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Valve Cracks Down on 20,000 Users
An anonymous reader writes "Valve have disabled 20,000 steam user accounts belonging to users who have been caught using a pirated version of the game, or have attempted to use a cdkey to bypass the securom protection found on the retail version of the game. The Steam Forums have been swamped with people now claiming they are unable to play, many claiming they have had their accounts disabled for no reason. A Valve spokesman says, 'The number of people who actually had bought HL2 and used the CD key cheat was VERY small. VERY small. Most people just tried to rip off the game and not bother buying it.'" People are discovering that when you buy any product that is subject to "activation", you haven't really bought anything.
For some reason I thought that said 'scrotum protection'. I always did say anti-piracy measures were a load of bollocks.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why is this such a big deal?
Go on usenet, find the appropriate cracks. Enjoy. The end.
See how easy that was?
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
That's the stupidest thing I've read on /. in a long time;...
/. a lot. I've seen a LOT stupider things written on /. Damn, that one wasn't even in the Top 10. :-)
Then you don't read
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
A guy walks into a doctor's office and pokes himself in the chest. "Doc, it hurts when I do this." He pokes himself in the shoulder, and says, "And when I do this." He pokes himself in the thigh. "And when I do this."
The doctor says, "You must be Polish, right?"
"How'd you know?"
"Your finger is broken."
("Those damn software companies. How dare they use product activation to help curb piracy? Well just for that, I'm going to pirate their stuff until they stop!" Yeah. I'm sure that's likely to convince them.)
Are you crazy? Do that and the TERRORISTS win!
People are discovering that when you buy any product that is subject to "activation", you haven't really bought anything.
Not true, not true!
If you buy the Half Life 2 Collector's Edition, you get a shirt!
Been There, done that!
Hye, I resemble that remark. How about we call it (-1 no coffee yet)?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
We were discussing journalistic integrity in my junior year Journalism class in High School. One of the stories we discussed was about potentially devastating NEOs and the hunt for them. They were calculating timelines for possible impacts, but the journalist - in his infinite lack of even the simplest scientific tenets - decided to exclude the actual numbers and say "sometime in the future".
Upon hearing this, a girl at one edge of our discussion circle perked up, her eyes got really wide, and she exclaimed "When is this supposed to happen!?"
Without missing a beat, the class clown said in the most serious, matter-of-fact voice I've ever heard....
"About 10 minutes"
She never was the same after that....
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
They don't? I want my money back - I paid good money for the Sun, and I wasn't told anything about a license.
In fact, I blame valve for world hunger too.
And I blame all those people who write EULA's in plain - simple - English.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Playing HL must really suck having no shift key...
"We were half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold."
-- Hunter S. Tolkien
More like buying a can of peaches, finding out that you don't really know what peaches are, and trying to blame it all on the grocer.
/. disagrees with you, and this is about a game we all want to play freely, without this activation junk. But still, most people here see that Valve is acting within it's rights. That's a pretty strong indicator.
Look, even most of
Cheers,
Ryan
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
IF they wrote the law in simpler terms i bet they'd cut 800 pages down to 100. Release a much simplified edition for laymen, so you don't have to contend with the legalese unless you want/have to.
example (from the revised code of washington):
RCW 9.03.010
Abandoning, discarding refrigeration equipment.
Any person who discards or abandons or leaves in any place accessible to children any refrigerator, icebox, or deep freeze locker having a capacity of one and one-half cubic feet or more, which is no longer in use, and which has not had the door removed or a portion of the latch mechanism removed to prevent latching or locking of the door, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
translation:
don't leave your fridge outside
That means if you buy Bubble Bobble, open it, and realize it sucks, you can't exchange it for Phantasy Star Online.
That's a pretty bad example there, nobody can say Bubble Bobble sucks, not honestly.
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