I don't even play so many older games anymore, and when I do, you notice it's mostly just nostalgia about them and they're pretty meh now.
That point aside, is it stupid to buy it again? Sure. But it's really such a small thing to pay for one dollar again for an old game I love (and I've probably lost the cd's along the years too). Sure I could spend an hour to write an angry letter about it to the company, but I think my time is worth a little bit more than that $1/hour.
Your whole "general people are dumb as rocks" thing is what I hate about in us geeks/nerds. Not everyone has the time or interest to complain or fight against every since minor detail. Sometimes it's ok to just spend that $1 and play your game.
No, the parent is correct. Sure, not all of the 85% will buy the game, but I'm pretty sure there are many of them who just pirate it because they can. It's not like everyone who pirates doesn't have any money at all.
I mean, people spend $100 a night at a bar constantly, for a few hours of fun. But then they don't buy games because they know they can get it for free too. It just means they have to prioritize what they spend their money on better.
It will most likely be 10+ years. Most of the 10 year old games, never less the 15+ year old games even work on today's OS. Does that mean that when I bought the games I didn't value my rights as a consumer, because they don't work now?
It's a central activation server for all their games. I think there would be quite nice uproar if all of their games stopped working suddenly.
Nevertheless, if someone still plays them in 10-20 years, I'm sure they can buy a really cheap, current-OS-capable version from the likes of Steam for like $1, probably with improved graphics too. The classic games I play now are either fixed versions from Steam or GOG. Sure you pay that one dollar again, but who cares when they fix it for the new operating systems and hardware too.
I agree. If they put out a great title I really want to get, I will just buy it. My internet isn't really even that unstable - I'm running ssh sessions for days, even months without disconnections. I don't even remember when I've last time had an actual internet downtime, previous disconnection was because electricity went off for 1-2 seconds. Good luck trying to play your game with that "disconnection" too.
As long as the system works good, then sure, fine. I don't like it, but I can't really care that much either.
I have abandoned all hope of society in general ever standing up to this type of thing.
It's just that not everyone have the time, interest or knowledge to fight it everything. Of course we here on slashdot care about it, but as long as it works good enough generally, it doesn't matter to most people.
Just like we probably aren't interested if the latest barbie doll came with no gloves, but the previous ones did. Would you write an angry letter about it to Barbie Corporation even if you just don't really care?
Do we really have to go thru this in every StarCraft II story?
Why would you lose interest in the game because of that? Please tell me. They're separate stories and most likely priced as expansions too. And it's not like they made the 100% ready and are just keeping the two later expansion packs with them self now.
I don't think that's really their priority just yet, but to test everything else in the game. Just get to PC if you want to play games like everyone else.
Whoa, you're bringing up ten year old worms to the table. Do you even understand how many old worms there has been with Linux/UNIX in all of its history, most of them not even requiring a web server?
Any of those things you list as "poor security choices from Microsoft" aren't even such.
patch Tuesday
Patch Tuesday streamlines the update process in large companies. It would be really bad solution from MS to force the update randomly, possibly breaking things. Linux doesn't even have automated update at all - you have to run your update tool when its convenient for you, or go and compile the new kernel. Is that really a better security choice? Would you want Windows to be the same way?
cannot delete opened file
This has nothing to do with security choice for Windows. And you can force-delete a file, at your own risk.
No distinction between administrator and normal user
You're still running Windows 95 or what?
backward compatibility back to DOS
There's no such really anymore, haven't been since XP. It's an emulated layer, and also breaks most of the old viruses because of that.
GUI in server and for administration tasks
How does this lower security again?
no distinction between executables and normal files
Just like Linux doesn't have either. You can set executable bit on any file and it happily runs.
complex database for configuration
Specifically for what? MySQL also has pretty complex database (inside itself) for its settings and users.
To be honest I'd be more worried if Windows did come with a default PDF reader. The format is overly complex with scripting capabilities and everything else under the sun and bugs are going to slip in, and the install base would be even more widespread than now with Adobe PDF Reader (or are you suggesting we should pre-install Adobe's PDF Reader on every Windows?)
I also doubt that all of the different Linux distros come with a pdf reader..
Drive-by installs via exploit vulnerability can happen on any OS. Only thing that might currently mitigate that is SELinux, but it's pain in the ass generally and no casual user would put up with it. Most of the vulnerabilities now a day are in 3rd party softwares like Flash or PDF Reader. They are exactly as vulnerable on any system.
It pretty much all happens on Windows currently only because its so popular (and the users are generally dumber than those geeks running for example Linux on desktop).
Fact is, no OS is secure unless it's completely locked down, and even then there are probably vulnerabilities in the OS. And please, I don't want my desktop computer to be an iPhone.
That really adds unnecessary complexity. There are tons of those flash games sites and they would all need to generate same kind of database scheme or make a standard on how you pass the data between the site and flash applet.
Instead more controls about it is the way to go. Personally I would also like an option to globally disallow all cookies, but let it ask me if I want to save data.
I noticed earlier today that theres beta of 10.1 out and interestingly it also supports hardware accelerated video with NVidia cards. Lowered dramatically CPU usage when playing video in full-screen. Seems that this private browsing thing isn't included yet tho.
Like I noted earlier, there is really no reason why a spambot or other malicious software would need to run as root. It can do its job just fine on Windows, Mac and Linux userland. Root would only be required for hacking a server or just intentionally destroying a computer.
Clicking an executable email attachment? Why wouldn't that work on Mac OS X?
And again, drive-by installs via exploit vulnerability can happen on any OS. Only thing that might currently mitigate that is SELinux, but it's pain in the ass generally and no casual user would put up with it. Most of the vulnerabilities now a day are in 3rd party softwares like Flash or PDF Reader. They are exactly as vulnerable on any system.
So yes, it comes down to the popularity (and generally dumber users than those running for example Linux on desktop).
Fact is, no OS is secure unless it's completely locked down, and even then there are probably vulnerabilities in the OS.
Actually my ISP does that (and many ISP's in Europe? All in my country at least). I actually thought it was more widespread thing and it was just something like comcast that didn't.
That's why I said middle way (between the parent posters). Don't accept mail to just any account, but create them as you need to, and disable if some of them starts to get spam. If you ever need the same account name again (for example to use some sites forgotten password function), just temporary re-enable it.
If any other OS was the popular one instead, the problem would be exactly the same there. Remember that you don't even need to obtain root to send spam. The "but you only download software from your distros repo!" wouldn't be so either because people want to buy games, applications and install all kind of shareware/freeware, and that just wouldn't be possible with a single distro that would have strict rules on what apps are there (and no, messing with yum config files and cert's isn't an option with casual people either).
That's why its best to use the middle way. Have own domain and some way to quickly create a new address on it (even if they all go to same mailbox). Always use a new address for different sites and purposes. That way if one of them starts to get problems with spam, you know who sold your address and can easily disable it.
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses (x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected ( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it (x) Users of email will not put up with it (x) Microsoft will not put up with it ( ) The police will not put up with it, anywhere other than Russia ( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers (x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once ( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists ( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it (x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email (x) Open relays in foreign countries ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses (x) Asshats (x) Jurisdictional problems (x) Unpopularity of weird new taxes (x) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money (x) Huge existing software investment in SMTP ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack ( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email (x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes ( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches ( ) Extreme profitability of spam (x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft ( ) Technically illiterate politicians ( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers (x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering (x) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable ( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation ( ) Blacklists suck ( ) Whitelists suck ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks (x) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually (x) Sending email should be free (x) Why should we have to trust you and your servers? ( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses ( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome ( ) I don't want the government reading my email ( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work. (x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it. ( ) Nice try, asshole! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
Maybe in the year 1995. I'm pretty sure they can handle having a list of ISP's mail servers and use them now. Sending from a consumer line would be quite useless anyway because 99% of email services would directly block such emails.
Considering the world soon has a population of 7 billion people, on which 1.7 billion people use the internet and usually people have several email addresses, it means it's still probably like 0.1-0.2 spam messages per day per person. Add filters to that which caught most of the spam and the 3 billion per day isn't actually that large number.
They didn't ban everyone with a jailbroken phone and most likely wont do so, but only the two guys who originally released the hacks to jailbreak iPhone.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't even play so many older games anymore, and when I do, you notice it's mostly just nostalgia about them and they're pretty meh now.
That point aside, is it stupid to buy it again? Sure. But it's really such a small thing to pay for one dollar again for an old game I love (and I've probably lost the cd's along the years too). Sure I could spend an hour to write an angry letter about it to the company, but I think my time is worth a little bit more than that $1/hour.
Your whole "general people are dumb as rocks" thing is what I hate about in us geeks/nerds. Not everyone has the time or interest to complain or fight against every since minor detail. Sometimes it's ok to just spend that $1 and play your game.
No, the parent is correct. Sure, not all of the 85% will buy the game, but I'm pretty sure there are many of them who just pirate it because they can. It's not like everyone who pirates doesn't have any money at all.
I mean, people spend $100 a night at a bar constantly, for a few hours of fun. But then they don't buy games because they know they can get it for free too. It just means they have to prioritize what they spend their money on better.
It will most likely be 10+ years. Most of the 10 year old games, never less the 15+ year old games even work on today's OS. Does that mean that when I bought the games I didn't value my rights as a consumer, because they don't work now?
It's a central activation server for all their games. I think there would be quite nice uproar if all of their games stopped working suddenly.
Nevertheless, if someone still plays them in 10-20 years, I'm sure they can buy a really cheap, current-OS-capable version from the likes of Steam for like $1, probably with improved graphics too. The classic games I play now are either fixed versions from Steam or GOG. Sure you pay that one dollar again, but who cares when they fix it for the new operating systems and hardware too.
I agree. If they put out a great title I really want to get, I will just buy it. My internet isn't really even that unstable - I'm running ssh sessions for days, even months without disconnections. I don't even remember when I've last time had an actual internet downtime, previous disconnection was because electricity went off for 1-2 seconds. Good luck trying to play your game with that "disconnection" too.
As long as the system works good, then sure, fine. I don't like it, but I can't really care that much either.
I have abandoned all hope of society in general ever standing up to this type of thing.
It's just that not everyone have the time, interest or knowledge to fight it everything. Of course we here on slashdot care about it, but as long as it works good enough generally, it doesn't matter to most people.
Just like we probably aren't interested if the latest barbie doll came with no gloves, but the previous ones did. Would you write an angry letter about it to Barbie Corporation even if you just don't really care?
But it's Settlers VII :(
Do we really have to go thru this in every StarCraft II story?
Why would you lose interest in the game because of that? Please tell me. They're separate stories and most likely priced as expansions too. And it's not like they made the 100% ready and are just keeping the two later expansion packs with them self now.
I don't think that's really their priority just yet, but to test everything else in the game. Just get to PC if you want to play games like everyone else.
Exactly and like:
Release date(s) 2011 or later
What is this I don't even
Whoa, you're bringing up ten year old worms to the table. Do you even understand how many old worms there has been with Linux/UNIX in all of its history, most of them not even requiring a web server?
Any of those things you list as "poor security choices from Microsoft" aren't even such.
patch Tuesday
Patch Tuesday streamlines the update process in large companies. It would be really bad solution from MS to force the update randomly, possibly breaking things. Linux doesn't even have automated update at all - you have to run your update tool when its convenient for you, or go and compile the new kernel. Is that really a better security choice? Would you want Windows to be the same way?
cannot delete opened file
This has nothing to do with security choice for Windows. And you can force-delete a file, at your own risk.
No distinction between administrator and normal user
You're still running Windows 95 or what?
backward compatibility back to DOS
There's no such really anymore, haven't been since XP. It's an emulated layer, and also breaks most of the old viruses because of that.
GUI in server and for administration tasks
How does this lower security again?
no distinction between executables and normal files
Just like Linux doesn't have either. You can set executable bit on any file and it happily runs.
complex database for configuration
Specifically for what? MySQL also has pretty complex database (inside itself) for its settings and users.
To be honest I'd be more worried if Windows did come with a default PDF reader. The format is overly complex with scripting capabilities and everything else under the sun and bugs are going to slip in, and the install base would be even more widespread than now with Adobe PDF Reader (or are you suggesting we should pre-install Adobe's PDF Reader on every Windows?)
I also doubt that all of the different Linux distros come with a pdf reader..
Uh, no one needs Adobe Reader on any platform. There are plenty of alternatives and Foxit is probably the best one (and isn't as bloat as Adobe's)
Ah, the old "Windows is insecure" rant.
Drive-by installs via exploit vulnerability can happen on any OS. Only thing that might currently mitigate that is SELinux, but it's pain in the ass generally and no casual user would put up with it. Most of the vulnerabilities now a day are in 3rd party softwares like Flash or PDF Reader. They are exactly as vulnerable on any system.
It pretty much all happens on Windows currently only because its so popular (and the users are generally dumber than those geeks running for example Linux on desktop).
Fact is, no OS is secure unless it's completely locked down, and even then there are probably vulnerabilities in the OS. And please, I don't want my desktop computer to be an iPhone.
That really adds unnecessary complexity. There are tons of those flash games sites and they would all need to generate same kind of database scheme or make a standard on how you pass the data between the site and flash applet.
Instead more controls about it is the way to go. Personally I would also like an option to globally disallow all cookies, but let it ask me if I want to save data.
I noticed earlier today that theres beta of 10.1 out and interestingly it also supports hardware accelerated video with NVidia cards. Lowered dramatically CPU usage when playing video in full-screen. Seems that this private browsing thing isn't included yet tho.
It is apples to apples.
Like I noted earlier, there is really no reason why a spambot or other malicious software would need to run as root. It can do its job just fine on Windows, Mac and Linux userland. Root would only be required for hacking a server or just intentionally destroying a computer.
Clicking an executable email attachment? Why wouldn't that work on Mac OS X?
And again, drive-by installs via exploit vulnerability can happen on any OS. Only thing that might currently mitigate that is SELinux, but it's pain in the ass generally and no casual user would put up with it. Most of the vulnerabilities now a day are in 3rd party softwares like Flash or PDF Reader. They are exactly as vulnerable on any system.
So yes, it comes down to the popularity (and generally dumber users than those running for example Linux on desktop).
Fact is, no OS is secure unless it's completely locked down, and even then there are probably vulnerabilities in the OS.
Actually my ISP does that (and many ISP's in Europe? All in my country at least). I actually thought it was more widespread thing and it was just something like comcast that didn't.
Want to explain why botnets have started appearing on Mac OS X too then?
That's why I said middle way (between the parent posters). Don't accept mail to just any account, but create them as you need to, and disable if some of them starts to get spam. If you ever need the same account name again (for example to use some sites forgotten password function), just temporary re-enable it.
If any other OS was the popular one instead, the problem would be exactly the same there. Remember that you don't even need to obtain root to send spam. The "but you only download software from your distros repo!" wouldn't be so either because people want to buy games, applications and install all kind of shareware/freeware, and that just wouldn't be possible with a single distro that would have strict rules on what apps are there (and no, messing with yum config files and cert's isn't an option with casual people either).
And what about all the legit mailing lists? Or slashdot that sends an email when someone answers to your comment. Or newsletters and so on..
Pay per email is not going to work and no one is going to put up with it.
That's why its best to use the middle way. Have own domain and some way to quickly create a new address on it (even if they all go to same mailbox). Always use a new address for different sites and purposes. That way if one of them starts to get problems with spam, you know who sold your address and can easily disable it.
Your post advocates a
( ) technical ( ) legislative (x) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(x) Users of email will not put up with it
(x) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it, anywhere other than Russia
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
(x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(x) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(x) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
(x) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
(x) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
(x) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
(x) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
(x) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(x) Sending email should be free
(x) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, asshole! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
Maybe in the year 1995. I'm pretty sure they can handle having a list of ISP's mail servers and use them now. Sending from a consumer line would be quite useless anyway because 99% of email services would directly block such emails.
Considering the world soon has a population of 7 billion people, on which 1.7 billion people use the internet and usually people have several email addresses, it means it's still probably like 0.1-0.2 spam messages per day per person. Add filters to that which caught most of the spam and the 3 billion per day isn't actually that large number.
They didn't ban everyone with a jailbroken phone and most likely wont do so, but only the two guys who originally released the hacks to jailbreak iPhone.