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Sims 2 Hacks Spread Like Viruses

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the we-control-the-horizontal-and-the-vertical dept.

jowens writes "SecurityFocus reports that players sharing house designs through Electronic Arts' Sims 2 Exchange are finding their game behaving oddly: espresso machines mysteriously satisfy all the Sims needs, Sims are suddenly comfortable with open relationships, and the social worker no longer cares how they treat their children. It turns out hacks were spreading invisibly with Sims 2 lots, infecting thousands of downloadable homes, and catching Electronic Arts by surprise. The hackers, who never intended their hacks to be viruses, have even written their own AV scanner to find and control the outbreak."

13 of 311 comments (clear)

  1. Hacks? by trp642 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd call them upgrades! If only reality were just as hackable...

  2. so what? by mrn121 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And how is this not EXACTLY like real life?

    1. Re:so what? by utlemming · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, can you imagine the problems that would happen with self-aware Sims? You would have your own cult of Sims worshipping you. Everytime you would open the Sims, they would praise you and beg for your benevolence or beg that your menevolence would be adverted. That could be a fun, yet cruel game. It could be called Sim God. If only AI tech was that advanced. I would buy a game where I could tinker with the lives of a self-aware AI....muhahaha

      --
      The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
    2. Re:so what? by Ironsides · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's called "Black and White"

      --
      Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
  3. Re:but.. by LnxAddct · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As with most things in life, its not the science that is bad, its the human factor.
    Regards,
    Steve

  4. Re:I wonder. by AndroidCat · · Score: 2, Insightful
    espresso machines mysteriously satisfy all the Sims needs

    Exactly what kind of needs are we talking about here?

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  5. Bad object hierarchy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It sounds like when you make a custom subclass of an sims object, it's new properties propagate to other instances of the parent class of object. Sounds like the ability to create your own little sims world pollutes your neighbors, etc. Sounds like they have some work to do or this sims universe is going to be real boring (or more boring).

  6. Re:Sims 2 is the least of my problems... by abb3w · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Wife: I'm sure we can put something together for under $25k...
    Me: PWn3d.

    What, you thought the upkeep on females became cheaper after marriage?

    --
    //Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
  7. Sleep Depravation = Bugs by Safety+Cap · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From the article:
    Someone at Electronic Arts was really shortsighted not to have thought of hacked objects spreading this way.
    Let's see, if you work your developers to death on the Bataan Coding Deathmarch 18/7 (with 2 hours off on Sunday for "good behaviour"), then how on earth are they supposed to write anything remotely resembling quality code, let alone manage risk?

    Answer: you don't; instead you adopt the Slashdot style of code testing: Ship it!
    503? Hacks spread like viruses? Oh, par for the course.

    --
    Yeah, right.
  8. Re:Sims 2 is the least of my problems... by dillon_rinker · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It all ends with your soul.

    Ah, there's the trouble with your relationships. It all STARTS with your soul. See, you're right about the cumulative upkeep; what you've missed is that infinity=infinity+1. So if you give your soul as often as you can (it grows back, you know), your significant other is indescribably happy and you don't have to shell out $$$ on the Hallmark Holidays.

    (Sorry, didn't mean to get all serious and sappy there - it's just that what you said clicked so nicely that I felt compelled to respond =)

  9. Re:Hacker Stopping Own Viruses? Cannot be Chinese by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Dubya told ya China is the new evil empire?

  10. Re:I wonder. by allism · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It sounds like your wife is a lucky lucky woman...

    either that or you really screwed up sometime earlier in the year and you were trying to make up for it...

    --
    Denver Isuzu Suzuki
  11. Re:Sims 2 is the least of my problems... by jrockway · · Score: 2, Insightful

    He probably stuck a less-than sign in there and didn't preview. Try < next time :)

    --
    My other car is first.