Criminal responsibility? Sorry. If I call you a flaming homosexual moron, and you go commit suicide, I've not committed a criminal act. Of course, that goes both ways - if you call ME the same thing, and I commit suicide, you aren't criminally liable either.
If you call me a "flaming homosexual moron", you have no idea of what my mental state is. You don't know me. I am a complete stranger. However, this case didn't involve complete strangers. This case involved an adult who had some knowledge of the mental state of her victim. This involved a case of an adult who went out of her way to cultivate a lie; create the deception of a personal relationship with the girl. This adult set up an emotional unstable teenager to be her most vulnerable. And then that adult let loose with an insult that would take the most advantage and do the most damage in this crafted situation.
This is not a case of flaming on an Internet forum. This is not heated words or throw-away insults. This was something far beyond the pale of what you're describing.
No. Criminally this was a manslaughter case if it was anything at all. One that had to be brought in Missouri. Drew didn't particularly harass the child. One element of harassment is the repetitive nature of the offense. You don't just pester someone once; you do it over and over again. Megan didn't get an email every day for a year saying "Nobody likes you; today's a good day to kill yourself."
I see. So Drew was able to cultivate this false relationship with the girl in order to inflict emotional damage all with a single message? It didn't take a pattern of repeated communications to pull this off?
While I'm not particularly sold on this notion myself, it does bear a lot of semblance to the idea that code can be proven "secure" if it stands after a multitude of random attacks, which is basically one of the tenets of OSS.
I'm pretty sure that's not a tenet of OSS. If someone is pushing that as a tenet, then they really need to pay closer attention to history. A history of resilience is a nice metric - but it's not "proof" that code is bug-free rather just that nobody has found a given bug or made it public. People who get caught up in vulnerability counts forget that the real metric is response to a given vulnerability.
One tenet you hear bandied about is "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." Criticism tends to revolve around whether enough eyeballs have been put to any particular piece of code. Although one could argue that it's not just the number of eyeballs - but whether said eyeballs have the training to look for particular kinds of bugs that might not show up in normal use of the given code. None of that has anything to do with the frequency of attack.
I never understood why MMOs didn't implement some sort of PvP honor system that takes into account the difference between levels and awards or takes away from a players honorabilty, like a morality meter in some rpgs.
This is an old debate WoW. This sort of system is only a deterrent if the losses are harder than the gains. That is, gaining honor is slower than losing honor for attacking a lowbie. And then you'll have griefers gaming the "morality meter" to screw with folks' hard-earned honor points.
As SpartacusJones noted, WoW's honor points system was very different when it was first introduced. Honor wasn't a currency but a sort of meter. Honor was difficult to come by and very quick to lose when you attacked and killed a "civilian" NPC in a town. And nothing would break up a worldpvp raiding party faster than someone accidentally aggroing a civilian - eveyone in the raid lost honor for that kill.
I guess I just kinda assumed that Joss was helping her out on this.
Joss has noted The Guild as being an inspiration for doing Dr. Horrible. So there's some recognition there, but it certainly doesn't sound like there's any direct help. It seems more like The Guild was in production well before Joss was even aware of it.
I think it was during the Comicon panel on The Guild that Felicia explained the involvement of Jed, Joss' brother. It went something along the lines that they decided they needed some teaser to start up the new season and thought a music video would be fun. Felicia called Jed because of the great job he did with Dr. Horrible, not really expecting that he'd have time to work on it. To her surprise, not only did he say 'yes' but he almost immediately had an initial score hashed out based on her lyrics. As an aside, Joss' wife is one of the backup dancers in the video.
In most of them, you can make a report - even one without enough facts to solve the problem - without being called a troll.
I suppose you're right. You usually get ignored or called "noob" or whatever derogatory term that community uses. But then, most communities don't get trolled in this way.
The final paragraph is a pretty good summary of the author's viewpoint:
Finally I'd rather have a proprietary derived work than no derived program at all, or that instead someone will duplicate my effort in creating a BSD-style or a proprietary replacement for my work.
The author doesn't trust regional variations in the treatment of the public domain. The author doesn't really care about Free Software, much less Open Source software. And as such, his opinion is to use a license that enforces the general understanding of the public domain.
Pirating was the main reason for bnetd. Period. If you can't come to terms with this, then you aren't living in reality.
The only reason for bnetd was to run a private battle.net-compatible server. If you can't come to terms with this, you're either mis-informed or deliberately ignoring facts.
Yes, there are tons of things that an open source server could provide. But they aren't doing this to help solve Blizzard's problems, they are doing it for the intellectual challenge and to allow people to play pirated copies of the game online. Listen, this is Blizzard's game. If they provide a service 10 years after a game is released, it shows a hell of a commitment to that game. Yet instead of acknowledging how much support they give for a really old game, you want to cry and moan about something that was designed to allow people to play the game without paying the people who created it.
The thing is, there has been a long standing tradition of reverse engineering that has benefited us all. It doesn't matter if this helps Blizzard or not. It doesn't matter if Blizzard wants to support a game for 10 years. Blizzard's desires do not enter in to this in so far as those doing the reverse engineering aren't falling afoul of copyright. Or at least - it shouldn't. Blizzard is at the forefront of creating legal precedent that should really concern everyone who has any interest (vested or otherwise) in technology.
Quite frankly, it is people like you who give the open source community a bad name. You refuse to admit the reality of the situation. You refuse to understand the other side (i.e. software developers should be able to protect their software from pirates). You expect everything for free...because Blizzard quality games can be produced by anyone? Give me a break.
Quite frankly, people like you are far too eager to give up our rights. You refuse to admit the reality of the situation. You refuse to understand the other side (i.e. reverse engineering is not a crime). And you dismiss it all as a pro-piracy something-for-nothing ploy. Give me a break, indeed.
You posted links to the password recovery process, which the GP also posted. I asked for citation showing not saving the config to memory being good security practice. Still waiting...
The issue is what exactly was done where in what situation. I've seen the claim that he removed configurations to only allow the running config to remain active (as you're questioning). And I've seen it stated that he used "no service password-recovery" on other devices. I wouldn't find it at all out of line to use the former if the later wasn't available. They both will provide the same essential level of security - protecting credentials and configuration from physical access.
Perhaps I should have added some explanation for my links. I am specifically interested in the "no service password-recovery" command. From the first link:
Although the ability to perform this type of password recovery often proves useful to administrators, if the router's physical security cannot be guaranteed, this feature opens a vulnerability for attackers. To mitigate this threat, an administrator can disable the password recovery feature by issuing the no service password-recovery command in global configuration mode. After entering this command, the administrator is cautioned not to execute this command without another plan for password recovery, because ROMMON will no longer be accessible.
The Cisco link provides a tad bit more info on what it does. The command is also noted in Cisco's own guide to hardening IOS devices:
Michael Phelps and Lance Armstrong are often held as examples of genetic advantage. Although there are some who disagree to some point. I wouldn't doubt that genetic advantage is just that - an advantage. It takes more than just genetics to succeed. But it appears that in modern sports, at that level, genetic advantages aren't all that uncommon.
Also, I always thought it would be fun to see a wow-BG game...give people some basic gear options (like the low level BG rewards and a few other items to allow a wider build selection) and let them spec out characters with the proper number of talent points...I always liked the 30-39 and 40-49 ranges for class balance and ability to compete without twinking...and let it run like a normal online game.
I always thought the arenas should have run in a similar manner - a pool of gear you set up before entering that's junk outside the arena. It would be interesting to do BGs in a similar manner.
Characters should die when they get old. Items that are bound to that character will disappear. There could be a memorial wall for important characters.
I'm not sure people would be excited to play Logan's Run Online.
Is Blizzard aware of how many of their customers use Linux? Do these statistics show up via Warden and/or the occasional "non-identifying system statistics" reports?
Blizzard has noted that they allow the use of Cedega and Wine but will not provide technical support. They have worked with the Cedega developers on issues. And there's whispers that they have unofficially worked with Wine developers.
What does Blizzard get for these efforts? Are there insights to bugs / issues to the game client that aren't apparent on the supported platforms? Or is this just a fun side project that helps out a (presumably) smaller subset of fans / customers?
I remember reading in a post on the Wow forums, that infact most of the staff actually use a linux client, but the cost/benefit ratio of support and patch testing for a linux client makes it impossible to release. At any rate, there is blue support on the forums for using WoW with wine.
There is blue support in so far as they won't support it.;) But they do recognize the use of Cedega and Wine and generally allow for it.
The issue would be finding others to bond with during "the grind." The same power-leveler you're going to beg in Dalaran is the one running characters you're going to run in to out in the world of "the grind." Are you expecting them to slow down to drag you along?
It was different at one point. Years ago, the world was full of folks just starting out. Now they are minority. The other day, just for giggles, I started some lowbie characters on a new realm. I was looking forward to hitting the first instance as I have fond memories from the first time me and some friends set foot in there. And while I found it sort of fun - I realized that it was almost trivial to run as all the players knew how to run instances and the majority had Heirloom items. Anyone truely new to the game would have been simply running along in the wake of the rest of the party.
You can never go back. The game world is not the same as it was in the past. Come in to the world, and the majority of your social structure (friends, guild mates, etc.) will probably be somewhere in or near the End Game. The folks you meet along the way are likely already experienced - some of them with elitist attitudes. The best you can hope for is that some of your social structure still has time and open character slots (all my "leveling friends" alts are now at least in their 60s if not 80) to enjoy the earlier parts of the game along with you.
Slashdot Mirror
Amazing that nobody got the reference.
NOBODY expects the reference.
Criminal responsibility? Sorry. If I call you a flaming homosexual moron, and you go commit suicide, I've not committed a criminal act. Of course, that goes both ways - if you call ME the same thing, and I commit suicide, you aren't criminally liable either.
If you call me a "flaming homosexual moron", you have no idea of what my mental state is. You don't know me. I am a complete stranger. However, this case didn't involve complete strangers. This case involved an adult who had some knowledge of the mental state of her victim. This involved a case of an adult who went out of her way to cultivate a lie; create the deception of a personal relationship with the girl. This adult set up an emotional unstable teenager to be her most vulnerable. And then that adult let loose with an insult that would take the most advantage and do the most damage in this crafted situation.
This is not a case of flaming on an Internet forum. This is not heated words or throw-away insults. This was something far beyond the pale of what you're describing.
No. Criminally this was a manslaughter case if it was anything at all. One that had to be brought in Missouri. Drew didn't particularly harass the child. One element of harassment is the repetitive nature of the offense. You don't just pester someone once; you do it over and over again. Megan didn't get an email every day for a year saying "Nobody likes you; today's a good day to kill yourself."
I see. So Drew was able to cultivate this false relationship with the girl in order to inflict emotional damage all with a single message? It didn't take a pattern of repeated communications to pull this off?
While I'm not particularly sold on this notion myself, it does bear a lot of semblance to the idea that code can be proven "secure" if it stands after a multitude of random attacks, which is basically one of the tenets of OSS.
I'm pretty sure that's not a tenet of OSS. If someone is pushing that as a tenet, then they really need to pay closer attention to history. A history of resilience is a nice metric - but it's not "proof" that code is bug-free rather just that nobody has found a given bug or made it public. People who get caught up in vulnerability counts forget that the real metric is response to a given vulnerability.
One tenet you hear bandied about is "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." Criticism tends to revolve around whether enough eyeballs have been put to any particular piece of code. Although one could argue that it's not just the number of eyeballs - but whether said eyeballs have the training to look for particular kinds of bugs that might not show up in normal use of the given code. None of that has anything to do with the frequency of attack.
I never understood why MMOs didn't implement some sort of PvP honor system that takes into account the difference between levels and awards or takes away from a players honorabilty, like a morality meter in some rpgs.
This is an old debate WoW. This sort of system is only a deterrent if the losses are harder than the gains. That is, gaining honor is slower than losing honor for attacking a lowbie. And then you'll have griefers gaming the "morality meter" to screw with folks' hard-earned honor points.
As SpartacusJones noted, WoW's honor points system was very different when it was first introduced. Honor wasn't a currency but a sort of meter. Honor was difficult to come by and very quick to lose when you attacked and killed a "civilian" NPC in a town. And nothing would break up a worldpvp raiding party faster than someone accidentally aggroing a civilian - eveyone in the raid lost honor for that kill.
I guess I just kinda assumed that Joss was helping her out on this.
Joss has noted The Guild as being an inspiration for doing Dr. Horrible. So there's some recognition there, but it certainly doesn't sound like there's any direct help. It seems more like The Guild was in production well before Joss was even aware of it.
I think it was during the Comicon panel on The Guild that Felicia explained the involvement of Jed, Joss' brother. It went something along the lines that they decided they needed some teaser to start up the new season and thought a music video would be fun. Felicia called Jed because of the great job he did with Dr. Horrible, not really expecting that he'd have time to work on it. To her surprise, not only did he say 'yes' but he almost immediately had an initial score hashed out based on her lyrics. As an aside, Joss' wife is one of the backup dancers in the video.
In most of them, you can make a report - even one without enough facts to solve the problem - without being called a troll.
I suppose you're right. You usually get ignored or called "noob" or whatever derogatory term that community uses. But then, most communities don't get trolled in this way.
Good old Linux community, where posting "I have this problem..." gets you the response "YOU DO NOT HAVE A PROBLEM! POST PROOF OR RETRACT!"
Tell me of a technical community (support or otherwise) that isn't like this.
The final paragraph is a pretty good summary of the author's viewpoint:
Finally I'd rather have a proprietary derived work than no derived program at all, or that instead someone will duplicate my effort in creating a BSD-style or a proprietary replacement for my work.
The author doesn't trust regional variations in the treatment of the public domain. The author doesn't really care about Free Software, much less Open Source software. And as such, his opinion is to use a license that enforces the general understanding of the public domain.
Pirating was the main reason for bnetd. Period. If you can't come to terms with this, then you aren't living in reality.
The only reason for bnetd was to run a private battle.net-compatible server. If you can't come to terms with this, you're either mis-informed or deliberately ignoring facts.
Yes, there are tons of things that an open source server could provide. But they aren't doing this to help solve Blizzard's problems, they are doing it for the intellectual challenge and to allow people to play pirated copies of the game online. Listen, this is Blizzard's game. If they provide a service 10 years after a game is released, it shows a hell of a commitment to that game. Yet instead of acknowledging how much support they give for a really old game, you want to cry and moan about something that was designed to allow people to play the game without paying the people who created it.
The thing is, there has been a long standing tradition of reverse engineering that has benefited us all. It doesn't matter if this helps Blizzard or not. It doesn't matter if Blizzard wants to support a game for 10 years. Blizzard's desires do not enter in to this in so far as those doing the reverse engineering aren't falling afoul of copyright. Or at least - it shouldn't. Blizzard is at the forefront of creating legal precedent that should really concern everyone who has any interest (vested or otherwise) in technology.
Quite frankly, it is people like you who give the open source community a bad name. You refuse to admit the reality of the situation. You refuse to understand the other side (i.e. software developers should be able to protect their software from pirates). You expect everything for free...because Blizzard quality games can be produced by anyone? Give me a break.
Quite frankly, people like you are far too eager to give up our rights. You refuse to admit the reality of the situation. You refuse to understand the other side (i.e. reverse engineering is not a crime). And you dismiss it all as a pro-piracy something-for-nothing ploy. Give me a break, indeed.
A color TV takes moving said TV in to a room and applying power. Plumbing is much more involved. And so is broadband.
You posted links to the password recovery process, which the GP also posted. I asked for citation showing not saving the config to memory being good security practice. Still waiting...
The issue is what exactly was done where in what situation. I've seen the claim that he removed configurations to only allow the running config to remain active (as you're questioning). And I've seen it stated that he used "no service password-recovery" on other devices. I wouldn't find it at all out of line to use the former if the later wasn't available. They both will provide the same essential level of security - protecting credentials and configuration from physical access.
Perhaps I should have added some explanation for my links. I am specifically interested in the "no service password-recovery" command. From the first link:
Although the ability to perform this type of password recovery often proves useful to administrators, if the router's physical security cannot be guaranteed, this feature opens a vulnerability for attackers. To mitigate this threat, an administrator can disable the password recovery feature by issuing the no service password-recovery command in global configuration mode. After entering this command, the administrator is cautioned not to execute this command without another plan for password recovery, because ROMMON will no longer be accessible.
The Cisco link provides a tad bit more info on what it does. The command is also noted in Cisco's own guide to hardening IOS devices:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk648/tk361/technologies_tech_note09186a0080120f48.shtml
Bottom line: that is NOT good security practice. Show me one citation where this is recommended.
http://searchnetworkingchannel.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid100_gci1334133,00.html
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps274/products_configuration_example09186a00801d8113.shtml
Michael Phelps and Lance Armstrong are often held as examples of genetic advantage. Although there are some who disagree to some point. I wouldn't doubt that genetic advantage is just that - an advantage. It takes more than just genetics to succeed. But it appears that in modern sports, at that level, genetic advantages aren't all that uncommon.
Also, I always thought it would be fun to see a wow-BG game...give people some basic gear options (like the low level BG rewards and a few other items to allow a wider build selection) and let them spec out characters with the proper number of talent points...I always liked the 30-39 and 40-49 ranges for class balance and ability to compete without twinking...and let it run like a normal online game.
I always thought the arenas should have run in a similar manner - a pool of gear you set up before entering that's junk outside the arena. It would be interesting to do BGs in a similar manner.
Characters should die when they get old. Items that are bound to that character will disappear. There could be a memorial wall for important characters.
I'm not sure people would be excited to play Logan's Run Online.
Another question:
Is Blizzard aware of how many of their customers use Linux? Do these statistics show up via Warden and/or the occasional "non-identifying system statistics" reports?
Another question in this thread:
Blizzard has noted that they allow the use of Cedega and Wine but will not provide technical support. They have worked with the Cedega developers on issues. And there's whispers that they have unofficially worked with Wine developers.
What does Blizzard get for these efforts? Are there insights to bugs / issues to the game client that aren't apparent on the supported platforms? Or is this just a fun side project that helps out a (presumably) smaller subset of fans / customers?
I remember reading in a post on the Wow forums, that infact most of the staff actually use a linux client, but the cost/benefit ratio of support and patch testing for a linux client makes it impossible to release. At any rate, there is blue support on the forums for using WoW with wine.
There is blue support in so far as they won't support it. ;) But they do recognize the use of Cedega and Wine and generally allow for it.
The issue would be finding others to bond with during "the grind." The same power-leveler you're going to beg in Dalaran is the one running characters you're going to run in to out in the world of "the grind." Are you expecting them to slow down to drag you along?
It was different at one point. Years ago, the world was full of folks just starting out. Now they are minority. The other day, just for giggles, I started some lowbie characters on a new realm. I was looking forward to hitting the first instance as I have fond memories from the first time me and some friends set foot in there. And while I found it sort of fun - I realized that it was almost trivial to run as all the players knew how to run instances and the majority had Heirloom items. Anyone truely new to the game would have been simply running along in the wake of the rest of the party.
You can never go back. The game world is not the same as it was in the past. Come in to the world, and the majority of your social structure (friends, guild mates, etc.) will probably be somewhere in or near the End Game. The folks you meet along the way are likely already experienced - some of them with elitist attitudes. The best you can hope for is that some of your social structure still has time and open character slots (all my "leveling friends" alts are now at least in their 60s if not 80) to enjoy the earlier parts of the game along with you.
These are sad times when the Internet fails us.
The actual linked article talks about how this guy had altered the original Times cover. I know how quaint RTFA is... but still. There it is. ;)
Yes, it is, but it was Times' parody and he just added "socialism" under it.
Time made no parody with it's cover.
Tivo.
UO is one of those old celebrities who you thought were dead, but aren't. They just have elves.