While many of the linux community aren't saints, the attitude-in-general towards viruses and their makers is negetive. You're not going to get a pat-on-the-back from the community for creating an anti-windows virus, you're going to get a kick-in-the-ass for dampening the reputation of the community. Furthermore if a bounty comes up for the virus it's likely somebody will turn you over if possible.
MS would love to be able to state that linux programmers are behind virus attacks on windows, and most are smart enough to realize that.
We don't love windows, but we're smart enough not to dirty our hands with viruses, partly because we hate viruses more than we'll ever hate windows (viruses/etc being in-fact one of the reasons for disliking windows)
It used to be try that many viruses were simply released as nuisances. However, it has also been true for a long time that they are also released for financial/personal benefit of the writer. Sniffers used to gather information can steal passwords etc, and others can turn your machine into one-of-hundreds in a group of zombies. The zombies can be sold to those whom attack major websites (extortion, disabling, etc) or spammers etc. The passwords could be for online banking or simply to root a machine and make it a zombie.
I think that viruses nowadays are more written for profit than peskiness - perhaps not the majority but the big ones definately show signs of it.
But what about the future. There's nothing that really would restrict one from printing out PCB's with larger pathways for projects that don't need the nanosized ones. Perhaps, like "print quality" you could choose a slightly thicker pathway etc as well
Once the technology catches on, then it may be able to branch to other uses.
That being said, has anyone ever tried to make a conductive fluid and inject it into a standard printer? It would have to be low viscosity or it'll clock the heads, but if one had a cheapie printer it might be worth experimenting. Printing a simple PCB on an inkjet should be possible with conductive ink and an overhead-slide type material?
Perhaps this might be easier for a laser-style printer. Heat conductive toner, spread on like butter on toast, make board?
While the environmental benefits are good, I think they're likely a side-benefit to the other advantages.
If Epson was really concerned with environmental issues, they wouldn't manufacture mass-amounts of printers which are basically more economically feasible to send to a landfill than refill...
And no, I'm not trolling: lots of companies will go ahead with a project and say "lookie at me, I'm environmentally friendly" whilst in the background slipping poisonous chemicals into a nearby lake or something similar.
Still, for all my cynicism it does have both environmental and monentary advantages, but my guess is that Epson is banking on the latter to promote the project more than the former.
Yes, it would be illegal to steal a copy from a store. Why, because the store is deprived of a copy.
Now, one thing you'll find is that the RIAA is very vocal on what is illegal about music copying, and very quiet on what is legal. They'll skate the issues of legality by stating all the borderline illegal acts.
You make an MP3 copy of a song because the CD you bought expressly permits you to do so. But then you put your MP3 copy on the Internet, using a file-sharing network, so that millions of other people can download it.
Mp3 copying legal. P2P downloading legal if own the song (on CD, etc). P2P uploading to others is a grey area because you don't know if the other person has an original copy, in cases where they do they're entitled to a digital reproduction of the same original work (IOW you can get an Mp3 copy of a CD if you own a CD, not if you have a cassette I suppose).
Now to further move on, in Canada downloading is legal but uploading supposedly not:
And of course, laws are subject to change, and it's the people that change them. I personally don't support downloading music if you don't have the rights to it. However, there isn't a proper alternative.
The RIAA will not replace your disc when it becomes a coaster due to normal wear and tear, but they do everything they can to prevent normal users from making duplicates, even personal ones. In fact, the DCMA seems aimed at expressedly blocking even legal duplications, despite fair use - as other laws already made "piracy" illegal the only intent seems to be to put a block between the 'protected' media and the consumer.
That being said, I just bought a bunch of CD's off of garageband.com/cdbaby.com.
They'll probably be seeing more of my business in which case I'll not have to worry about RIAA idiocy anyhow.
So if Ford said that if a non-Ford technician does your next oil-lube-and-filter then the warrantee on your new car is void - that's OK. How about if they just say it's void if you do it yourself.
Yes, they should allowed to void the warrantee if it appears that you've done something to cause the equipment damage: mod chip, self-solder, etc. Just opening the case to check on the problem doesn't count.
I'm a technician for a large company. I crack cases and install parts on a regular basis. If I bought a Dell why should I have to send it to a Dell technician when I need a sound card installed?
Now if I sent a machine in for repair and the RAM slot is damage because I tried to stick the DIMM in backwards, or the AGP slot has a PCI card jammed into it, they can reject me. But if a little sticker is loose but there's a perfectly legitimate hardware fault, why would that void my warranty?
"unauthorized filesharing" is a good description, as the RIAA doesn't know if the filesharing is illegal or not, just that it is unauthorized. Why? Well firstly their bots have in many instances been known to pick up people with perfectly legit songs which just happened to have names similar to RIAA controlled ones.
Secondly, some of the downloaders may - in fact - own the originals to the songs in question. I've got a fairly reliable ripping program myself, but for others who want to duplicate/mp3 their CD's the easiest way is to pick up copies off the net. How does the RIAA know if they're legit or not (hint: they don't).
In a similar way, the MPAA could come after me for several of the titles I have downloading right now. Of course, the original discs are sitting in my DVD-rack right now, but it's just less hassle to download a DivX and burn a backup DVD than find the tools that actually work to rip my own. I'm sure many others find the same with MP3's/CD's.
How legal are these? I've heard in many circles that they're like many "rules" the come with purchases nowadays, and not worth the paper (or plastic) they're written on.
Are these "warrantee void if removed" labels really valid? If so, one would think that you can't install a new video card in your Dell unless you get Dell to do it (and I'm fairly sure that it's illegal for them to put you in a situation where you can only use them or their "trained technicians" for servicing)
Laptops have hard drives, they're mobile and quite often subject to shocks/jolts.
Mp3 players have hard-drives/microdrives, subject to even more shocks/jolts (especially when used by joggers etc).
It's not about the shocks and jolts, it's about the quality of the manufacturing. If you put a drive in an item excepted to get roughhoused a bit, you make the drive more shock-resistant.
It's more like shooting a bazooka. With XBox2 coming out, the last thing MS will want is tons of people bitching about how their XBox was an unreliable piece of crap within a year.
Other things to consider:
a) Sony has similar issues with disc read errors (see previous comments) and will fix PS2's with this defect for free. Somebody must have pulled the guns on them for this to happen too
b) MS wants to sell games. Supposedly the consoles come at a loss. You aren't selling many games to somebody with a problem console, hence no profit.
c) If world gets around that Xboxes are prone to early failure, will people gamble with Xbox2?
Nintendo sends C&D nastygram to SG for use of various names of their games, where an SG member mentioned being a fan of said games
Coverage on Slashdot, Penny-Arcade, etc on this debacle
Nintendo goes "oh sh*t" at the negetive PR, fully owns up, and offers free (Nintendo brand) gaming system of choice to some of those involved at SG.
SO basically, SG comes up with a whole crapload of attention, extra site traffic, and some free gaming systems. Now, since the site didn't get nuked I'm assuming that a full slashdotting didn't happen. If at least some of the visitors end up signing up - offsetting the bandwidth cost - they benefit not only from the free systems but also from the free publicity/extra signups.
Heck, I sent me GF a link to this, she was looking up some girls' on SG and found their profiles rather cool, wanted to sign up herself. I'd say that I score this one:
SG:+2 (traffic/signups/game systems)
Nintendo+1: or 0 (no harm no fowl, but perhaps bonus points for owning up where few would)
Idiot IP lawers:-1 (for doing the right job in the wrong place).
Audio we're coming close to. A really good home theatre system with proper placement can be quite realistic.
Smell... well they're working on smell-generating devices but there's not really a "virtual" way to do this. You can't exactly plug into your olfactory to stimulate the nerves there.
Touch, again... too much to cover and no proper way to stimulate, and taste may go along with smell.
Right now, we're doing a lot better at covering vision and sound. The only way we'd go too far beyond that would likely be direct interaction with the nerves/brain. If you're worried about the laser damaging your eyes... how do you feel about plugging your brain into doom 8?
Still, some day it's likely to go that path. Likely it will start with optical/cochlear implants for the blind/deaf, progressing with limb replacements etc with direct nerve connections that can feel and move realistically. Actually, with things such as "dracucell" (blood powered batteries, mentioned long ago on/.), and others, I'd imagine it's just getting the nerve attachments/impulses right that is holding us back for now.
At the moment, I think I'll stick with my laser-glasses and 3d projected surround... any improvements on such are of great benefit as is.
Besides, if we were wired for smell/taste, goatse pranks could be 100x as bad if you stumbled into the wrong URL with your sensors on.
Wouldn't the best way then to base the resulting hash off a combination of your CC# and the place of business (whatever name they register the charge with your CC company as).
That way, when 5555-5555-5555-5555 221 is mixed with "Denny's Seattle," and "2004-10-26-23-22-11" (time/date). the latter half of a verification code comes up with ID "EDJLLKJEWO-2."
The first part could be a MD5-style hash (semi-random), so that one can't generate your own hash by knowing the encoding method. The latter part, however, could be reversed back using your CC # to get "Denny's Seattle 2004-10-27 11:22:11pm" and bust the dude working front desk at Denny's during that time.
*Denny's is used purely as example, I've never known anyone to have their CC# hijacked from there.
Why would anyone buy a game on day one. I've always preferred to wait about a month or more. That way I can let others try the game, make comments, and submit bug reprts. Unless a game is getting rave reviews within week one, it's not likely I'll grab it until a few months after. I don't think that I'm in the minority of gamers here.
Releasing a game early is fine. Releasing a game prematurely (as in, not properly tested) ensure that the extra time between $now and $proper_release_date gives lots of people time to bitch about it. Lots of people bitching==less later buyers. Sure, you might corner more of the hardcore players choosing between your product and another, but you'll lose more of the later joiners if your product turns out to be buggy or just not as good as the competition. It also kills off even the hardcore gamers for your next product, as they'll be leery of buying too early as well.
Of course, there's a flipside too, as you can wait spend too much time playing catch-up with the competition so that your product because dated: Duke Nukum Forever, anyone?
Sorry, but I'm actually considering signing up for this site. In fact, even my gf was thinking of signing up (she's straight, BTW).
Why, not because of the pictures, but because it looks like a really cool community. The girls are confident and expressive. The journals are - for many of them - quite interesting. They even have some interviews with various famous personalities (Danny Glover recently).
I've seen lots of porn sites with similar picture content and greater volumel, but for me - while I might browse the pics from time to time - I'd probably spend more time actually getting to know the members and chatting on the boards.
I may be mistaken, but isn't this part of the browser or not an extension. At least if it is an extension it's packaged with the browser, but it's worked for me fine w/o needing to download anything extra.
Of course, that's in the windows world. Due to clipboard issues it might be different in Linux, but I can't check since debian hasn't hit the 1.X rc stage yet and I'm not into mucking my system with non-packaged software.
But as far as taxes go, how is that a closeable loophole. The only fix is to introduce a direct directly focussed on outsourcing (to which I say, go for it, except don't tax Canada as it's a bad idea with such closely tied economies).
There was actually something in the local paper related to this awhile ago. It seems that many peopl e were quite upset that EA was distributing nazi figurines (to match the characters in a game, it was either Battlefield or Medal of Honor). It would likely be illegal in Germany, but acceptable business in the US.
What they really need is a label that states: "HEY MORON: if you're buying this game for your 12-year-old, that big shiney M in the corner means that it's adults only. When you buy it for him anyways and he pulls a shotgun on his classmate, don't blame us."
...not that I believe a game can be solely to blame for some screwed up kids, it's more likely that screwed up kids migrate to the game because it contains screwed-up behavior than otherwise. However, somebody will inevitably blame the next act of kidiocy on it, so be prepared...
I assume you're referring to this page, which for some reason doesn't appear in my browser properly (firefox 0.9.3/lin). That is, the text is white-on-white - it found the words "release candidate" when I did a search, but I can't see it... or any of the text.
So for those who are using FF0.9.3, perhaps we'll have to rely on somebody else who posts the article text before it's readable:-).
There can only be so many zombies out there. Sure, the number is growing, but one can probably pick them out of a crowd over time. Why not have an RBL for zombies... when X clients to the RBL report getting hit by the same zombie (before getting swamped, or after the DDOS finishes), add it to the RBL. Then perhaps we could start thinking about routering off IPs listed in the RBL, subnet blacklisting when a DDOS starts, or other countermeasures.
Cutting an infected machine off from the net entirely isn't such a bad option... having an infected machine spewing out spam and DDOS is similar to an HIV patient in a bordello...
For centralized servers like battle.net that would be very possible. Not quite so for games like battlefield wherein the server daemons are available to the public.
Slashdot Mirror
While many of the linux community aren't saints, the attitude-in-general towards viruses and their makers is negetive. You're not going to get a pat-on-the-back from the community for creating an anti-windows virus, you're going to get a kick-in-the-ass for dampening the reputation of the community. Furthermore if a bounty comes up for the virus it's likely somebody will turn you over if possible.
MS would love to be able to state that linux programmers are behind virus attacks on windows, and most are smart enough to realize that.
We don't love windows, but we're smart enough not to dirty our hands with viruses, partly because we hate viruses more than we'll ever hate windows (viruses/etc being in-fact one of the reasons for disliking windows)
It used to be try that many viruses were simply released as nuisances. However, it has also been true for a long time that they are also released for financial/personal benefit of the writer. Sniffers used to gather information can steal passwords etc, and others can turn your machine into one-of-hundreds in a group of zombies. The zombies can be sold to those whom attack major websites (extortion, disabling, etc) or spammers etc. The passwords could be for online banking or simply to root a machine and make it a zombie.
I think that viruses nowadays are more written for profit than peskiness - perhaps not the majority but the big ones definately show signs of it.
But what about the future. There's nothing that really would restrict one from printing out PCB's with larger pathways for projects that don't need the nanosized ones. Perhaps, like "print quality" you could choose a slightly thicker pathway etc as well
Once the technology catches on, then it may be able to branch to other uses.
That being said, has anyone ever tried to make a conductive fluid and inject it into a standard printer? It would have to be low viscosity or it'll clock the heads, but if one had a cheapie printer it might be worth experimenting. Printing a simple PCB on an inkjet should be possible with conductive ink and an overhead-slide type material?
Perhaps this might be easier for a laser-style printer. Heat conductive toner, spread on like butter on toast, make board?
While the environmental benefits are good, I think they're likely a side-benefit to the other advantages.
If Epson was really concerned with environmental issues, they wouldn't manufacture mass-amounts of printers which are basically more economically feasible to send to a landfill than refill...
And no, I'm not trolling: lots of companies will go ahead with a project and say "lookie at me, I'm environmentally friendly" whilst in the background slipping poisonous chemicals into a nearby lake or something similar.
Still, for all my cynicism it does have both environmental and monentary advantages, but my guess is that Epson is banking on the latter to promote the project more than the former.
Yes, it would be illegal to steal a copy from a store. Why, because the store is deprived of a copy.
Now, one thing you'll find is that the RIAA is very vocal on what is illegal about music copying, and very quiet on what is legal. They'll skate the issues of legality by stating all the borderline illegal acts.
So, to go on with this a bit:
You make an MP3 copy of a song because the CD you bought expressly permits you to do so. But then you put your MP3 copy on the Internet, using a file-sharing network, so that millions of other people can download it.
Mp3 copying legal. P2P downloading legal if own the song (on CD, etc). P2P uploading to others is a grey area because you don't know if the other person has an original copy, in cases where they do they're entitled to a digital reproduction of the same original work (IOW you can get an Mp3 copy of a CD if you own a CD, not if you have a cassette I suppose).
Now to further move on, in Canada downloading is legal but uploading supposedly not:
[article]
And of course, laws are subject to change, and it's the people that change them. I personally don't support downloading music if you don't have the rights to it. However, there isn't a proper alternative.
The RIAA will not replace your disc when it becomes a coaster due to normal wear and tear, but they do everything they can to prevent normal users from making duplicates, even personal ones. In fact, the DCMA seems aimed at expressedly blocking even legal duplications, despite fair use - as other laws already made "piracy" illegal the only intent seems to be to put a block between the 'protected' media and the consumer.
That being said, I just bought a bunch of CD's off of garageband.com/cdbaby.com.
They'll probably be seeing more of my business in which case I'll not have to worry about RIAA idiocy anyhow.
So if Ford said that if a non-Ford technician does your next oil-lube-and-filter then the warrantee on your new car is void - that's OK. How about if they just say it's void if you do it yourself.
Yes, they should allowed to void the warrantee if it appears that you've done something to cause the equipment damage: mod chip, self-solder, etc. Just opening the case to check on the problem doesn't count.
I'm a technician for a large company. I crack cases and install parts on a regular basis. If I bought a Dell why should I have to send it to a Dell technician when I need a sound card installed?
Now if I sent a machine in for repair and the RAM slot is damage because I tried to stick the DIMM in backwards, or the AGP slot has a PCI card jammed into it, they can reject me. But if a little sticker is loose but there's a perfectly legitimate hardware fault, why would that void my warranty?
smartctl often comes as part of the package "smartsuite." For Debian users there is an apt package available under that name as well.
"unauthorized filesharing" is a good description, as the RIAA doesn't know if the filesharing is illegal or not, just that it is unauthorized. Why? Well firstly their bots have in many instances been known to pick up people with perfectly legit songs which just happened to have names similar to RIAA controlled ones.
Secondly, some of the downloaders may - in fact - own the originals to the songs in question. I've got a fairly reliable ripping program myself, but for others who want to duplicate/mp3 their CD's the easiest way is to pick up copies off the net. How does the RIAA know if they're legit or not (hint: they don't).
In a similar way, the MPAA could come after me for several of the titles I have downloading right now. Of course, the original discs are sitting in my DVD-rack right now, but it's just less hassle to download a DivX and burn a backup DVD than find the tools that actually work to rip my own. I'm sure many others find the same with MP3's/CD's.
How legal are these? I've heard in many circles that they're like many "rules" the come with purchases nowadays, and not worth the paper (or plastic) they're written on.
Are these "warrantee void if removed" labels really valid? If so, one would think that you can't install a new video card in your Dell unless you get Dell to do it (and I'm fairly sure that it's illegal for them to put you in a situation where you can only use them or their "trained technicians" for servicing)
Laptops have hard drives, they're mobile and quite often subject to shocks/jolts.
Mp3 players have hard-drives/microdrives, subject to even more shocks/jolts (especially when used by joggers etc).
It's not about the shocks and jolts, it's about the quality of the manufacturing. If you put a drive in an item excepted to get roughhoused a bit, you make the drive more shock-resistant.
It's more like shooting a bazooka. With XBox2 coming out, the last thing MS will want is tons of people bitching about how their XBox was an unreliable piece of crap within a year.
Other things to consider:
a) Sony has similar issues with disc read errors (see previous comments) and will fix PS2's with this defect for free. Somebody must have pulled the guns on them for this to happen too
b) MS wants to sell games. Supposedly the consoles come at a loss. You aren't selling many games to somebody with a problem console, hence no profit.
c) If world gets around that Xboxes are prone to early failure, will people gamble with Xbox2?
Nintendo sends C&D nastygram to SG for use of various names of their games, where an SG member mentioned being a fan of said games
Coverage on Slashdot, Penny-Arcade, etc on this debacle
Nintendo goes "oh sh*t" at the negetive PR, fully owns up, and offers free (Nintendo brand) gaming system of choice to some of those involved at SG.
SO basically, SG comes up with a whole crapload of attention, extra site traffic, and some free gaming systems. Now, since the site didn't get nuked I'm assuming that a full slashdotting didn't happen. If at least some of the visitors end up signing up - offsetting the bandwidth cost - they benefit not only from the free systems but also from the free publicity/extra signups.
Heck, I sent me GF a link to this, she was looking up some girls' on SG and found their profiles rather cool, wanted to sign up herself. I'd say that I score this one:
SG:+2 (traffic/signups/game systems)
Nintendo+1: or 0 (no harm no fowl, but perhaps bonus points for owning up where few would)
Idiot IP lawers:-1 (for doing the right job in the wrong place).
Audio we're coming close to. A really good home theatre system with proper placement can be quite realistic.
/.), and others, I'd imagine it's just getting the nerve attachments/impulses right that is holding us back for now.
Smell... well they're working on smell-generating devices but there's not really a "virtual" way to do this. You can't exactly plug into your olfactory to stimulate the nerves there.
Touch, again... too much to cover and no proper way to stimulate, and taste may go along with smell.
Right now, we're doing a lot better at covering vision and sound. The only way we'd go too far beyond that would likely be direct interaction with the nerves/brain. If you're worried about the laser damaging your eyes... how do you feel about plugging your brain into doom 8?
Still, some day it's likely to go that path. Likely it will start with optical/cochlear implants for the blind/deaf, progressing with limb replacements etc with direct nerve connections that can feel and move realistically. Actually, with things such as "dracucell" (blood powered batteries, mentioned long ago on
At the moment, I think I'll stick with my laser-glasses and 3d projected surround... any improvements on such are of great benefit as is.
Besides, if we were wired for smell/taste, goatse pranks could be 100x as bad if you stumbled into the wrong URL with your sensors on.
Wouldn't the best way then to base the resulting hash off a combination of your CC# and the place of business (whatever name they register the charge with your CC company as).
That way, when 5555-5555-5555-5555 221 is mixed with "Denny's Seattle," and "2004-10-26-23-22-11" (time/date). the latter half of a verification code comes up with ID "EDJLLKJEWO-2."
The first part could be a MD5-style hash (semi-random), so that one can't generate your own hash by knowing the encoding method. The latter part, however, could be reversed back using your CC # to get "Denny's Seattle 2004-10-27 11:22:11pm" and bust the dude working front desk at Denny's during that time.
*Denny's is used purely as example, I've never known anyone to have their CC# hijacked from there.
Why would anyone buy a game on day one. I've always preferred to wait about a month or more. That way I can let others try the game, make comments, and submit bug reprts. Unless a game is getting rave reviews within week one, it's not likely I'll grab it until a few months after. I don't think that I'm in the minority of gamers here.
Releasing a game early is fine. Releasing a game prematurely (as in, not properly tested) ensure that the extra time between $now and $proper_release_date gives lots of people time to bitch about it. Lots of people bitching==less later buyers. Sure, you might corner more of the hardcore players choosing between your product and another, but you'll lose more of the later joiners if your product turns out to be buggy or just not as good as the competition. It also kills off even the hardcore gamers for your next product, as they'll be leery of buying too early as well.
Of course, there's a flipside too, as you can wait spend too much time playing catch-up with the competition so that your product because dated: Duke Nukum Forever, anyone?
Sorry, but I'm actually considering signing up for this site. In fact, even my gf was thinking of signing up (she's straight, BTW).
Why, not because of the pictures, but because it looks like a really cool community. The girls are confident and expressive. The journals are - for many of them - quite interesting. They even have some interviews with various famous personalities (Danny Glover recently).
I've seen lots of porn sites with similar picture content and greater volumel, but for me - while I might browse the pics from time to time - I'd probably spend more time actually getting to know the members and chatting on the boards.
I may be mistaken, but isn't this part of the browser or not an extension. At least if it is an extension it's packaged with the browser, but it's worked for me fine w/o needing to download anything extra.
Of course, that's in the windows world. Due to clipboard issues it might be different in Linux, but I can't check since debian hasn't hit the 1.X rc stage yet and I'm not into mucking my system with non-packaged software.
But as far as taxes go, how is that a closeable loophole. The only fix is to introduce a direct directly focussed on outsourcing (to which I say, go for it, except don't tax Canada as it's a bad idea with such closely tied economies).
What tax loophole is this exactly? I know that the companies avoid certain expenses just due to lower wages offshore, but taxes too?
If there is a loophole, closing it would mean more revenues for the government (plus for them) and/or less outsources (plus for us)
There was actually something in the local paper related to this awhile ago. It seems that many peopl e were quite upset that EA was distributing nazi figurines (to match the characters in a game, it was either Battlefield or Medal of Honor). It would likely be illegal in Germany, but acceptable business in the US.
What they really need is a label that states: "HEY MORON: if you're buying this game for your 12-year-old, that big shiney M in the corner means that it's adults only. When you buy it for him anyways and he pulls a shotgun on his classmate, don't blame us."
...not that I believe a game can be solely to blame for some screwed up kids, it's more likely that screwed up kids migrate to the game because it contains screwed-up behavior than otherwise. However, somebody will inevitably blame the next act of kidiocy on it, so be prepared...
Actually, there's an odd answer to that...
:-).
I assume you're referring to this page, which for some reason doesn't appear in my browser properly (firefox 0.9.3/lin). That is, the text is white-on-white - it found the words "release candidate" when I did a search, but I can't see it... or any of the text.
So for those who are using FF0.9.3, perhaps we'll have to rely on somebody else who posts the article text before it's readable
There can only be so many zombies out there. Sure, the number is growing, but one can probably pick them out of a crowd over time. Why not have an RBL for zombies... when X clients to the RBL report getting hit by the same zombie (before getting swamped, or after the DDOS finishes), add it to the RBL. Then perhaps we could start thinking about routering off IPs listed in the RBL, subnet blacklisting when a DDOS starts, or other countermeasures.
Cutting an infected machine off from the net entirely isn't such a bad option... having an infected machine spewing out spam and DDOS is similar to an HIV patient in a bordello...
There is a 2.4 series kernel in stable. If you want to installed it from disc use "bf24" as your install option instead of "vanilla" or "linux"
:-)
That being said, you don't use debian/stable if you want to be up-to-date, it's something like using windows 98 to avoid RPC exploits
For centralized servers like battle.net that would be very possible. Not quite so for games like battlefield wherein the server daemons are available to the public.