain't
it, Steven?" Paco said. "At least that's what you
taught my boyfriend. Remember him? He's the guy right
over there. I don't think you remember so good. So
I'm just gonna let this thing hang out for a while.
You can go back and find your happy memories, and the
rest of us can admire your manhood--convict." The
rest of us snickered and pointed, and a deep red stain
spread across Steve's face. It was a beautiful color.
Even Mark Etherege looked down and started to
snicker--until he remembered where he was. Then he
didn't look so happy.
Finally the fourth fish came out of the van. It was
Troy Hudson.
The last time Justin saw Troy, it was through the
bars of a cage. Justin was on the inside, and Troy
was on the outside, making him suck his dick. The
last time David saw Troy, David was chained on his
back in Troy's apartment, and Troy was making him lick
his ass. The last time Paco saw Troy, Paco was on his
knees in front of Peter French's slave shed, sucking
Troy's dick while Troy smacked him and strangled him.
The last time I saw Troy, I was crawling on my hands
and knees in the parking lot of a roadside rest stop,
grabbing for my convict cap while an Officer paddled
my butt and Troy sat in his sportscar, laughing.
But when was the first time I saw Troy Hudson? I
couldn't remember. I didn't know. Troy had always
been there. Troy at the drive-in after the game. Troy
in the weight room, spotting me. Troy at my fifteenth
birthday party, the only guy that wasn't an absolute
geek. And now it was Troy bending his head at the
door and lumbering down the ramp of a prison van. He
was in chains like the others, and he was shuffling
like a convict, but he still looked like my friend,
Troy Hudson. He looked better. His hair was longer
than I'd ever seen it, his tan was deeper, his muscles
were heavier. He's grown up, I thought. Now he's ripe
for prison.
I thought that, and I wondered if it made any sense;
and then I knew that my heart was beating too fast for
me to think. I forgot about the cuffs and the chains
and the convict shamble. All I could see was the blue
eyes and the diamond glinting from the ear. All I
could see was the yellow tie and the deep blue shirt.
He'd always liked that shade. "Lake blue," he'd tell
the sales clerk, and he'd be pissed if the store
didn't have it. He was right--it was the perfect
color for him. The blue shirt rippled down from his
pecs like a soft cold stream, and his tie flowed with
it like a vein of gold. He shuffled slowly forward,
looking down at his feet. He didn't want to miss the
end of the ramp.
Then he was on the concrete, walking toward me. He
didn't need to look at his feet anymore--so he looked
up. And when he looked up, he saw me. I don't know
what he was expecting when he got to Jackman. I
wonder if he was expecting me. Maybe he wasn't
thinking about me at all! When he looked at me, it
was like a movie running backwards. I could see him
not remembering, starting to remember, then going
further and further back into the past, remembering
more and more.... And finally he got to Jeremy
Morgan. Only what he saw in front of him wasn't
Jeremy Morgan, it was a black and white striped
convict with 10586 stamped on its chest. His feet
stopped. His eyes widened. His mouth came open. It
was like he was pondering a mystery. Then he lurched
forward. There was somebody paddling his butt.
"Don't STAND there, ASSHOLE! Git your fuckin BUTT in
gear and line up with the other FISH!" The Officer
knew what he was doing. There were never any
unnecessary delays in unloading the van. Troy Hudson
moved his fuckin butt. He lined up with the other
fish.
"We'll take it from here, Officer," Justin said. The
Officer handed him the transfer files, asked him to
sign for the four new fish, and exited through the
Officer's door of the dock. He was on his way home,
and he was walking fast. Now it was just the four of
Us. Facing the four of Them.
Who you callin' an ass clown, cuntface?
A careful read of their TOS leads me to believe they had reason to expect this would happen. (Isn't that the implication you get from reading it?) If they knew or believed it would happen they may not be able to worm out of responsibility based on a disclaimer.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
OK, so they screwed up. They're not the first, and it would surprise me if they were the last. At least we haven't had any major virus targetting online gamers. Yet. (I'm sure the anti-virus makers have some cooking in their skunkworks-labs, to unleash on us once the artifical panic from the JPEG virus blows over.)
/tmp. Why give them blanket access to everything? Software that manipulates random files could communicate via a system call/trusted library that would combine a file-browser and grant one-shot access outside of the applications "playground" for the specific file-name/directory chosen by the user.
Part of the problem is of course the MS monoculture. Those of us wishing for a wider deployment of Linux (including me) may come to regret that wish, since it will inevitably lead to Linux virii. They will have a harder time of infecting the whole machine, but no doubt some clever cyber-{terrorist,vandal,take-your-pick} will come up with one that does exactly that, sooner or later.
And as sure as flies home in on shit, MS will take that as an opportunity to tout Palladium and denounce Linux.
Anyway, the big question is not really how to avoid having software distributions infected, but rather how to encapsulate software. On UNIX and Windows alike, any software you run, will run with the full privilegies of the user (at best) or root (at worst).
It would seem to me that one interesting future development for Linux (or one of the BSDs, perhaps?) would be to find a non-intrusive way of encapsulating software packages, even at run-time. Let them define what they need access to, and then have an installer grant them rights only to those parts of the system.
Most software really only needs write access to their own directory, plus perhaps
Oh well...
They Do...
....bla bla blah
From TOS
bla bla... loss caused by a computer or electronic virus, loss of income or
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
Does anyone else find it ironic that people are getting infected through a program called GameSPY?
I'm going to post under my handle to tell you just what an asshole thing that is to do on your sig line. Some of us don't like to see that kind of shit. Thanks for nothing.
political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
If you're that fucking paranoid then don't bother using it. Like gamespy really cares what hardware you have and what your pr0n site passwords are. Get a life.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Well, aside from the recent MS nimda spreading, wasnt there a virus on the Mac that changed the "dog-ears" type of file around (I read it somewhere about viruses). Turns out that that virus was distributed on commercial disks and spread around the user base. I'd appreciate if somebody knew the name of it....
Oh well. Stuff like this happens. In this kind of "software world" where everything's connected, I'm amazed this doesnt happen more often (commercial product virite distribution).
It does not absolve Gamespy of responsibility -- but fortunately the actual impact is now. Nimda only infects servers running IIS as a HTTP server, and I'm sure not many gamers are running IIS on their machines.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Well now that there is talk on Capitol Hill that Congress should pass a bill making upper manangement responsible in the wake of Enron, Andersen, MCI, and now Xerox. I think they should also throw something in there stating any software that is downloaded or packaged with the exchange of money then the company should be liable for any virus or spyware involved. Now if its given away for free and does not contain any fee for monthly service such as Open Source then they are absolved.
Mac OS (before X) stores icons in a database. If you copied a file, you copied the icon over also. If you created an icon of the right type it would get substituted for the normal system icons.
If someone copied a file from your HD they got that new replacement icon along with it. Thus the icons spread.
But they weren't a traditional virus because there was no code of any kind associated with the icons. No code spreading thus no virus.
Switch
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Not "viri", not "virora", and definitely NOT "virii". Please kill yourself, you fucking idiot.
GameSpy used to actually useful (and usable) way back in the QuakeWorld days. It stopped being relevant to me sometime before it got renamed to GameSpy Arcade (or whatever it's called now), and it came with a bunch of useless crap. I never understood the 'scanning the hd' bit... I mean, it knows what games it supports, it knows their registry keys, the whole process should take less than a second, not several minutes. I just added games manually anyways.
In any case, most games come with their own server browsers; launching a huge ad-riddled app just to connect to a server a pointless excercise.
So what do people who used GS back in the 'good old days' and still use it have to say about it? Good? Bad?
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
PayPal (among other companies) are promoting Providian National Bank for VISA Credit Card services. And, I feel it is reasonable to assume that PayPal customers that get the Providian VISA Card will be using the Providian online services available at https://www.providianservices.com/
Well... lets break out our friend OpenSSL from the Linux command line:
$ openssl
/NASApp/ola/base/Login
OpenSSL> s_client -connect www.providianservices.com:443
HEAD / HTTP/1.0
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Server: Netscape-Enterprise/4.1
Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 08:59:59 GMT
Location:
Content-length: 0
Content-type: text/html
Connection: close
Hey! What do we have here? A web server that is over 2 years old.
Who is responsable for security patches? IPlanet was but they closed up shop in March 17, 2002.
And...in May of 2002, even Netscape's own www.netscape.com stopped using Netscape-Enterprise as a web server!
So... Providian Services Online (which is promoted by PayPal) is using an outdated web server to decrypt SSL packets related to credit card accounts and Slashdot users should be conserned about... GameSpy's temporily distribution of Nimda?!?!
Thats truely messed up. I rather consern myself with the credit card company that is continuing to screw up online than a game company that already resolved it's screw up.
Regardless of the legal ramifications and waivers there is still a responsibility of the server host to provide software that is free of damging components, say for instance someone sells you a car knowing that the car has major carbon monoxide emissions problem with seepage into the cabin, and has faulty brake lines that are just barely kept together... welcome to the Lemon Law, most judges will have the dealer buy back the car for the cost it was sold for, not the off-the-lot price, well if someone were to take gamespy to court under the auspices that they provided software which did the damages that it is well known for, yes there is really no legal remedy at hand to provide any kind of relief for the plaintiff, however it would prove that they are responsible for the files they serve from their webservers. Just food for thought
fade in...
john carmack just got fingered.
fade to black...
Click on the link in his sig, it is a small picture :-)
For a moment there, I was afraid the headline said "Gamespy Installer Spreads Ninjas!"
My girlfriend's kids downloaded GameSpy yesterday, ironically, so they could hook the Xbox up to the router and look for other Halo devotees. And they succeeded.
/., actually, posting this story that made me realize the source of my pain. And for that I say thanks, because for those of you that said so-what-big-deal, well, it's true that this didn't really constitute a national emergency but, speaking now from experience, I can honestly say that NIMDA SUCKS.
...
They also succeeded in hosing two W2K systems on our home network via the file share traversal vulnerability. One was my girlfriend's system, the only one with out-of-date virus protection and, of course, the only unprotected machine with truly irreplaceable files. Sigh.
Well, I downloaded AVG and it's getting clean as I type this, but I thought it might be of interest to those who posted saying that only those machines running IIS can be infected. That ain't the truth. The two infected machines on this network were W2K systems, neither of them running IIS. They were just poorly monitored and vulnerable.
It's
But here's the rundown: I've got nine machines networked here at home, four W2Ks, four Linux, and one Xbox. Well, two of the W2Ks met Nimda first hand, but two others didn't since all of the extant fileshares require logons. Email wasn't a factor, and on the one W2K system that IS running IIS and was potentially vulnerable to attack, well, I've got all the latest patches installed and everything on that machine is clean.
The Linux boxes, of course, didn't even raise an eyebrow
Peace.
MSN Article
Redhat Article
I hate Gamespy for buying some of the best websites out there and turning them to shit. I hate Gamespy for releasing an inferior product and doing some fancy corporate manuvering to make it ubiquitous. They have no quality control whatsoever, and this is just a shining example of their horrible product development process in action. Testing? What is that? Does that cost money?
So what is GameSpy? All I can see so far is a battle over EULA's. What does GameSPy do fer me?
I may be bad with names, but I'll never forget your IP address
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And this is why you're supposed to use your email address as a password when doing anonymous FTP. The theory is that if you downloaded something that later turns out to have a virus or some other problem, the server owner can contact those who downloaded the faulty software.
In practice, that probably doesn't happen all too often, but it's still a good idea IMO. Using "mozilla@" as a password doesn't really help the server owner when he needs to get an urgent message across related to a file you downloaded.
Esli epei etot cumprenan, shris soa Sfaha.
However, also from the Gamespy website:
Some U.S. states and foreign countries provide rights in addition to those above, or do not allow excluding or limiting implied warranties, or liability for incidental or consequential damages. Therefore, the above limitations may not apply to you or there may be state provisions that supersede the above. Any clause declared invalid shall be deemed severable and not affect the validity or enforceability of the remainder. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California and may only be amended in a writing signed by GameSpy Industries.
In addition, there are also a number of legal challenges to EULA's and the like (although I'm not sure whether any have succeeded yet) - see here and here, for example
I don't know whether any applicable laws apply in the States, but the UK has laws which effectively mean that even though you've put up a sign saying you can't have something (eg refunds in shops), it doesn't have any legal bearing over your statutory rights.
Other laws apply which require companies to have signs in prominent positions - preventing vehicle clamping firms from stealth clamping. The legal stuff link on their home page is right at the bottom corner - you have to scroll right down (well past the files link) to even see it. OK, we'll let them off, so long as the files page has a prominent link. Erm, not quite - again right at the bottom, this time wrapped in a font size=-2 tag. Well done chaps.
Not that the people who downloaded it didn't have any responsibility to run a virus scan of their download, of course. However, you do expect a "reputable" company that you get files from should prevent this from happening in the first place. It just adds a little touch of irony to the little check box found in the security warning popup which appears when you go here Always trust content from Gamespy Industries, Inc.
For a look at how EULA's should be, check the SVLA at CEXX.org
It's okay, though.. I'm sure the people who hacked the Nimda into the program also added a disclaimer into the Terms of Service for the software. After all, it's just another virus that gets installed when you install "free" software...
Josh Woodward
...Install something unix-like on their servers?
:)
HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
No, it's not a anti-micro$oft troll, well, maybe, yes, but it really would be the solution, wouldn't it?
What kind of spy distributes viruses besides James Bond with his STD collection?
Arcade 1.1b This version of Arcade, released on June 28, 2002, included the following changes: - Removed nasty NIMBA virus - Fired security admin
From what my friends tell me about gamespy (I know people who work there and I attend the company lan parties), it's run by a bunch of kids who love to play games, but they have no business or software development experience. There's also a bunch of weird stuff going on inside their engineering group.
The project lead for Arcade is a spaghetti-coder who does nothing all day, but meets deadlines by hitting a meth pipe all weekend to hack out masses of buggy code that gets released to customers on monday. This is the guy that does the bloated Arcade user interface. He and his "wife" are closet homosexuals that use each other as beards. The married couple live with the wife's girlfriend who is a well-known female quake player.
Their head of engineering is a sexually frustrated 24 year old virgin who spends 22 hours a day at work, half of it late at night surfing for porn. I hear there's a betting pool inside Gamespy for when this guy is gonna get laid. Coworkers are praying it'll be soon so he'll chill out and stop being so uptight. He dropped out of school and got hired at Gamespy, but he's never worked at a software company before! This guy hired the Arcade programming team.
So with an engineering group like that, is it any wonder that they could be incompetent enough to release Arcade with a virus?
It's too bad because the original Arcade (Gamespy 3D) and the planetquake.com website worked well. There's nothing wrong with Gamespy making money, but Mark Surfas could have at least hired some real programmers.
...PB82
It's not a troll. I can't believe what idiot mods we have somedays. Why am I posting AC? Because some stupid mod that likes NIN decided that a direct quote attributed to the source was flamebait. Killed my Karma of 4.
do all your gaming in Linux, that's what I do. most games have pretty good in game browsers, plus there are other options such as Xqf that do all gamespy does, save for the viruses. plus, no registration required!
P
What responsibility does Gamespy have to the users who downloaded the infected file?"
.net CD's were shipped infected with a worm)
About the same as Microsoft I would guess...
(Remembering the recent slashdot story where
No thanks. I don't smoke anymore.
This certainly isn't the first time that an online service has distributed viruses to it's users.
Back in 1998, an online gaming service called mplayer.com (which, coincidently, is now owned by gamespy) distributed copies of the W95.CIH virus through it's automated software update system. The sad thing is that the company never admitted to it until it's users started complaining to gaming news sites about getting infected.
Another more recent example is an outbreak of Nimda in Kazaa, which was being distributed through the 1.7.1 upgrade installers of their software.
Anyway, these stories are just two more reasons why you should run updated Anti-Virus scanners 24/7 on your Windows boxes.
Wow... He's right!!!
Unless I'm missing something, he's got a really good point here.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I have 3 zones behind the OpenBSD firewall. One is for my kid. I firewalled his W2K boxen from my systems. Its sad when you have to do this... sad from a LOT of perspectives.
He's a bright boy, but he doesn't understand why people would "write a virus". He's also been know to leave the car running on the street with the doors unlocked. One day his car will drive away and he will proclaim "I wonder why that happened".
I can only say that Experiance is a good teacher and fools learn by no other method.
I've been suggesting the development of a "partition Dataset" concept for quite a while now. Basically this maps the directories and files into a single file. You can think of it as an application specific chroot, with the idea that the loopback is application specific.
The time has come where we really need this and your post illustrates very clearly why we need to get this done ASAP. Linux is almsot ready for the desktop and the idiots out there are going to wreak havock with any security we might try to build into systems.
The weakest link is the end user and we really need to design systems that are so tight that even they have trouble f*ing them up.
This kind of thing has been happening for years without any recource from the companies that sent out the virus's. I remember a couple of years back when IBM was doing their big ebusiness security marketing campaign, the RS6000 configurator tool had a virus in it for like 4 builds in a row.
The first time I came across it I put calls into IBMLink (that's where you download the app from), and the Rs6000 software support center and still nothing was done about it. 3 releases (about 5 months) later the virus was not included in the build anymore.
01:36AM up 426 days, 2:46, 1 user, load average: 0.14, 0.11, 0.05
I love Gamespy, they have supported the industry much more than any other company ive ever seen, and hey, if you get Nimda its your own damn fault, there is software called "antivirus software", it normally helps with this sort of thing. If you run windows and dont have AV software, your an f'ing idiot and deserve what you get. Hell, you can scan it for free online (housecall.antivirus.com, no this it not a plug i just use it for my customers who are too cheap to buy software). Get a life, if you have a computer chances are you have had a virus, nimda has an easy fix ..
Kali -- it does dynamic list updating, it is ad-free, and they're offering free registrations now. It's a far superior game browser.
[insert witty comment here]