I'm just laughing because the article title has too many R's in it. (as of this posting anyways. With my luck it'll be corrected before anyone else reads this.)
This is what I'm talking about. The individuals who have these unsecured APs are creating an attractive nuisance. It would be poetic justice in my mind if someone were to wardrive, identify open APs, and then have them all served with takedown notices, or better yet, summons. Neighbors who blast their stereos, have their TVs on loudly or in other ways create a nuisance are normally either told to cut it out by the police, or fined. Bottom line, this is primarily a TRESPASS, not a THEFT.
For all those who vouch for the position that Joe Sixpack should be ENTITLED to simply hook up his equipment and turn it on with no understanding of how it works, I would note that in many cases, specialized equipment (especially radio equipment) requires training and licensing from a governmental body. "Just because you CAN do it, doesn't mean that you SHOULD." Pandering to or subsidizing laziness and/or ignorance is irresponsible and dangerous to society at large, IMO. Don't tell me that anyone has the right to be ignorant either, compulsory school laws state otherwise.
The fact is that there is no good analogy for a situation like this. People need to take a different approach to understanding the situation and formulating an assessment of how to deal with the problem. I agree that in THIS CASE SPECIFICALLY, the individual accessing the AP was in the wrong. Needs to be prosecuted? YES. But that does NOT mean that there needs to be BLANKET PROTECTION for ignorant operators. Normally, people who create a situation which invites crime are looked down upon. This should be no different.
Reverse engineering is not free from cost, and does not happen instantly. Anyone whose primary concern with developing a given item is how much money they can make off of it gets no respect from me anyways. IMHO, people/companies that are dedicated to their dollar instead of their product should be run out of business anyways.
That being said, patents of all types need to be reduced in duration to a maximum time such that no one can rest on their laurels. As I understand it, the goal of the patent system is *primarily* for society to milk good ideas out of people, not for people to milk good ideas.
It's more a principle thing than anything else. True, you can skirt the agreement here and there, but I chose to take the perspective that people want to stay legit. The agreement states "shall provide" and "complete and accurate", and is (as I understand) a fully binding document.
My site, and its content, targets a specific profile of gamer -- me. The hope is that some other people may find it useful as well. It is not supposed to be some sort of crusade (as was stated by another poster).
As much as I may have failed at it, I'm not trying to come off as some elitist stating that "thou shalt not play the unholy BF2" or similar (*smirk*), but rather that someone might get the message that the game has its (fatal) flaws and be more prepared for what they're getting out of the deal.
EA has already stated that they will de-list unranked servers which enable the unlocked weapons for all players -- because it is a "hack". What is EA's next move?
*sigh* The review is from the perspecive of someone who does not play online. Period. So you are correct, I haven't played it online. In fact, I thought I made it quite clear that the focus of the site is on "lone" gamers. Hence the name.
Battlefield 2 *does* state that it has singleplayer functionality. BF1942 and Vietnam both had relatively better singleplayer and small-LAN functionality. This review is based on that perspective.
The licensing I refer to are the provisions that require you to surrender your name, address, and home phone numbers to GameSpy, and the provision that requires you to surrender IP rights to all "content" which touches an EA or GameSpy server. Valve did the same thing with HL2, which is why I don't play HL2.
If you are going to use the software, they have every right to put restrictions on it.
Agreed, and I have every right to call them on it.
If you don't agree with those restrictions, don't use the software. Simple as that.
I know you want to wave your sword play along with the make-believe crusade, but you're just another dope sitting on your ass playing video games all day. If the issue is that important to you, start a group to make an Open Source game with no restrictions.
I take it your *opinion* is that licensing is not a "valid" or "acceptable" criterion for review. I disagree. Simple as that.
I wrote my own review of BF2 on my offline-gaming centered website, which I named "The Lone Gamer". In addition to the experience I wrote down there, I also had the opportunity to try and get a co-op mode running at a LAN party last weekend.
Battlefield 2 is a great concept, but the reality of it is that it is a step towards a FPS game built on a MMORPG-style business plan. There are a lot of factors pushing users towards using the "ranked" servers -- it is the only way to "unlock" additional weapons. The licensing is scary as well, as you are agreeing to not use the game with third-party game locating software, forcing you to use the built-in gamespy browser, and thus agreeing to the GameSpy agreement.
All in all, you are paying much more than $50 for this game. It is a reasonably enjoyable experience, if you play by EA's rules. If not, it is going to be a giant mound of frustration.
Another thing that's going to become a problem for tech companies is that it will, for a while at least, become an employee's market. Meaning companies will have to drop the copyright 0wnage agreements, etc. which to my knowledge have been a sticking point with the more active of the programming crowd. Who wants to work for a company that claims copyright on your coding that you do at home, especially if it is unrelated to what you work on?
The great thing about this position you have, is that it is possible for me to create a situation which causes your equipment to automatically connect to mine, without my having "something like a big old sign that says "Free Wireless Access" AND instructions as to how to connect AND, once you've joined the network, an announcement of the terms and conditions of use.", and also without you having initiated any action whatsoever. In which case, I have caused you to break the law.
Example:
I set up an access point which has the same SSID as yours, runs on the same channel, but with a much stronger signal. Assuming both have no security beyond protection of law, your PC could automatically connect to my AP instead of your own. Which would mean you hacked my AP.
I think you've completely missed the point, which was that "he' s well within his rights to close the thread", but that it's childish and somewhat cowardly to do so. I'd throw in arrogance as well, personally. Your argument that it's "totally different" because it's a private forum instead of a public forum is correct -- in pointing out that the GP's analogy is flawed. You seem to completely ignore the subjective assessment of pettiness.
I would be one of the first to defend anyone's right to remove offensive, obnoxious, or other "inappropriate" posts to their forums, blog, etc. I'm also willing to call people arrogant, childish, etc for doing so. Statements like "I'm going to get the last word in, because I can" are prima facie towards that judgement.
In addition to this, I say we google bomb "TigerDirect" to point to Apple's Tiger release announcement/product page. F lame lawsuits, and the people who file them!
Parents, churches, and governments are not here to suppress you. They are here to guide and teach.
Subjective. You might believe that, as may a majority of people, but I hope that you would concede that anyone/everyone has the *right* to believe otherwise, regardless of whether you think it's correct.
If we are to live in a free society, we need people with wisdom and understanding, not ignorance and arrogance.
This part I wholly agree with. It is the ignorance of parents that is drawing the ire here. Kids are and will continue to complain that parents do not understand them. Those parents that do, or at least give out that perception to their kids, would, I'd guess, have less of a hard time keeping them in line.
One thing I worry about as far as systems security is how information can "leak" out of a system. Of course there's the internet, or any other network connection. Then there's the one article on slashdot some time ago that detailed how one can reconstruct the image on your CRT display by intercepting the RF emissions.
If I was to secure a box, The *first* thing I'd do would be to put it in a vault, and sever all network links. I wouldn't even have the vault door open with the machine on. If there's no network connection to the machine, physical security is key, and indeed all that really matters.
But I think it's all a matter of perspective. Are you trying to protect your stuff from casual crooks and script kiddies, or more determined individuals who are much more clandestine in their operations?
A friend of mine spent closer to $10K on his gaming rig, buying not only a completely new system from the ground up using only the newest and highest-end (read: most pricey) hardware, but also the highest end set of 7.1 surround speakers he could get.
I believe he's running an Athlon 64 FX processor but other than that I don't know too much about his system.
Here's the best part:
We're having a LAN party at his place this weekend and he's not even going to be playing. He very rarely uses his PC at all, let alone to play games.
Keep in mind, that the main game developer for the mac (that I know of) Westlake Interactive is IMHO not very good at coding for OS X, at least not yet. UT, which ran fine in OS 9, under OS X has terrible input support, runs slower because it is not using any OS level graphics acceleration, and has buggy sound support also.
In other words, using games as a benchmark is not a good idea.
What is this "right" crap you guys keep talking about? You mean acceptable by your standards? Geez don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
And what's all this "Since I'm doing this for free, It's perfectly OK for me treat you like crap!" BS I keep hearing?
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, eh? If a gift horse craps on my shoe, you better believe I'm gonna have something to say about that, even though he did it for free.
The fact that he broke the law in a misguided attempt to disseminate otherwise protected speech does not make this a Free Speech issue.
I don't understand why everyone feels it is necessary to call any apparent attempt at defense via a 1st amendment claim utter BS.
Not because it isn't, but because everyone should already know this. All of these should get a -1 offtopic, or at least redundant, while I will probably earn a -1, troll, or -1 flamebait for pointing out how stupid these posts are.
Remind me *never* to hire any of you guys as marketing consultants.
Does it cost AOL money to run those servers, yes. Should they open them up, it would be nice.
But if it's such a big loss for them, why are there all of these free IM implementations with servers set up? How come they don't get all upset over the costs?
this site has alot of information on GeForce troubleshooting. Much of it is not platform specific. I think they even mention this bug in there somewhere.
But AMD and it's people should have been better about getting the word out. It took me awhile to find out about the CPU bug. (Though I later found out that my mobo was bad. Still haven't replaced it yet.)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm just laughing because the article title has too many R's in it. (as of this posting anyways. With my luck it'll be corrected before anyone else reads this.)
That seems vastly overcomplicated but might explain why I could never get text from Xterm to paste into Firefox from a VNC session.
This is why I'm glad I don't have to use X as a desktop for actual work.
This is what I'm talking about. The individuals who have these unsecured APs are creating an attractive nuisance. It would be poetic justice in my mind if someone were to wardrive, identify open APs, and then have them all served with takedown notices, or better yet, summons. Neighbors who blast their stereos, have their TVs on loudly or in other ways create a nuisance are normally either told to cut it out by the police, or fined. Bottom line, this is primarily a TRESPASS, not a THEFT.
For all those who vouch for the position that Joe Sixpack should be ENTITLED to simply hook up his equipment and turn it on with no understanding of how it works, I would note that in many cases, specialized equipment (especially radio equipment) requires training and licensing from a governmental body. "Just because you CAN do it, doesn't mean that you SHOULD." Pandering to or subsidizing laziness and/or ignorance is irresponsible and dangerous to society at large, IMO. Don't tell me that anyone has the right to be ignorant either, compulsory school laws state otherwise.
The fact is that there is no good analogy for a situation like this. People need to take a different approach to understanding the situation and formulating an assessment of how to deal with the problem. I agree that in THIS CASE SPECIFICALLY, the individual accessing the AP was in the wrong. Needs to be prosecuted? YES. But that does NOT mean that there needs to be BLANKET PROTECTION for ignorant operators. Normally, people who create a situation which invites crime are looked down upon. This should be no different.
Reverse engineering is not free from cost, and does not happen instantly. Anyone whose primary concern with developing a given item is how much money they can make off of it gets no respect from me anyways. IMHO, people/companies that are dedicated to their dollar instead of their product should be run out of business anyways.
That being said, patents of all types need to be reduced in duration to a maximum time such that no one can rest on their laurels. As I understand it, the goal of the patent system is *primarily* for society to milk good ideas out of people, not for people to milk good ideas.
It's more a principle thing than anything else. True, you can skirt the agreement here and there, but I chose to take the perspective that people want to stay legit. The agreement states "shall provide" and "complete and accurate", and is (as I understand) a fully binding document.
My site, and its content, targets a specific profile of gamer -- me. The hope is that some other people may find it useful as well. It is not supposed to be some sort of crusade (as was stated by another poster).
As much as I may have failed at it, I'm not trying to come off as some elitist stating that "thou shalt not play the unholy BF2" or similar (*smirk*), but rather that someone might get the message that the game has its (fatal) flaws and be more prepared for what they're getting out of the deal.
EA has already stated that they will de-list unranked servers which enable the unlocked weapons for all players -- because it is a "hack". What is EA's next move?
*sigh* The review is from the perspecive of someone who does not play online. Period. So you are correct, I haven't played it online. In fact, I thought I made it quite clear that the focus of the site is on "lone" gamers. Hence the name.
Battlefield 2 *does* state that it has singleplayer functionality. BF1942 and Vietnam both had relatively better singleplayer and small-LAN functionality. This review is based on that perspective.
The licensing I refer to are the provisions that require you to surrender your name, address, and home phone numbers to GameSpy, and the provision that requires you to surrender IP rights to all "content" which touches an EA or GameSpy server. Valve did the same thing with HL2, which is why I don't play HL2.
Agreed, and I have every right to call them on it.
I take it your *opinion* is that licensing is not a "valid" or "acceptable" criterion for review. I disagree. Simple as that.
Battlefield 2 is a great concept, but the reality of it is that it is a step towards a FPS game built on a MMORPG-style business plan. There are a lot of factors pushing users towards using the "ranked" servers -- it is the only way to "unlock" additional weapons. The licensing is scary as well, as you are agreeing to not use the game with third-party game locating software, forcing you to use the built-in gamespy browser, and thus agreeing to the GameSpy agreement.
All in all, you are paying much more than $50 for this game. It is a reasonably enjoyable experience, if you play by EA's rules. If not, it is going to be a giant mound of frustration.
Another thing that's going to become a problem for tech companies is that it will, for a while at least, become an employee's market. Meaning companies will have to drop the copyright 0wnage agreements, etc. which to my knowledge have been a sticking point with the more active of the programming crowd. Who wants to work for a company that claims copyright on your coding that you do at home, especially if it is unrelated to what you work on?
The great thing about this position you have, is that it is possible for me to create a situation which causes your equipment to automatically connect to mine, without my having "something like a big old sign that says "Free Wireless Access" AND instructions as to how to connect AND, once you've joined the network, an announcement of the terms and conditions of use.", and also without you having initiated any action whatsoever. In which case, I have caused you to break the law.
Example:
I set up an access point which has the same SSID as yours, runs on the same channel, but with a much stronger signal. Assuming both have no security beyond protection of law, your PC could automatically connect to my AP instead of your own. Which would mean you hacked my AP.
Please, explain this away.
I think you've completely missed the point, which was that "he' s well within his rights to close the thread", but that it's childish and somewhat cowardly to do so. I'd throw in arrogance as well, personally. Your argument that it's "totally different" because it's a private forum instead of a public forum is correct -- in pointing out that the GP's analogy is flawed. You seem to completely ignore the subjective assessment of pettiness.
I would be one of the first to defend anyone's right to remove offensive, obnoxious, or other "inappropriate" posts to their forums, blog, etc. I'm also willing to call people arrogant, childish, etc for doing so. Statements like "I'm going to get the last word in, because I can" are prima facie towards that judgement.
Butt head vendor
TigerDirect
Disclaimer: I am not a parent.
One thing I worry about as far as systems security is how information can "leak" out of a system. Of course there's the internet, or any other network connection. Then there's the one article on slashdot some time ago that detailed how one can reconstruct the image on your CRT display by intercepting the RF emissions.
If I was to secure a box, The *first* thing I'd do would be to put it in a vault, and sever all network links. I wouldn't even have the vault door open with the machine on. If there's no network connection to the machine, physical security is key, and indeed all that really matters.
But I think it's all a matter of perspective. Are you trying to protect your stuff from casual crooks and script kiddies, or more determined individuals who are much more clandestine in their operations?
...I found the Register's characterization of the MPAA Amusing. Quote the article:
"The Motion Picture Ass. of America (MPAA)"
'course that may be old news by now.
A better analogy would be to ask "If I steal a car from a dealership, can I bring it back to get parts?"
The answer is yes, though you may get caught for doing it.
A friend of mine spent closer to $10K on his gaming rig, buying not only a completely new system from the ground up using only the newest and highest-end (read: most pricey) hardware, but also the highest end set of 7.1 surround speakers he could get.
I believe he's running an Athlon 64 FX processor but other than that I don't know too much about his system.
Here's the best part:
We're having a LAN party at his place this weekend and he's not even going to be playing. He very rarely uses his PC at all, let alone to play games.
Keep in mind, that the main game developer for the mac (that I know of) Westlake Interactive is IMHO not very good at coding for OS X, at least not yet. UT, which ran fine in OS 9, under OS X has terrible input support, runs slower because it is not using any OS level graphics acceleration, and has buggy sound support also.
In other words, using games as a benchmark is not a good idea.
...aside from a few scratches on the screen from repeated rounds of solitaire. I've had it since fall/2000.
he says it right here:
btw, nicely assembled troll. You should meet these guys. (See what I mean here.)
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, eh? If a gift horse craps on my shoe, you better believe I'm gonna have something to say about that, even though he did it for free.
I don't understand why everyone feels it is necessary to call any apparent attempt at defense via a 1st amendment claim utter BS.
Not because it isn't, but because everyone should already know this. All of these should get a -1 offtopic, or at least redundant, while I will probably earn a -1, troll, or -1 flamebait for pointing out how stupid these posts are.
Remind me *never* to hire any of you guys as marketing consultants.
Does it cost AOL money to run those servers, yes. Should they open them up, it would be nice.
But if it's such a big loss for them, why are there all of these free IM implementations with servers set up? How come they don't get all upset over the costs?
What's next. a limit on dual CPU machines?
Don't give them ideas...
http://www.geforcefaq.com
http://go.to/geforcefaq
(both are the same site)
this site has alot of information on GeForce troubleshooting. Much of it is not platform specific. I think they even mention this bug in there somewhere.
But AMD and it's people should have been better about getting the word out. It took me awhile to find out about the CPU bug. (Though I later found out that my mobo was bad. Still haven't replaced it yet.)