You cant really compare an MMO and a single-player game. Most of World of Warcraft work is done on server-side, including quests, NPC's, interacting with other players, trading.. etc almost everything. Private servers cant keep up with Blizzard because so much is kept on server side. In fact, this is something that Ubisoft would take as a pro thing for their DRM - start keeping even more on server-side and it will never be breakable. The unavailability of cracked versions of the games having this DRM already shows this very same thing.
No, actually it's sending a message to Ubisoft that their DRM works. We want to send the message that they are losing sales BECAUSE of DRM. It certainly worked for Spore.
No. Pirating the game will just tell Ubisoft that you like their game but they need to make their DRM stronger so they get you to buy a game you like. At the same time you're also getting your gaming fix from the game you pirated and won't be alternatively buying games from developers and publishers that dont include such DRM. Not only are you showing to the bad companies that they need to strenghter their DRM, you're advancing their business by them keeping you from spending money on their competitors.
The only good answer is not to buy and not pirate it altogether, but ignore the whole game.
It's so because there are no working cracks for Settlers 7, and the anonymous coward is just shouting out the usual piracy shit that add nothing to the conversation. It's not a valid point until the pirates can actually pirate it, and it's been 1.5 months with Assassins Creed 2 now that uses the same system.
While definitely not all of the pirates will buy it, it would be foolish to think some of them aren't just trying to get the game for free, like these comments show. It would probably have been more true in the 90's, but piracy is widespread now and many people use it just to get something for free. If they can't get something they really want, they will then buy it.
Funny how Australia is the hardest hit... What does Australia have that most of the world [except China] not have???
A really remote location? Both US and EU have hundreds of data-centers, millions people and several countries, so they ought to have a good connectivity. Australia on the other hand is away from many other countries and is surrounded only by China, other Asian countries and New Zealand.
I won't be buying Settlers 7 before they remove this DRM. Settlers is one of my favorite series and Settlers 2 probably my favorite game of all time, and what I've read about Settlers 7, it again has more emphasis on economy and all the other aspects that used to make Settlers series great before they changed the game play too much. Settlers 7 would had been a nice strategy game fix right now, but I can surely wait for the upcoming Civilization V too.
That being said, while it's an intrusive and assholish DRM, every game that uses it's remain uncracked (before you post links to torrent searches, everyone of those are badly cracked or only contain a tutorial and not rest of the levels and so on). Silent Hunter after 1.5 months, Assassins Creed after a month and now Settlers 7 too. It will most likely make Ubisoft want to use it even more and more, and it most likely does lead to more sales from the pirates front as they can't play the game otherwise. I also suspect it leads to fewer sales from those who always buy games (from me and probably rest of the slashdot crowd), but most of the people aren't as technically savvy as we are. Too bad you can't really compare how a game would sell without any DRM or with a draconian DRM like this one.
But in the case it gets cracked, I won't be even pirating it - I give my time and money to the companies that do it correctly. Pirating it isn't a good answer either because you're still getting your gaming fix from that company and most likely ignoring other companies games that don't have such DRM in place. The only way to get a change is to ignore companies that use draconian DRM and support those who don't.
While iPod sure was better than the most MP3 players, I disagree that iPod was something revolutionary. Walkman players were damn good too, and they weren't as large as iPod - a really important aspect if you want to take some music with you while jogging (so that the player doesn't weight in your pocket, and so that it doesn't either pull your earplugs out of year head). One of the Walkmans that was maybe 1cm wide and 3cm long and ultra light was perfect for this.
Another aspect to think about iPod vs Walkman or other MP3 players was that iPod had no physical feedback on controls. Only flat buttons in front of it. The other players had song scrolls that were out of the player and you could feel them - another important point when you're just putting your hand in pocket and want to change a song.
You download a copy of a copyrighted song and suddenly you are subjected to fines that are in excess of $5k-50k per song.
No. If you make the file available and possibly upload it to thousands of people, then you have to pay more for the songs. It isn't fines either, it's you paying for damages, big difference. If you're only downloading the song there is no reason to charge you with such high damages and that's why you never see RIAA/MPAA go after people who have only downloaded something (in addition to it being legally more complicated).
I'm not talking about their services. Obviously you chose to use them if you do. But browser bar sending everything you type to it to a third party service is in no way obvious for users. It's not only when you hit enter either - its all the characters you type to it or if you accidentally paste something to it. What happens when that list gets out someway? Just see this AOL search data scandal.
Then why do people bitch when IE does the same? In every discussion people say that MS has specifically made it "hard" for people to change their search provider because it's in the options, just the same way that Chrome has it.
With Facebook you choose what information you put or post there.
With Google you do not - they have what you have typed to address bar, what you have searched for, what your emails contain, what sites you visit, how you're there, what you do (analytics) and so on..
Actually both Google and Microsoft are worried about this - see my subscription here for a request to change relating laws.
I'm assuming you didn't actually read the article because you wanted to look like a jackass.
And what did you wanted me to read about it? This?
We downloaded Fiddler to make some comparisons of our own. As we suspected, Chrome can be set to send information on every keystroke to Bing (or any other search engine that supports Search Suggestions) instead of Google. The same behavior occurs in IE8, but only in the search bar. LePage is only correct in his assertion that IE8 does not send information to anyone when the user types into the address bar.
Did you not read TFA at all ? You can not only choose which search provider to use the search suggestions, you can also turn off search suggestions in chrome !!
Yes, and have looked over Chrome (and used some) personally. All of these settings are hidden in the advanced settings dialog, and how many users you think are going to check those just to know their privacy isn't violated? That is exactly what Google also counts for. The fact is, Chrome is the most privacy intrusive browser for everyone and I'm quite sure most of their reasoning to create it was to datamine. That's their business after all.
His point is that whatever you type to the address is not being send to anywhere. There is no auto-completion. When you want to search for something you go the other box and type a few letters, which upon the browser sends a request for auto-suggestions (and obviously whatever you've typed in).
Separating these two is a huge thing. As it is with Chrome, Google knows everything you've typed in and what websites you have visited. With other browsers (with separated address and search bars) they only know what you're typing to the search query box. Major difference.
They aren't really saying you should switch to IE. They're just pointing out how Chrome steals your privacy to further Google's datamining and pleasuring their advertisers.
Pete LePage is spot on with this. The privacy intrusion by Chrome is outstanding. Every key you type to the address bar is sent to Google. Your Chrome installation has an personal UI number to track where you downloaded Chrome from, wherever you use it and how you use it.
I am still surprised how many people (even here on our geeky slashdot group who should know better) choose something based on it being offered for free, no matter what happens to their privacy. The same people who complain about casual people using Facebook and how much information they're putting there, and not realizing how much privacy they are losing by using Google's free products and search engine.
It's a known fact that every software needs to be funded in some way. Personally I rather choose a paid solution where I know my privacy wont be lost and I can save documents, emails, etc on my own hard drive instead of relying on cloud computing and all the marketing and privacy intrusion to make it possible. After all Google is a marketing company while Microsoft is an software company. The fact they're doing business by selling me a product instead of whoring to advertisers kind of shows that.
You don't seem to understand that your intention counts too. If you're knowingly linking around to copyrighted content, your "but it's just metadata! we dont host it!" is not going to work, especially if you make it as obvious as TPB, Mininova and IsoHunt have been.
If you disagree with me, just see court results for every single one of these and in different countries too - TPB in Sweden, Mininova in Holland and Isohunt in US.
It's probably most of the countries. Google has their own highly-redundancy file system that spans thousands of servers and even different datacenters and locations. Even data that is deleted could remain in the system for 9+ months. I think it's highly possible all of the data travels around the world and is stored in several locations.
Slashdot Mirror
You cant really compare an MMO and a single-player game. Most of World of Warcraft work is done on server-side, including quests, NPC's, interacting with other players, trading.. etc almost everything. Private servers cant keep up with Blizzard because so much is kept on server side. In fact, this is something that Ubisoft would take as a pro thing for their DRM - start keeping even more on server-side and it will never be breakable. The unavailability of cracked versions of the games having this DRM already shows this very same thing.
No, actually it's sending a message to Ubisoft that their DRM works. We want to send the message that they are losing sales BECAUSE of DRM. It certainly worked for Spore.
No. Pirating the game will just tell Ubisoft that you like their game but they need to make their DRM stronger so they get you to buy a game you like. At the same time you're also getting your gaming fix from the game you pirated and won't be alternatively buying games from developers and publishers that dont include such DRM. Not only are you showing to the bad companies that they need to strenghter their DRM, you're advancing their business by them keeping you from spending money on their competitors.
The only good answer is not to buy and not pirate it altogether, but ignore the whole game.
It's so because there are no working cracks for Settlers 7, and the anonymous coward is just shouting out the usual piracy shit that add nothing to the conversation. It's not a valid point until the pirates can actually pirate it, and it's been 1.5 months with Assassins Creed 2 now that uses the same system.
While definitely not all of the pirates will buy it, it would be foolish to think some of them aren't just trying to get the game for free, like these comments show. It would probably have been more true in the 90's, but piracy is widespread now and many people use it just to get something for free. If they can't get something they really want, they will then buy it.
Funny how Australia is the hardest hit... What does Australia have that most of the world [except China] not have???
A really remote location? Both US and EU have hundreds of data-centers, millions people and several countries, so they ought to have a good connectivity. Australia on the other hand is away from many other countries and is surrounded only by China, other Asian countries and New Zealand.
I won't be buying Settlers 7 before they remove this DRM. Settlers is one of my favorite series and Settlers 2 probably my favorite game of all time, and what I've read about Settlers 7, it again has more emphasis on economy and all the other aspects that used to make Settlers series great before they changed the game play too much. Settlers 7 would had been a nice strategy game fix right now, but I can surely wait for the upcoming Civilization V too.
That being said, while it's an intrusive and assholish DRM, every game that uses it's remain uncracked (before you post links to torrent searches, everyone of those are badly cracked or only contain a tutorial and not rest of the levels and so on). Silent Hunter after 1.5 months, Assassins Creed after a month and now Settlers 7 too. It will most likely make Ubisoft want to use it even more and more, and it most likely does lead to more sales from the pirates front as they can't play the game otherwise. I also suspect it leads to fewer sales from those who always buy games (from me and probably rest of the slashdot crowd), but most of the people aren't as technically savvy as we are. Too bad you can't really compare how a game would sell without any DRM or with a draconian DRM like this one.
But in the case it gets cracked, I won't be even pirating it - I give my time and money to the companies that do it correctly. Pirating it isn't a good answer either because you're still getting your gaming fix from that company and most likely ignoring other companies games that don't have such DRM in place. The only way to get a change is to ignore companies that use draconian DRM and support those who don't.
While iPod sure was better than the most MP3 players, I disagree that iPod was something revolutionary. Walkman players were damn good too, and they weren't as large as iPod - a really important aspect if you want to take some music with you while jogging (so that the player doesn't weight in your pocket, and so that it doesn't either pull your earplugs out of year head). One of the Walkmans that was maybe 1cm wide and 3cm long and ultra light was perfect for this.
Another aspect to think about iPod vs Walkman or other MP3 players was that iPod had no physical feedback on controls. Only flat buttons in front of it. The other players had song scrolls that were out of the player and you could feel them - another important point when you're just putting your hand in pocket and want to change a song.
No, no it doesn't. And the fact it has sudo is a slap in the face. Kids these days.. Now get off my lawn.
It's not a separate search engine and you adding search terms to the query doesn't change how much illegal content they link to.
Subwords are completely different than a fully, intended word. Funny spot anyway, I haven't ever thought of that.
You download a copy of a copyrighted song and suddenly you are subjected to fines that are in excess of $5k-50k per song.
No. If you make the file available and possibly upload it to thousands of people, then you have to pay more for the songs. It isn't fines either, it's you paying for damages, big difference. If you're only downloading the song there is no reason to charge you with such high damages and that's why you never see RIAA/MPAA go after people who have only downloaded something (in addition to it being legally more complicated).
They haven't added anything, you just specify what file extension Google seeks for. In this case .torrent.
I'm not talking about their services. Obviously you chose to use them if you do. But browser bar sending everything you type to it to a third party service is in no way obvious for users. It's not only when you hit enter either - its all the characters you type to it or if you accidentally paste something to it. What happens when that list gets out someway? Just see this AOL search data scandal.
IE8 does the same actually.
Then why do people bitch when IE does the same? In every discussion people say that MS has specifically made it "hard" for people to change their search provider because it's in the options, just the same way that Chrome has it.
Actually you are spot on, but for other reasons.
With Facebook you choose what information you put or post there.
With Google you do not - they have what you have typed to address bar, what you have searched for, what your emails contain, what sites you visit, how you're there, what you do (analytics) and so on..
Actually both Google and Microsoft are worried about this - see my subscription here for a request to change relating laws.
I'm assuming you didn't actually read the article because you wanted to look like a jackass.
And what did you wanted me to read about it? This?
We downloaded Fiddler to make some comparisons of our own. As we suspected, Chrome can be set to send information on every keystroke to Bing (or any other search engine that supports Search Suggestions) instead of Google. The same behavior occurs in IE8, but only in the search bar. LePage is only correct in his assertion that IE8 does not send information to anyone when the user types into the address bar.
The last sentence is a major point.
Did you not read TFA at all ?
You can not only choose which search provider to use the search suggestions, you can also turn off search suggestions in chrome !!
Yes, and have looked over Chrome (and used some) personally. All of these settings are hidden in the advanced settings dialog, and how many users you think are going to check those just to know their privacy isn't violated? That is exactly what Google also counts for. The fact is, Chrome is the most privacy intrusive browser for everyone and I'm quite sure most of their reasoning to create it was to datamine. That's their business after all.
You have put your tinfoil hat too strictly now.
His point is that whatever you type to the address is not being send to anywhere. There is no auto-completion. When you want to search for something you go the other box and type a few letters, which upon the browser sends a request for auto-suggestions (and obviously whatever you've typed in).
Separating these two is a huge thing. As it is with Chrome, Google knows everything you've typed in and what websites you have visited. With other browsers (with separated address and search bars) they only know what you're typing to the search query box. Major difference.
They aren't really saying you should switch to IE. They're just pointing out how Chrome steals your privacy to further Google's datamining and pleasuring their advertisers.
Personally I use Opera.
Pete LePage is spot on with this. The privacy intrusion by Chrome is outstanding. Every key you type to the address bar is sent to Google. Your Chrome installation has an personal UI number to track where you downloaded Chrome from, wherever you use it and how you use it.
I am still surprised how many people (even here on our geeky slashdot group who should know better) choose something based on it being offered for free, no matter what happens to their privacy. The same people who complain about casual people using Facebook and how much information they're putting there, and not realizing how much privacy they are losing by using Google's free products and search engine.
It's a known fact that every software needs to be funded in some way. Personally I rather choose a paid solution where I know my privacy wont be lost and I can save documents, emails, etc on my own hard drive instead of relying on cloud computing and all the marketing and privacy intrusion to make it possible. After all Google is a marketing company while Microsoft is an software company. The fact they're doing business by selling me a product instead of whoring to advertisers kind of shows that.
You don't seem to understand that your intention counts too. If you're knowingly linking around to copyrighted content, your "but it's just metadata! we dont host it!" is not going to work, especially if you make it as obvious as TPB, Mininova and IsoHunt have been.
If you disagree with me, just see court results for every single one of these and in different countries too - TPB in Sweden, Mininova in Holland and Isohunt in US.
I hope you didn't consider it for long. If there's one area GMail or any other cloud provider should not be used, it's law firms.
You're missing the point. The whole indirection thing doesn't matter as long as your sole purpose is to link to copyrighted material.
If you're going to use Gnutella or similar for searching the torrents, then you might just as well use the same network for the file transfers.
It's probably most of the countries. Google has their own highly-redundancy file system that spans thousands of servers and even different datacenters and locations. Even data that is deleted could remain in the system for 9+ months. I think it's highly possible all of the data travels around the world and is stored in several locations.