They have the R&D to do this, but the real question is do they have the cash to do this. As it stands they are losing money (and market share) rapidly.
I hope they survive and hope that things like the Volt concept actually make it to dealership, but I am not holding my breath at the moment in their current financial state.
I think the point most people miss about Warden is it is not actively seeking personal information, but could potentially access or use it - that is why I labeled it a bit sensationalistic.
People jump to conclusions way to fast sometimes before they understand the nature of the beast. I believe this to be one of them - it seems to me to be more FUD.
The key thing from the article is this:
The hash function could be replaced with a function that retrieves information from your computer at random (or even precisely defined information, including credit card numbers, or literally anything else) and sends it back to Blizzard, and to electronic enforcement systems, this would be nearly impossible to predict or report. There's no proof that Warden is actually using, viewing, or sending personal data. The author is pointing out that it could potentially do that. See what he did there? He set the FUD machine in motion with that statement, but it's not proven one way or another that it does this. Just that it could.
I don't know anyone that keeps medical records on their PCs.
As far as banking goes, most people use their debit cards as a credit card, so they already have your banking info to charge/bill properly.
I don't have my social security info on my PC either. If they want to hack my personal email accounts and read them they are going to be incredibly bored (all email on that machine is web based, so no files to look at other than cache) since most of my personal communication is done face-to-dace, at work, or over the phone. Most of my personal email inbox consists of subscribed newsletters. Nothing juicy to look at there.
Can you name one game that has not been hacked or cheats made for it?
World of Warcraft is much better designed than Diablo or Diablo II, so Blizzard did do better at designing the core infrastructure to help prevent cheating.
That said, there is money to be made by selling gold so people are actively going to try and circumvent the system for that purpose alone. You also have the player vs. player hacks that people use to gain a competitive advantage (much like a lot of FPS games), so there's more incentive to hack and cheat at a game like this.
Personally I pay for my play time and would like the playing field to be even and hack free, nor do I want some bone head with a hack inadvertently crashing the server or forcing unwanted/unneeded downtime on the infrastructure like happened with Eve online recently. It has nothing to do with crime/punishment as much as wanting the time I get to play to be enjoyable.
I play World of Warcraft. As a subscriber that plays this game I am ok with Warden as it stands. I want to play a game where hackers and cheaters are caught and banned. I know a lot of people despise the speed hacks and of course the gold farmers, so I don't see what the fuss is all about.
The likely hood of Blizzard hacking or stealing personal data is very small. They know that they could lose their cash cow by doing anything malicious with this information/software.
For those that fear credit card and personal information being lifted, I'm a little baffled. When you sign up for an account you enter most of the same personal info that is going to be on your PC anyway, and unless you are using game cards they already have at least one of your credit cards on file. All information that subscribers gave up willingly.
That aside, I did read the article and find the technology fascinating.
The biggest issue is what happens if a disgruntled IT employee leaves the company and passes the key around and gets the entire organization flagged as non-genuine? That is a worst case scenario, but Vista's licensing is tracked differently than any other OS Microsoft is released. It phones home frequently, and they keep a running tab of how many licenses you've purchased and installed with that key. I'm ok with them tracking their licenses - they need to get paid too. What I don't like is the possibility that should this OS be deployed across the company with the enterprise key that they could shut the entire company down. Or worse yet as someone mentioned above, a virus is written to exploit this.
If you found out about it, you admitted you would avoid it by stashing your character which could be equated to avoiding the area where the disease is. Isn't that a behavior that could relate to a real life outbreak?
The thought of it affecting your avatar was enough for you to react to it. That's what they are looking for - reactions, and most importantly how people would react.
A small percentage will be tards and want to spread it to watch the chaos go down. Most will try to avoid it like the plague (bad pun, I know).
Perhaps some that could cure disease poison may go see if they can do anything about it (think doctors and pharmaceuticals here).
The point is to see how people react. Sure it is a virtual world, but it can give some insight as to how people may react to an epidemic.
I'm pretty sure that Nascar still requires iron rotors (pads are a different story) whereas F1 uses totally carbon pads, rotors, and calipers. Beyond that the tech isn't that much different - the FIA does not allow the use of electronic aids for braking either, so it's still mostly the same mechanical devices as in road cars sans the exotic materials used in the rotors, pads, and calipers. They are allowed two cylinders, one for the rear and one for the front with a manually (mechanically) adjustable bias (by the driver on the fly).
Technology is used in both, but the tech in Nascar in regards to most areas is very old. It is impressive they get as much out of what they are allowed, I will give them that.
Wow. I just don't even know where to begin with this one.
Formula one has not been force induced for more than 10 years. They are using a naturally aspirated 2.3 V8 engines producing more than 750 to 800 horsepower. The only thing compressed air is used for is valve actuation since the engines are cam less.
Not only are the engines not force-fed, but the FIA mandates that the engine last two full race weekends, whereas Nascar is swapped out after every race.
for reference, please see www.f1.com
While there, please peruse the braking, suspension, and engine tech areas. It's better to read up before posting posts like this.
NASCAR and technology used together is an oxymoron. 50+ year old engine, braking, and suspension technology in a "modern" race series is not what I'd call a great comparison.
F1 technology would be a better idea, especially since the FIA is pushing towards renewable energy sources on the F1 cars in the upcoming years.
Insurance companies have been dealing with a state-by-state law basis for as long as I can remember.
If the credit reporting companies don't want to deal with it then they are plain lazy.
And if the insurance companies haven't gotten the Feds to step in, I sure hope they won't cave to the credit reporting industry either.
This is exactly the case in Ohio as well. All of their areas are suffering aging copper cable that they refuse to replace or bring current.
My wife's ex-husband works for Verizon and can attest to that. Anytime (everytime) we get a decent amount of rain he is working overtime and weekends getting residential and business customers back online again.
Dell used to ship diagnostic bootable CD's for hardware checks. They still offer the iso for download from their support site too, so this is a very poor excuse for not supporting the hardware with the Ubuntu OS.
So Dell DOES offer a bootable CD to diagnose the hardware that is OS independent.
The upcoming patch is bug fixes and new content...quite a bit of new content, actually.
This is one of the things that Blizzard does that keeps WoW players coming back, err, addicted. They add new content for free periodically.
It may not be the greatest game ever made, but it is accessible, is based on previous computer games and their lore, and runs on most computers. Yes, it helps to have a high end machine, just like any other computer game, but you can run it on machines that are older.
As for FPS games, they won't steal many WoW players. I used to be hard core Quake, Quake 2/3, and UT until Diablo II came out. That pretty much killed my desire to play FPS games. Why? There was the feeling of progression (even though the game was very easy to beat). Same thing in WoW. Those marginal gear upgrades and new quests/storylines are what keeps people coming back.
Ironically Intel was in the same boat with the P4 vs. the A64s until the Core 2 Duo came out...hotter, slower, and required more power. They pulled through, so I would expect that AMD will step it up to make sure they stay relevant as they have done in the past. It appears that Intel and AMD will be back and forth for a while which is much better than AMD always being behind (which was the way it was until the A64 vs. P4.
I've been using them for 2 years now over incandescents, and I can assure you that in my house they've outlasted any incandescents I've ever used. Not sure why, but an incandescent was lasting at most 3 months in my home. The CF's have lasted over 2 years with the exception of one.
Cable.
That's why you haven't seen the Business Class label on their telecom offerings - it appears to be a cable only offering.
They actually run fiber optic to the building. I had to be here when they ran the fiber through the building to terminate it in the server room during the set up of our new location.
The company I work for uses Time Warner Business Class fiber that is 10Mbps that is far less than what we were paying AT&T per month, and we do have guaranteed bandwidth and an SLA.
If their service is like Verizon's in Ohio, they'll be better off with the smaller carrier.
A few years back I had to argue with them to get them to fix noise on my line. They repeatedly told me over and over that there was no noise on my line until the fifth time I called the person on the other end could hear it. This went on for two weeks. Turns out a rather costly piece of equipment was going belly up in their switching station one block away from my apartment. The technician stopped by and apologized profusely and then said he had no idea how long it would take to get repaired because they had to get approval to replace it.
A week later it was replaced.
A few miles south of this they have horrible lines (Waverly, OH area). They refuse to replace the lines, so every time it rains heavily or a storm blows through they have massive outages and end up working their guys 16+ hours a day all week to get their customers lines working again.
I would hope that the smaller company would be more pro-active and more customer focused than Verizon has been.
So this research takes into consideration credit cards only...what about the hundreds of pre-paid iTunes cards sold each week? If they aren't tracking that, then how can they just declare that sales are collapsing?
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They have the R&D to do this, but the real question is do they have the cash to do this. As it stands they are losing money (and market share) rapidly.
I hope they survive and hope that things like the Volt concept actually make it to dealership, but I am not holding my breath at the moment in their current financial state.
Warden is not a rootkit.
That's the difference, but it could be hacked as you point out, just like any other piece of software.
People jump to conclusions way to fast sometimes before they understand the nature of the beast. I believe this to be one of them - it seems to me to be more FUD.
The key thing from the article is this: The hash function could be replaced with a function that retrieves information from your computer at random (or even precisely defined information, including credit card numbers, or literally anything else) and sends it back to Blizzard, and to electronic enforcement systems, this would be nearly impossible to predict or report. There's no proof that Warden is actually using, viewing, or sending personal data. The author is pointing out that it could potentially do that. See what he did there? He set the FUD machine in motion with that statement, but it's not proven one way or another that it does this. Just that it could.
I don't know anyone that keeps medical records on their PCs.
As far as banking goes, most people use their debit cards as a credit card, so they already have your banking info to charge/bill properly.
I don't have my social security info on my PC either. If they want to hack my personal email accounts and read them they are going to be incredibly bored (all email on that machine is web based, so no files to look at other than cache) since most of my personal communication is done face-to-dace, at work, or over the phone. Most of my personal email inbox consists of subscribed newsletters. Nothing juicy to look at there.
Can you name one game that has not been hacked or cheats made for it? World of Warcraft is much better designed than Diablo or Diablo II, so Blizzard did do better at designing the core infrastructure to help prevent cheating. That said, there is money to be made by selling gold so people are actively going to try and circumvent the system for that purpose alone. You also have the player vs. player hacks that people use to gain a competitive advantage (much like a lot of FPS games), so there's more incentive to hack and cheat at a game like this. Personally I pay for my play time and would like the playing field to be even and hack free, nor do I want some bone head with a hack inadvertently crashing the server or forcing unwanted/unneeded downtime on the infrastructure like happened with Eve online recently. It has nothing to do with crime/punishment as much as wanting the time I get to play to be enjoyable.
I play World of Warcraft. As a subscriber that plays this game I am ok with Warden as it stands. I want to play a game where hackers and cheaters are caught and banned. I know a lot of people despise the speed hacks and of course the gold farmers, so I don't see what the fuss is all about.
The likely hood of Blizzard hacking or stealing personal data is very small. They know that they could lose their cash cow by doing anything malicious with this information/software.
For those that fear credit card and personal information being lifted, I'm a little baffled. When you sign up for an account you enter most of the same personal info that is going to be on your PC anyway, and unless you are using game cards they already have at least one of your credit cards on file. All information that subscribers gave up willingly.
That aside, I did read the article and find the technology fascinating.
The biggest issue is what happens if a disgruntled IT employee leaves the company and passes the key around and gets the entire organization flagged as non-genuine? That is a worst case scenario, but Vista's licensing is tracked differently than any other OS Microsoft is released. It phones home frequently, and they keep a running tab of how many licenses you've purchased and installed with that key. I'm ok with them tracking their licenses - they need to get paid too. What I don't like is the possibility that should this OS be deployed across the company with the enterprise key that they could shut the entire company down. Or worse yet as someone mentioned above, a virus is written to exploit this.
Curiosity has me here.
If you found out about it, you admitted you would avoid it by stashing your character which could be equated to avoiding the area where the disease is. Isn't that a behavior that could relate to a real life outbreak?
The thought of it affecting your avatar was enough for you to react to it. That's what they are looking for - reactions, and most importantly how people would react.
A small percentage will be tards and want to spread it to watch the chaos go down. Most will try to avoid it like the plague (bad pun, I know).
Perhaps some that could cure disease poison may go see if they can do anything about it (think doctors and pharmaceuticals here).
The point is to see how people react. Sure it is a virtual world, but it can give some insight as to how people may react to an epidemic.
I'm pretty sure that Nascar still requires iron rotors (pads are a different story) whereas F1 uses totally carbon pads, rotors, and calipers. Beyond that the tech isn't that much different - the FIA does not allow the use of electronic aids for braking either, so it's still mostly the same mechanical devices as in road cars sans the exotic materials used in the rotors, pads, and calipers. They are allowed two cylinders, one for the rear and one for the front with a manually (mechanically) adjustable bias (by the driver on the fly). Technology is used in both, but the tech in Nascar in regards to most areas is very old. It is impressive they get as much out of what they are allowed, I will give them that.
Wow. I just don't even know where to begin with this one. Formula one has not been force induced for more than 10 years. They are using a naturally aspirated 2.3 V8 engines producing more than 750 to 800 horsepower. The only thing compressed air is used for is valve actuation since the engines are cam less. Not only are the engines not force-fed, but the FIA mandates that the engine last two full race weekends, whereas Nascar is swapped out after every race. for reference, please see www.f1.com While there, please peruse the braking, suspension, and engine tech areas. It's better to read up before posting posts like this.
NASCAR and technology used together is an oxymoron. 50+ year old engine, braking, and suspension technology in a "modern" race series is not what I'd call a great comparison. F1 technology would be a better idea, especially since the FIA is pushing towards renewable energy sources on the F1 cars in the upcoming years.
Insurance companies have been dealing with a state-by-state law basis for as long as I can remember. If the credit reporting companies don't want to deal with it then they are plain lazy. And if the insurance companies haven't gotten the Feds to step in, I sure hope they won't cave to the credit reporting industry either.
This is exactly the case in Ohio as well. All of their areas are suffering aging copper cable that they refuse to replace or bring current. My wife's ex-husband works for Verizon and can attest to that. Anytime (everytime) we get a decent amount of rain he is working overtime and weekends getting residential and business customers back online again.
Dell used to ship diagnostic bootable CD's for hardware checks. They still offer the iso for download from their support site too, so this is a very poor excuse for not supporting the hardware with the Ubuntu OS. So Dell DOES offer a bootable CD to diagnose the hardware that is OS independent.
The upcoming patch is bug fixes and new content...quite a bit of new content, actually. This is one of the things that Blizzard does that keeps WoW players coming back, err, addicted. They add new content for free periodically. It may not be the greatest game ever made, but it is accessible, is based on previous computer games and their lore, and runs on most computers. Yes, it helps to have a high end machine, just like any other computer game, but you can run it on machines that are older. As for FPS games, they won't steal many WoW players. I used to be hard core Quake, Quake 2/3, and UT until Diablo II came out. That pretty much killed my desire to play FPS games. Why? There was the feeling of progression (even though the game was very easy to beat). Same thing in WoW. Those marginal gear upgrades and new quests/storylines are what keeps people coming back.
Ironically Intel was in the same boat with the P4 vs. the A64s until the Core 2 Duo came out...hotter, slower, and required more power. They pulled through, so I would expect that AMD will step it up to make sure they stay relevant as they have done in the past. It appears that Intel and AMD will be back and forth for a while which is much better than AMD always being behind (which was the way it was until the A64 vs. P4.
I've been using them for 2 years now over incandescents, and I can assure you that in my house they've outlasted any incandescents I've ever used. Not sure why, but an incandescent was lasting at most 3 months in my home. The CF's have lasted over 2 years with the exception of one.
Cable. That's why you haven't seen the Business Class label on their telecom offerings - it appears to be a cable only offering. They actually run fiber optic to the building. I had to be here when they ran the fiber through the building to terminate it in the server room during the set up of our new location.
The company I work for uses Time Warner Business Class fiber that is 10Mbps that is far less than what we were paying AT&T per month, and we do have guaranteed bandwidth and an SLA.
If their service is like Verizon's in Ohio, they'll be better off with the smaller carrier. A few years back I had to argue with them to get them to fix noise on my line. They repeatedly told me over and over that there was no noise on my line until the fifth time I called the person on the other end could hear it. This went on for two weeks. Turns out a rather costly piece of equipment was going belly up in their switching station one block away from my apartment. The technician stopped by and apologized profusely and then said he had no idea how long it would take to get repaired because they had to get approval to replace it. A week later it was replaced. A few miles south of this they have horrible lines (Waverly, OH area). They refuse to replace the lines, so every time it rains heavily or a storm blows through they have massive outages and end up working their guys 16+ hours a day all week to get their customers lines working again. I would hope that the smaller company would be more pro-active and more customer focused than Verizon has been.
So this research takes into consideration credit cards only...what about the hundreds of pre-paid iTunes cards sold each week? If they aren't tracking that, then how can they just declare that sales are collapsing?