Strictly speaking, this isn't gambling, it's a game of skill, and will be regulated as such. Yes, you are wagering on a game of skill vs another person, but that's no more illegal than you and I having a friendly golf or pool game.
One of the reasons why it's very difficult for a casino to prosecute someone for counting cards is that as soon as they identify a card-counter, it becomes a very slippery slope. Card-counting suggests that having a particular skill gives you a distinct advantage against other competitors (or the house). This in turn makes games like blackjack and baccarat games of skill instead of games of chance. At this point, the casino is no longer in the gambling industry and is on dangerous ground, in terms of their casino license.
In any case, fragging someone for money is definitely a game of skill, you're just paying to play, and are being payed on a per-kill basis.
perhaps then it is that the utils companies have the financial abililty/desire to direct law enforcement towards prosecution of people who pirate their software..
Utils software gets sold to businesses.. IE: if you need to use it, you HAVE to buy it, for fear of being audited. Games are sold to individuals. IE: it's very difficult to force someone to buy the product, short of breaking down their door, and saying "Aha! I've found a pirated copy of The Sims! You're in big trouble now!"
I think that if you added it all up, the amount of pirated MS Office, Win2k, AutoCad, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc, etc copies would far far outnumber the $$$ lost from Quake and Warcraft...
Razor, Class, etc crack mostly games, as you said. A game costs $50.
DoD, PWA (gone), LND (prob gone), etc, etc release utils. Some of these utils cost $20,000 or more..
I remember one year someone from PWA released the California DMV and Prison Day-Pass creation software..... Yes, it required a real nice printer for it to work with, but you can bet the FBI moved pretty damn quick to make sure it didn't get too far.
Every 2 or 3 years, we hear about how it has to be "oldschool" again, and security has to be tightened up on site, channels, etc within the scene.. But it always seems to revert back to the point where anyone with a hut.fi or a good supply pipeline can gain entry into the most prestigous out there (DoD being no exception). In your opinion, what will the major games/utils groups need to do to ensure the survival of the scene in the future?
Would you people please log in so I can differentiate the comments of AC1 from AC2?
regards,
Re:This NY Times article
on
More WTC News
·
· Score: 1
sorry, the original link does not have a space between the "13" and "AFGH.html". My lack of HTML skill is to blame for that. Please remove the space in the URL to get the page.
regards,
This NY Times article
on
More WTC News
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
was particularly brutal I thought. 2 quotes that really stood out for me:
"If there are Americans clamoring to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, they ought to know that this nation does not have so far to go"
and
"He had not thought much about an American retaliation against Afghanistan. When he did consider it, standing in a ramshackle collection of stalls, he shrugged and said: "Americans are powerful and can do anything they like without us stopping them.""
These aren't a bunch of bloodthirsty warmongering Arabs. They are a bunch of poor downtrodden regular people who are RULED by a totalitarian dictatorship.
These people don't want to go to war with america. (Though many of them remember just exactly who it was that funded the Taliban's original rise to power.)
They don't like the Taliban any more than you or I do. In fact, I don't think it is a stretch to say that the average Afghanistani HATES the Taliban. The problem of course is that if they say it, they'll be shot...
It's time that America stepped up to the plate and took some responsibility for it's actions.
Remove the Taliban from power. Do it swiftly, do it decisively, and do it brutally if that is required. But for god's sake: don't go to war with Afghanistan.
When it's all said and done, America needs to stick around, and REBUILD the damn country. Just like it did with Japan.
If that seems like an overly imperialistic idea, then that's because it is. But it would give the people of Afghanistan 3 fundamental things that they sure as hell don't have now:
If you meet the following conditions, you will be allowed entry to the U.S at this time:
1.) you must be a U.S. citizen
2.) you must be on official U.S. business, or have an immediate emergency need to return to the U.S.
The borders are backed up quite a bit just about everywhere right now, but in most areas, the RCMP are trying to intercept people heading that way, in order to help the border guards filter out the traffic..
I live in Vancouver, and every single hotel and lodging is booked solid. They are having a hard time finding places to put all the people who got diverted here from other internation flights.
Regardless of the backlash that you have generated over the Penguin+Peace graffiti campaign, it has to be considered a great success, from a brand awareness standpoint (no such thing as bad publicity, etc, etc).
You have obviously recognized that you are marketing to a different demographic than the average S/390 buyer. Will you be continuing with your 'guerilla marketing' strategies? If so, what's next!!
The thing is, it would again not be illegal to *gain access to the information* that would be required to run the news site..
Let's say for the sake of argument that they have some sort of script that runs on a big ISO site, and auto-updates the webpage, based on what gets upped.. The same script auto-extracts the.nfo's, etc, etc..
It would not be illegal to run that script.. Nor would it even be illegal to login to the site.. Then you get into the whole old argument of 'is couriering legal'?
Is shell trading more illegal than proxying, etc, etc?
I am by no means an expert, but afaik, it's still ok to LOGIN to sites.. just not to download from them..
Slashdot Mirror
Would it be fair to say that the Mayor is "blowing smoke up your ass"? ;)
And here's an excellent implementation of it in PERL:
. html
http://okcomputer.antiflux.org/~grant/asciimation
Strictly speaking, this isn't gambling, it's a game of skill, and will be regulated as such. Yes, you are wagering on a game of skill vs another person, but that's no more illegal than you and I having a friendly golf or pool game.
One of the reasons why it's very difficult for a casino to prosecute someone for counting cards is that as soon as they identify a card-counter, it becomes a very slippery slope. Card-counting suggests that having a particular skill gives you a distinct advantage against other competitors (or the house). This in turn makes games like blackjack and baccarat games of skill instead of games of chance. At this point, the casino is no longer in the gambling industry and is on dangerous ground, in terms of their casino license.
In any case, fragging someone for money is definitely a game of skill, you're just paying to play, and are being payed on a per-kill basis.
But it's not gambling.
perhaps then it is that the utils companies have the financial abililty/desire to direct law enforcement towards prosecution of people who pirate their software..
Utils software gets sold to businesses.. IE: if you need to use it, you HAVE to buy it, for fear of being audited. Games are sold to individuals. IE: it's very difficult to force someone to buy the product, short of breaking down their door, and saying "Aha! I've found a pirated copy of The Sims! You're in big trouble now!"
I think that if you added it all up, the amount of pirated MS Office, Win2k, AutoCad, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc, etc copies would far far outnumber the $$$ lost from Quake and Warcraft...
Razor, Class, etc crack mostly games, as you said. A game costs $50.
... Yes, it required a real nice printer for it to work with, but you can bet the FBI moved pretty damn quick to make sure it didn't get too far.
DoD, PWA (gone), LND (prob gone), etc, etc release utils. Some of these utils cost $20,000 or more..
I remember one year someone from PWA released the California DMV and Prison Day-Pass creation software..
Every 2 or 3 years, we hear about how it has to be "oldschool" again, and security has to be tightened up on site, channels, etc within the scene.. But it always seems to revert back to the point where anyone with a hut.fi or a good supply pipeline can gain entry into the most prestigous out there (DoD being no exception). In your opinion, what will the major games/utils groups need to do to ensure the survival of the scene in the future?
Damnit.
These are (2?) interesting discussions..
Would you people please log in so I can differentiate the comments of AC1 from AC2?
regards,
sorry, the original link does not have a space between the "13" and "AFGH.html". My lack of HTML skill is to blame for that. Please remove the space in the URL to get the page.
regards,
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/international/13 AFGH.html
was particularly brutal I thought. 2 quotes that really stood out for me:
"If there are Americans clamoring to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, they ought to know that this nation does not have so far to go"
and
"He had not thought much about an American retaliation against Afghanistan. When he did consider it, standing in a ramshackle collection of stalls, he shrugged and said: "Americans are powerful and can do anything they like without us stopping them.""
These aren't a bunch of bloodthirsty warmongering Arabs. They are a bunch of poor downtrodden regular people who are RULED by a totalitarian dictatorship.
These people don't want to go to war with america. (Though many of them remember just exactly who it was that funded the Taliban's original rise to power.)
They don't like the Taliban any more than you or I do. In fact, I don't think it is a stretch to say that the average Afghanistani HATES the Taliban. The problem of course is that if they say it, they'll be shot...
It's time that America stepped up to the plate and took some responsibility for it's actions.
Remove the Taliban from power. Do it swiftly, do it decisively, and do it brutally if that is required. But for god's sake: don't go to war with Afghanistan.
When it's all said and done, America needs to stick around, and REBUILD the damn country. Just like it did with Japan.
If that seems like an overly imperialistic idea, then that's because it is. But it would give the people of Afghanistan 3 fundamental things that they sure as hell don't have now:
Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The Canadian border is not entirely closed.
If you meet the following conditions, you will be allowed entry to the U.S at this time:
1.) you must be a U.S. citizen
2.) you must be on official U.S. business, or have an immediate emergency need to return to the U.S.
The borders are backed up quite a bit just about everywhere right now, but in most areas, the RCMP are trying to intercept people heading that way, in order to help the border guards filter out the traffic..
I live in Vancouver, and every single hotel and lodging is booked solid. They are having a hard time finding places to put all the people who got diverted here from other internation flights.
Regardless of the backlash that you have generated over the Penguin+Peace graffiti campaign, it has to be considered a great success, from a brand awareness standpoint (no such thing as bad publicity, etc, etc). You have obviously recognized that you are marketing to a different demographic than the average S/390 buyer. Will you be continuing with your 'guerilla marketing' strategies? If so, what's next!!
The thing is, it would again not be illegal to *gain access to the information* that would be required to run the news site..
.nfo's, etc, etc..
Let's say for the sake of argument that they have some sort of script that runs on a big ISO site, and auto-updates the webpage, based on what gets upped.. The same script auto-extracts the
It would not be illegal to run that script.. Nor would it even be illegal to login to the site.. Then you get into the whole old argument of 'is couriering legal'?
Is shell trading more illegal than proxying, etc, etc?
I am by no means an expert, but afaik, it's still ok to LOGIN to sites.. just not to download from them..
Can anyone confirm or refute this?
"I don't recall remembering anyone that has successfully been litigated upon for having mere NFO files. "
*cough*..
you would know, toast... you would know..
-nd
stfu alkivar... like you've never DoS'd anything in your life.. .. ;]
go trade!
-DiMENSiON