The reason why it is a bad idea to use your face as a password is that everyone can see your freakin' face. Why not just write your password in black marker on your forehead?
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 1
I bought some language learning software the other week.. from a store. What I got was some completely useless "refine your accent" software, which just doesn't work, and a "lite" version of a flash card program which I'm seriously considering cloning in Python (except that there's already 30 open source flash card programs that all suck). Although I think I've gotten my $30 out of my purchase, I think the company that sells this stuff should be reported to the consumer watchdog as they blatantly misrepresented the product.
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 1
You're not doing yourself any favors by referring to unauthorized copying as "stealing". In fact, it kinda makes you look like you don't believe in what you're saying.
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 1
Cause most people are not rampant consumers who have to rush out and buy what their friends think is cool?
We're all busy. It takes a significant amount of time to go to a store to buy a friend's recommendation, whereas making a copy takes 10 minutes. That said, if you got something on iTunes and your friend had iTunes you're much more likely to recommend that they get it from iTunes than to make a copy.
I once had a police offer tell me that, in the UK and Australia, such things are illegal. This is actually just holding the police to the same standard as the rest of society. In the US there's laws against "making deals" but they don't apply to the police (or the government's prosecutors). For example:
519.030 Compounding a crime. (1) A person is guilty of compounding a crime when: (a) He solicits, accepts or agrees to accept any benefit upon an agreement or understanding that he will refrain from initiating a prosecution for a crime; or (b) He confers, offers, or agrees to confer any benefit upon another person upon agreement or understanding that such other person will refrain from initiating a prosecution for a crime. (2) In any prosecution under this section, it is a defense that the benefit did not exceed an amount which the defendant reasonably believed to be due as restitution or indemnification for harm caused by the offense. (3) Compounding a crime is a Class A misdemeanor. So yeah, if I shoot you and say "I'll give you $10k to keep quiet" then I'm compounding a crime. If you accept then we're both compounding a crime.
Most the time the deals made in the US are of the "plead guilty" variety, not the "talk and we won't prosecute" variety, so this particular law wouldn't apply, but you get the idea.
I'm sure there's some DRM on the Amiga that no-one bothered to crack.
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 4, Insightful
You're assigning your motives to others. The majority of people don't copy to avoid cost. They copy because of the social good it does. Your friend likes a song/movie/game, you offer "I'll make you copy", now both you and your friend can enjoy the song/movie/game.
So you're saying that people who want to exercise their right to copy are dishonest?
Re:All bank vaults and locks have also been cracke
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 0, Troll
Seriously. Sick of hearing about how "hard" it is for average users to do things. Maybe you work in technical support and get all the idiots calling you but the vast majority of people really don't have any trouble using programs like DVDShrink or Roxio.
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but the RIAA/MPAA are losing.
Better yet, go to your Mum's house and ask if you can copy one of her DVDs.
I guarantee she says yes.
Show her how to use DVDShrink.. She'll be making copies of movies for her friends in no time.
The only people who care about copyright laws are copyright owners.
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
on
The DRM Scorecard
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I'm a reverse engineering guy. I can and have cracked programs. Do I still do this? No. Because there are people out there who have a whole lot more fun doing it than I would.. so I just use their stuff. Same with DVD copying. You don't have to be "skilled" to use DVD Shrink.. in fact, it's trivial, and millions of people do.
So take this "deter casual copying" crap and smoke it. If the residents of MySpace can work out how to copy and trade DRM'd stuff then anyone can.
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
on
The DRM Scorecard
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· Score: 5, Funny
No, they really are dumb.
"You mean you can supply me with uncrackable protection from unauthorized copying?"
"That's right!"
"Wow, and I don't really understand all this stuff, but when it gets cracked later this month I'll keep sending you your checks."
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
on
The DRM Scorecard
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Yep, that's exactly the kind of nerfing I'm talking about. If it's illegal to kill people, it should be illegal to kill thieves. The "NPC Police" should arrest thieves and make them serve appropriate sentences.. assuming of course that your world works that way. If you use death as the punishment for everything then yeah, your system works just fine. As for flagging people.. that's one of my pet hates. Nothing like sneaking into a house, making sure you're not see, making sure you're wearing an appropriate disguise, grabbing the loot and then discovering that you have been magically tagged as a thief and now everyone wants to kill you.
Oh, and the biggest annoying factor is that often the world designers will make stealing from, say, chests ok but stealing from player inventories not ok. Then they'll fail to provide any advantage or requirement to put stuff in chests. Characters walk around with a million tonnes of stuff in their inventory. As character inventories (including gold) are magically safe from looting, there's no need to lock it up in chests and guard it. Similarly, often these medieval era games have banks.. which is just retarded.
One of the best parts of the gameplay of Oblivion was the thief skills. Any house you want you can pick the lock, steal goods and sell them to fences. Only the best thieves get access to the best fences. There's even a mythology around it: the mysterious Gray Fox!
Compare this to 99% of online games where thieves are universally hated on. The sneak skills don't work. The pickpocket skills only work on poor NPCs and mobs. Lock picking is virtually non-existent.
Virtual world designers hate thieves because they don't play the game in straight lines. They're not trying to get more kit or grind up levels. They're more like hackers, trying to find the interesting nooks and crannies of the game. Using the thief skills you can finish every mission in Oblivion almost without killing a single monster. Fine for a single player game, but how do you balance such awesome skills in a competitive online world?
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The reason why it is a bad idea to use your face as a password is that everyone can see your freakin' face. Why not just write your password in black marker on your forehead?
That's secure right?
Or you could drive him to the hospital.
(Australian joke)
I bought some language learning software the other week.. from a store. What I got was some completely useless "refine your accent" software, which just doesn't work, and a "lite" version of a flash card program which I'm seriously considering cloning in Python (except that there's already 30 open source flash card programs that all suck). Although I think I've gotten my $30 out of my purchase, I think the company that sells this stuff should be reported to the consumer watchdog as they blatantly misrepresented the product.
You're not doing yourself any favors by referring to unauthorized copying as "stealing". In fact, it kinda makes you look like you don't believe in what you're saying.
Cause most people are not rampant consumers who have to rush out and buy what their friends think is cool?
We're all busy. It takes a significant amount of time to go to a store to buy a friend's recommendation, whereas making a copy takes 10 minutes. That said, if you got something on iTunes and your friend had iTunes you're much more likely to recommend that they get it from iTunes than to make a copy.
(1) A person is guilty of compounding a crime when:
(a) He solicits, accepts or agrees to accept any benefit upon an agreement or
understanding that he will refrain from initiating a prosecution for a crime; or
(b) He confers, offers, or agrees to confer any benefit upon another person upon
agreement or understanding that such other person will refrain from initiating
a prosecution for a crime.
(2) In any prosecution under this section, it is a defense that the benefit did not exceed
an amount which the defendant reasonably believed to be due as restitution or
indemnification for harm caused by the offense.
(3) Compounding a crime is a Class A misdemeanor. So yeah, if I shoot you and say "I'll give you $10k to keep quiet" then I'm compounding a crime. If you accept then we're both compounding a crime.
Most the time the deals made in the US are of the "plead guilty" variety, not the "talk and we won't prosecute" variety, so this particular law wouldn't apply, but you get the idea.
I'm sure there's some DRM on the Amiga that no-one bothered to crack.
You're assigning your motives to others. The majority of people don't copy to avoid cost. They copy because of the social good it does. Your friend likes a song/movie/game, you offer "I'll make you copy", now both you and your friend can enjoy the song/movie/game.
There's better places to get the content, so why bother cracking it?
Do you hear people booing when they come on too? Or does that only happen in Queensland?
So you're saying that people who want to exercise their right to copy are dishonest?
Seriously. Sick of hearing about how "hard" it is for average users to do things. Maybe you work in technical support and get all the idiots calling you but the vast majority of people really don't have any trouble using programs like DVDShrink or Roxio.
Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but the RIAA/MPAA are losing.
Better yet, go to your Mum's house and ask if you can copy one of her DVDs.
I guarantee she says yes.
Show her how to use DVDShrink.. She'll be making copies of movies for her friends in no time.
The only people who care about copyright laws are copyright owners.
I'm a reverse engineering guy. I can and have cracked programs. Do I still do this? No. Because there are people out there who have a whole lot more fun doing it than I would.. so I just use their stuff. Same with DVD copying. You don't have to be "skilled" to use DVD Shrink.. in fact, it's trivial, and millions of people do.
So take this "deter casual copying" crap and smoke it. If the residents of MySpace can work out how to copy and trade DRM'd stuff then anyone can.
No, they really are dumb.
"You mean you can supply me with uncrackable protection from unauthorized copying?"
"That's right!"
"Wow, and I don't really understand all this stuff, but when it gets cracked later this month I'll keep sending you your checks."
Music execs are.
Banks were also trivially to rob up until the 1800s.
I'm loved.
:)
Awesome.
I believe rogue class characters in WoW have a backstab skill. Isn't that great of course.
Yep, that's exactly the kind of nerfing I'm talking about. If it's illegal to kill people, it should be illegal to kill thieves. The "NPC Police" should arrest thieves and make them serve appropriate sentences.. assuming of course that your world works that way. If you use death as the punishment for everything then yeah, your system works just fine. As for flagging people.. that's one of my pet hates. Nothing like sneaking into a house, making sure you're not see, making sure you're wearing an appropriate disguise, grabbing the loot and then discovering that you have been magically tagged as a thief and now everyone wants to kill you.
Oh, and the biggest annoying factor is that often the world designers will make stealing from, say, chests ok but stealing from player inventories not ok. Then they'll fail to provide any advantage or requirement to put stuff in chests. Characters walk around with a million tonnes of stuff in their inventory. As character inventories (including gold) are magically safe from looting, there's no need to lock it up in chests and guard it. Similarly, often these medieval era games have banks.. which is just retarded.
One of the best parts of the gameplay of Oblivion was the thief skills. Any house you want you can pick the lock, steal goods and sell them to fences. Only the best thieves get access to the best fences. There's even a mythology around it: the mysterious Gray Fox!
Compare this to 99% of online games where thieves are universally hated on. The sneak skills don't work. The pickpocket skills only work on poor NPCs and mobs. Lock picking is virtually non-existent.
Virtual world designers hate thieves because they don't play the game in straight lines. They're not trying to get more kit or grind up levels. They're more like hackers, trying to find the interesting nooks and crannies of the game. Using the thief skills you can finish every mission in Oblivion almost without killing a single monster. Fine for a single player game, but how do you balance such awesome skills in a competitive online world?
And while we're at it, people shouldn't need to show identification to travel.
Through your socks?
That they don't require you to remove?
There's enough real problems with TSA performance without making stuff up.
Say you had full blueprints of the Saturn V.
Say you wanted to launch a payload on a similar trajectory.. I'm sure you can think of one.
Why go through all that engineering effort again?
Of course, this is a purely theoretical question as no-one has full blueprints of the Saturn V anymore. It's design is lost to the ages.