There was an interesting war game played a while back: essentially it was nothing more than showing off how the US tactics couldn't ever possibly be defeated... which they proved by resetting the game after the opposing general "sank" most of the US fleet using nothing but a hodgepodge collection of small civilian boats. Seems save scumming is fine even in war games. The result was of course that the general playing the US side "won" since anything else would look bad.
Re:We're on the cyber-frontier on the cyber-gan-tr
on
There Is No Cyberwar
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· Score: 1
In this case given that nobody is actually getting shot civilians in the form of sys admins and programmers are far better equipped to fight this one. They're more numerous, they're just as skilled and they're on their home ground.
In 1991, it was reported by somebody in the air force that a computer virus named AF/91 was created and was installed on a printer chip and made its way to Iraq via Amman, Jordan.[24] Its job was to make the Iraqi anti-aircraft guns malfunction; however, according to the story, the central command center was bombed and the virus was destroyed.[25] The virus; however, was found to be a fake.
of the others they mostly sound like boring old botnet activity or media sensationalism.
I'm fairly sure they quote the entirety of very small articles every now and then. more than a few times a month? absolutely!
I'm curious if they're going to start hitting forums when people do they "hey look at this guys" quote of a news article. It could really hurt a lot of free forums.
First on the chopping block: Slashdot for it's copy-pasted copies of linked blogs with copy-pasted copies of magazine articles copy-pasted directly from press releases.
and you clearly have not read or understood what all these people are trying to hammer in.
I made it very clear my point is not about the initial hack.
You implied that tougher copy protection somehow has an effect on the number of people who pirate. Which is false. The only place where tougher more restrictive copy protection makes any difference is during that initial hack.
After that no matter if the copy protection on the unhacked game was a simple CD check or a massively complex draconian shit-fest the steps the pirate has to follow are exactly the same.
From the day the first copy is cracked all copy protection schemes are equal from the multi million dollar system like activision tried or a budget "please insert disk" checks.
It's traditional to have made at least one coherent, well thought out, logical argument before bitching that you don't want to repeat yourself. You seem to have forgotten that step.
Far easier to think about if you work in units people are used to.
To compare to something in human terms:
The British Emerald is the largest LNG carrier I can find and can carry somewhere in the region of 77500 metric tons of gas (155,000 cubic meters with LNG having a density of about 0.5 kg/L).
So this is something like approximate to the largest natural gas tanker in the world releasing it's entire load into the air about 90 times over.
Wow.... just wow.... you really haven't got a clue have you.
Just one person has to crack your DRM. just one person of all the millions out there has to be smart enough to handle your useless "Increasing complexity" and believe me. There will always be one who is either stunningly smart or just lucky. No matter how much of a shit hot programmer you think yourself there will always be some kid with the time and brains to tear any copy protection you build to shreds. And they do this purely for fun.
Activision seemed very proud about their scheme and how it was built from the ground up to be unbreakable and yet it took a tiny fraction of the time it took to write it to break it.
The number of cracked copies available is not a function of how many different groups have managed to crack the copy protection. Only one person has to manage it and then exactly the same number of people can download it.
Start thinking weakest link in the chain. Think from the company's perspective for risk reduction of second hand sales.
First. The hugely elaborate schemes are elaborate by way of implementation, which is of the concern of the user when it means that their product breaks more, is less reliable, requires a net connection for a single player game etc etc etc. For the user, they click a button to start the game and an error pops up reading "unable to connect to game servers, please try again later" . like shitty design.
Second. Windows makes burning a CD look like a file copy, which most users know how to do but since most off the shelf DVD copying software will pay attention to a simple "do not copy" flag those people still won't get past it. Only the most token, basic, simple copy protection scheme is needed to stop 99% of average users.
The other 1% of users won't be stopped by any DRM scheme no matter how much money you waste on it or how much you cripple your software.
I've donate more over the last year or so to the developer of the utterly DRM free and indeed actually free game Dwarf Fortress than I have ever spent on any 1 individual game.
Make a fun game and avoid making me feel like you're trying to screw me and I'll give you more money than I'd pay otherwise.
censorship is censorship is censorship. it doens't matter if it's for their own good. Sooner or later it will be decided that saying bad things about our glorius leader is bad for society if you go down that road.
So. Long story short everyone else should be restricted to only being allowed see movies which you approve of and games which you like because you're too lazy to parent your own child and you want the government and everyone else to do it for you.
Huh... a new flavor of spin... "that's not based on a medical study!!!".... well no of course it isn't. It's not about medecine, it's about violence crime statistics.
"well I'm not for censorship buuuuut *this* should be censored because I think it's bad"
Freedom of speech makes no qualification about you only having the right to say something if random control freaks decide that what you're saying/writing/painting/recording/filming is in the public interest precisely because that road leads to a place there questioning our almighty leaders isn't in the public interest.
Oh I can see your points. They make sense, I just don't like where that road leads.
I don't really want to see a "war on bots" persecuted in the same manner as the "war on drugs". The internet survives just fine even with malware and viruses.
From a technical point of view I think we'd achieve vastly more with a few far more simple steps rather than blanket legislation forcing everyone to have antivirus software.
1: Make companies partially liable for security failures in their software when paying customers get infected. No more eulas saying they take no responsibility for the quality of the product you paid for. Consider selling a software product with a significant number of security bugs similar to selling a car with faulty breaks. Software can't be made perfect but this would make the code benefit analysis for the extra dev time far better.
Of course there are problems with this but I consider them to be less severe than the problems with the government screening all my traffic to make sure I'm not trying to hack anyone.
2: Teach coders and admins better security practices. Seriously, most coders I know consider security to be something for other people to worry about. Programmers and comp sci grads who think that because the AV scan didn't find anything that means the program they just downloaded is perfectly safe to run.
While we're requiring the ISP's and customers to do things....
would it hurt to require people to have some kind of monitoring program? And what would it hurt to require ISPs to scan for certain keywords in communications or filter websites or other channels of communication we don't like?
Not exactly surprising. Now all that have to do is slap a copyright notice on anything embarrassing. Next time someone leaks the MP's expenses or some other embarrassing piece of info they can just send a takedown to have it blocked.
The DMCA has a few half decent elements like the safe harbour stuff and a lot of awful crap. I just wish that when other governments try to copy the idea they'd learn from others and at the very least try to magnify the good and cut out the crap.
Instead they do the exact opposite, rather than exclude material with significant political implications and material which is in the public interest to know to prevent copyright law being used in place of the official secrets act they write it with that goal in mind.
Slashdot Mirror
well played.
http://www.rense.com/general64/fore.htm
There was an interesting war game played a while back: essentially it was nothing more than showing off how the US tactics couldn't ever possibly be defeated... which they proved by resetting the game after the opposing general "sank" most of the US fleet using nothing but a hodgepodge collection of small civilian boats.
Seems save scumming is fine even in war games.
The result was of course that the general playing the US side "won" since anything else would look bad.
In this case given that nobody is actually getting shot civilians in the form of sys admins and programmers are far better equipped to fight this one.
They're more numerous, they're just as skilled and they're on their home ground.
Ah a prime example:
In 1991, it was reported by somebody in the air force that a computer virus named AF/91 was created and was installed on a printer chip and made its way to Iraq via Amman, Jordan.[24] Its job was to make the Iraqi anti-aircraft guns malfunction; however, according to the story, the central command center was bombed and the virus was destroyed.[25] The virus; however, was found to be a fake.
of the others they mostly sound like boring old botnet activity or media sensationalism.
Sorry. No real "cyberwar" here.
I'm fairly sure they quote the entirety of very small articles every now and then.
more than a few times a month? absolutely!
I'm curious if they're going to start hitting forums when people do they "hey look at this guys" quote of a news article.
It could really hurt a lot of free forums.
nah, it's just considered bad manners.
First on the chopping block:
Slashdot for it's copy-pasted copies of linked blogs with copy-pasted copies of magazine articles copy-pasted directly from press releases.
and you clearly have not read or understood what all these people are trying to hammer in.
I made it very clear my point is not about the initial hack.
You implied that tougher copy protection somehow has an effect on the number of people who pirate.
Which is false.
The only place where tougher more restrictive copy protection makes any difference is during that initial hack.
After that no matter if the copy protection on the unhacked game was a simple CD check or a massively complex draconian shit-fest the steps the pirate has to follow are exactly the same.
From the day the first copy is cracked all copy protection schemes are equal from the multi million dollar system like activision tried or a budget "please insert disk" checks.
It's traditional to have made at least one coherent, well thought out, logical argument before bitching that you don't want to repeat yourself.
You seem to have forgotten that step.
The GP was not thinking like an incompetent and technically ignorant board member.
In which case a simple CD check performs exactly as well.Any idiot can see that.
7 teragrams = 7,000,000 metric tons.
Far easier to think about if you work in units people are used to.
To compare to something in human terms:
The British Emerald is the largest LNG carrier I can find and can carry somewhere in the region of 77500 metric tons of gas (155,000 cubic meters with LNG having a density of about 0.5 kg/L).
So this is something like approximate to the largest natural gas tanker in the world releasing it's entire load into the air about 90 times over.
any corrections to figures welcome.
Wow.... just wow.... you really haven't got a clue have you.
Just one person has to crack your DRM.
just one person of all the millions out there has to be smart enough to handle your useless "Increasing complexity" and believe me.
There will always be one who is either stunningly smart or just lucky.
No matter how much of a shit hot programmer you think yourself there will always be some kid with the time and brains to tear any copy protection you build to shreds.
And they do this purely for fun.
Activision seemed very proud about their scheme and how it was built from the ground up to be unbreakable and yet it took a tiny fraction of the time it took to write it to break it.
The number of cracked copies available is not a function of how many different groups have managed to crack the copy protection.
Only one person has to manage it and then exactly the same number of people can download it.
Start thinking weakest link in the chain.
Think from the company's perspective for risk reduction of second hand sales.
First. The hugely elaborate schemes are elaborate by way of implementation, which is of the concern of the user when it means that their product breaks more, is less reliable, requires a net connection for a single player game etc etc etc. For the user, they click a button to start the game and an error pops up reading "unable to connect to game servers, please try again later" . like shitty design.
Second. Windows makes burning a CD look like a file copy, which most users know how to do but since most off the shelf DVD copying software will pay attention to a simple "do not copy" flag those people still won't get past it.
Only the most token, basic, simple copy protection scheme is needed to stop 99% of average users.
The other 1% of users won't be stopped by any DRM scheme no matter how much money you waste on it or how much you cripple your software.
Your understanding terrible.
seems they didn't even get a day out of it in the end.
The extra profit comes from killing off the second hand sales.
There is money in it.
It's just isn't honest money.
It screws the honest customers the hardest but isn't that the way of the world.
I've donate more over the last year or so to the developer of the utterly DRM free and indeed actually free game Dwarf Fortress than I have ever spent on any 1 individual game.
Make a fun game and avoid making me feel like you're trying to screw me and I'll give you more money than I'd pay otherwise.
Sorry, but over the years I've grown tired of the lazy parents supporting censorship laws to take rights away from me.
censorship is censorship is censorship.
it doens't matter if it's for their own good.
Sooner or later it will be decided that saying bad things about our glorius leader is bad for society if you go down that road.
So.
Long story short everyone else should be restricted to only being allowed see movies which you approve of and games which you like because you're too lazy to parent your own child and you want the government and everyone else to do it for you.
Huh... a new flavor of spin... "that's not based on a medical study!!!" .... well no of course it isn't.
It's not about medecine, it's about violence crime statistics.
"well I'm not for censorship buuuuut *this* should be censored because I think it's bad"
Freedom of speech makes no qualification about you only having the right to say something if random control freaks decide that what you're saying/writing/painting/recording/filming is in the public interest precisely because that road leads to a place there questioning our almighty leaders isn't in the public interest.
cognitive neuroscientist
Ya. Right.
Oh I can see your points. They make sense, I just don't like where that road leads.
I don't really want to see a "war on bots" persecuted in the same manner as the "war on drugs".
The internet survives just fine even with malware and viruses.
From a technical point of view I think we'd achieve vastly more with a few far more simple steps rather than blanket legislation forcing everyone to have antivirus software.
1:
Make companies partially liable for security failures in their software when paying customers get infected.
No more eulas saying they take no responsibility for the quality of the product you paid for.
Consider selling a software product with a significant number of security bugs similar to selling a car with faulty breaks.
Software can't be made perfect but this would make the code benefit analysis for the extra dev time far better.
Of course there are problems with this but I consider them to be less severe than the problems with the government screening all my traffic to make sure I'm not trying to hack anyone.
2:
Teach coders and admins better security practices. Seriously, most coders I know consider security to be something for other people to worry about.
Programmers and comp sci grads who think that because the AV scan didn't find anything that means the program they just downloaded is perfectly safe to run.
While we're requiring the ISP's and customers to do things ....
would it hurt to require people to have some kind of monitoring program?
And what would it hurt to require ISPs to scan for certain keywords in communications or filter websites or other channels of communication we don't like?
Also on a practical note rather than a philosophical one:
scanning/filtering like you describe falls under "Enumerating Badness"
http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/
Not exactly surprising.
Now all that have to do is slap a copyright notice on anything embarrassing.
Next time someone leaks the MP's expenses or some other embarrassing piece of info they can just send a takedown to have it blocked.
The DMCA has a few half decent elements like the safe harbour stuff and a lot of awful crap.
I just wish that when other governments try to copy the idea they'd learn from others and at the very least try to magnify the good and cut out the crap.
Instead they do the exact opposite, rather than exclude material with significant political implications and material which is in the public interest to know to prevent copyright law being used in place of the official secrets act they write it with that goal in mind.