Hacking the Xbox - Excerpt: "Last year, a Microsoft lawsuit temporarily shut down the Hong Kong-based company Lik Sang, which sold mod chips over the Internet."
How much money have you contributed to the EFF? It's amazing how many people make demands like yours without giving the slightest thought to the expenses involved. In addition, any movement in the right direction is progress. Maybe TI will decide to sue some hobbyists, with the EFF ready to fight for a legal precedent that might finally put a stop to this nonsense.
Once again, you've completely missed the point. The driver cheats to inflate its "performance scores", which are artificial. Repeating yourself doesn't make your position valid.
Did you actually read the article? The driver was shown to be using the same cheats when the benchmark executable was renamed. This isn't about actual optimizations as far as the GPU is concerned; it's about falsifying results by using the CPU instead.
Why couldn't you be bothered to do your research before replying?
The driver apparently detects "crysis.exe" and inflates performance metrics by offloading processing, whereas renaming the executable to "crisis.exe" gives realistic performance scores. Please RTFA before replying.
That makes sense; I've been using Ubuntu for Linux desktops over the past couple of years due to lack of built-in functionality in other distros. I used to use SUSE myself, but gave up after dealing with one too many headaches. These days, I mostly use MacOS X, but my wife uses Ubuntu on her laptop.
Out of curiosity, what was the hardware platform and distribution in use? Did you have to compile the driver in the first place, or was it a distro-supplied driver that suddenly stopped working after you installed distro updates?
I can happily arrange an experiment, one in which you illegally perform a wiretap on me, and one in which I alert the authorities of your behavior. Would you like to participate?
Now that's some seriously skewed logic... by you arranging the "wiretap" in question, you're directly consenting to the recording. Now, let's look at what you just said:
I can't consent to illegal activities. Your circularly flawed logic does not compute.
Once again, you're not consenting to illegal activity in a case where you're the one offering to arrange the event, given the fact that it would then be perfectly legal. If you're going to accuse someone of lacking basic logic skills, you should probably make sure you're not the one in need of an education.
PROTIP: That's actually a usage error. He (or she) spelled "metal" correctly.
That said, I've had no issues with five different webcams functioning properly under Ubuntu, without having to compile anything. I believe this is commonly referred to as "It Just Works(TM)".
Additionally, I'll take "knowing about vulnerabilities quickly" over "having somewhat fewer vulnerabilities that are publicly disclosed, leaving out problems Microsoft doesn't feel like informing the admin community of until exploits are already being used in the wild" any day.
The problem is see with this line of reasoning comes down to "who actually carries out attacks." While it's true from one perspective that reducing the ability of less sophisticated attackers to see what you're doing is beneficial, the trouble is that it only takes one "more sophisticated" attacker to create a point n' click toolkit for exploiting flaws. At this point, said toolkit will be used by hordes of kiddies.
In the end, it's a net loss for security. I'd rather allow a bunch of smart folks to look at the implementation ahead of time (good guys and bad guys alike). At least the good guys are inclined to rapidly develop fixes for issues at that point, rather than waiting on some corporation to acknowledge there's even a problem.
When you charge $200 for an OS when $50 or $60 is the amount people are happy to pay, you don't have complaints about pricing.
You're absolutely right, but there's a problem here: while people may not express their happiness to pay, they're still paying. In the end, the bottom line is what matters.
That said, I'm happy I got out of the Windows admin scene years ago. I'm much happier with my Mac/Linux desktop and server systems these days. I'm not saying Windows doesn't have its place, but I didn't have any trouble migrating my development and admin skills to UNIX-based platforms, and I'm making more money at it too.
Botnets are fairly smart these days, and they're getting smarter. It's not at all uncommon for a portion of the machines participating in a botnet to do nothing more than port scan large networks, looking for listening SSH daemons. This information is forwarded back to other machines, which attempt to compromise the hosts.
Most of the time, I just dispense with the issue altogether by only allowing SSH from known IPs. In cases where this isn't possible, mandatory key use can be enforced.
This is more like intercepting and recording the conversations had among a network of criminals, which yields a lot of good insights into how these organizations operate. This can be extremely valuable information if it's forwarded to appropriate law enforcement personnel, which don't always have the technical talent or resources to conduct investigations like this in the first place.
From the Federal Communications Commission's "About Us" page:
"The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions."
Slashdot Mirror
Hackers sued for tinkering with Xbox games - Sued by a video game maker
Hacking the Xbox - Excerpt: "Last year, a Microsoft lawsuit temporarily shut down the Hong Kong-based company Lik Sang, which sold mod chips over the Internet."
Apple serves DMCA notice to OSx86 Project
Absolutely. However, I'd reiterate my previous point that battles have to be chosen carefully.
Did you mother drop you on your head as an infant?
If 3 means "three way" I've gotta ask who the third wheel is, aside from him and the EFF ;) ...
Meanwhile, I <3 the EFF (minus any kinky action).
I think you missed the sarcasm in the GP.
How much money have you contributed to the EFF? It's amazing how many people make demands like yours without giving the slightest thought to the expenses involved. In addition, any movement in the right direction is progress. Maybe TI will decide to sue some hobbyists, with the EFF ready to fight for a legal precedent that might finally put a stop to this nonsense.
One missing character, repeated a whole lot of times, results in an entire TLD going offline. Awesome.
Once again, you've completely missed the point. The driver cheats to inflate its "performance scores", which are artificial. Repeating yourself doesn't make your position valid.
Did you actually read the article? The driver was shown to be using the same cheats when the benchmark executable was renamed. This isn't about actual optimizations as far as the GPU is concerned; it's about falsifying results by using the CPU instead.
Why couldn't you be bothered to do your research before replying?
The driver apparently detects "crysis.exe" and inflates performance metrics by offloading processing, whereas renaming the executable to "crisis.exe" gives realistic performance scores. Please RTFA before replying.
Whoooosh.
Oh, and you must be new around here.
I'll answer for the GP: "no, and I'll crawl back in my hole now."
That makes sense; I've been using Ubuntu for Linux desktops over the past couple of years due to lack of built-in functionality in other distros. I used to use SUSE myself, but gave up after dealing with one too many headaches. These days, I mostly use MacOS X, but my wife uses Ubuntu on her laptop.
Out of curiosity, what was the hardware platform and distribution in use? Did you have to compile the driver in the first place, or was it a distro-supplied driver that suddenly stopped working after you installed distro updates?
I can happily arrange an experiment, one in which you illegally perform a wiretap on me, and one in which I alert the authorities of your behavior. Would you like to participate?
Now that's some seriously skewed logic... by you arranging the "wiretap" in question, you're directly consenting to the recording. Now, let's look at what you just said:
I can't consent to illegal activities. Your circularly flawed logic does not compute.
Once again, you're not consenting to illegal activity in a case where you're the one offering to arrange the event, given the fact that it would then be perfectly legal. If you're going to accuse someone of lacking basic logic skills, you should probably make sure you're not the one in need of an education.
What is your level of formal education, anyhow?
PROTIP: That's actually a usage error. He (or she) spelled "metal" correctly.
That said, I've had no issues with five different webcams functioning properly under Ubuntu, without having to compile anything. I believe this is commonly referred to as "It Just Works(TM)".
Additionally, I'll take "knowing about vulnerabilities quickly" over "having somewhat fewer vulnerabilities that are publicly disclosed, leaving out problems Microsoft doesn't feel like informing the admin community of until exploits are already being used in the wild" any day.
No, it's the same as two in 500,000. Sheesh.
Sexual offenders run the prison rape-prevention program.
No, that's already run by designated "I'll be your daddy and protect you from the others" representatives, fairly elected by the general population.
The problem is see with this line of reasoning comes down to "who actually carries out attacks." While it's true from one perspective that reducing the ability of less sophisticated attackers to see what you're doing is beneficial, the trouble is that it only takes one "more sophisticated" attacker to create a point n' click toolkit for exploiting flaws. At this point, said toolkit will be used by hordes of kiddies.
In the end, it's a net loss for security. I'd rather allow a bunch of smart folks to look at the implementation ahead of time (good guys and bad guys alike). At least the good guys are inclined to rapidly develop fixes for issues at that point, rather than waiting on some corporation to acknowledge there's even a problem.
But that drives sales!
/me runs away.
When you charge $200 for an OS when $50 or $60 is the amount people are happy to pay, you don't have complaints about pricing.
You're absolutely right, but there's a problem here: while people may not express their happiness to pay, they're still paying. In the end, the bottom line is what matters.
That said, I'm happy I got out of the Windows admin scene years ago. I'm much happier with my Mac/Linux desktop and server systems these days. I'm not saying Windows doesn't have its place, but I didn't have any trouble migrating my development and admin skills to UNIX-based platforms, and I'm making more money at it too.
nut I like fucking
You like doing what with what, now?
Botnets are fairly smart these days, and they're getting smarter. It's not at all uncommon for a portion of the machines participating in a botnet to do nothing more than port scan large networks, looking for listening SSH daemons. This information is forwarded back to other machines, which attempt to compromise the hosts.
Most of the time, I just dispense with the issue altogether by only allowing SSH from known IPs. In cases where this isn't possible, mandatory key use can be enforced.
This is more like intercepting and recording the conversations had among a network of criminals, which yields a lot of good insights into how these organizations operate. This can be extremely valuable information if it's forwarded to appropriate law enforcement personnel, which don't always have the technical talent or resources to conduct investigations like this in the first place.
From the Federal Communications Commission's "About Us" page:
"The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions."