> The chances of the CD being damaged before the next sequel comes out is miniscule
I guess it was kinda meant jokingly but not very relevant really.. some games have a sequal, some don't... besides.. despite 2 sequals, I do still play the original version of Quake for example.
> It should be considered as what it is, after carefully looking into the situation. If it turns out that the trojan-like effects were agreed to in the EULA or wherever, then it's not really a trojan, to the extent that the original trojan horse was a trick, whereas this one wouldn't be.
Of course one could argue that before bringing it in, the Trojas should have looked inside the horse, its not like it was unknown that such a construction would be hollow and a good place to hide in (just like EULAs are a good place for hiding things)
The end user will in many cases have no clue whatsoever about the potential consequences of this if they find it in the EULA to begin with.
At any rate, if this is what they want, let them make an auto booting CD with all their junk on it so they don't have to install it on my harddisk.
I can quite live with a game that boots from CD and only works when booted from the original CD provided I can obtain a spare of the CD in case it breaks.
This would also give the game producers a lot more control over the environment they are running in (and you could still use the harddisk for updates as long as you keep them seperate from the OS and applications there and don't try to stick them into the users config.
> I don't know how you can imagine that it hasn't been looked at.
Yeah, such things have always been looked at so carefully in the past that there is no reason whatsoever to doubt they looked at it.
> The Environmental Assessment was completed and approved in 1998.
That is good, and somewhat informative. Would be even more informative if you could provide a link to the research.
> This technology helps the environment by reducing use of refrigerants, reducing electricity use, and reducing air pollution.
The purpose of this is pretty obvious..
> The kind of knee-jerk uninformed obstructionism these posts demonstrate harms environmentalism by making it look ridiculous.
Uh yeah, whatever, typical case of pot kettle I'd say (if you consider the post that you replied to a knee-jerk reaction to begin with), unless you could maybe point us at some nice research into the matter.
> So anyways, I gave him back the CDs. After knowning all the heart and soul (not to mention blood sweat and tears from nonstop coding)Carmack and gang put into project, I had no other choice. After work, I bought a copy simply because Carmack has EARNED himself the sale of another copy.
First of all, I definitely agree that ID earned themselves to sell this game (and others that they made).
Having said that, I'll play the cracked version, but bought the original nonetheless.. you can do both at the same time;P
> When you install it, it tells you if it has copy protection. If it does, return it to the store, and get a refund. In sane parts of the world (I don't know about the US) that's a perfectly reasonable request.
It is a completely reasonable request, but so is the request for UPFRONT information about this on the box. All this will do is make consumers more warry of buying games, so in the end this will only bite the publishers back.. I can't believe how stupidly blind they seem to be when it comes to copying.
Yes, you just bought a box with some media in it.. you own the box and the media. You do not own what is on the media but luckily the box comes with a license for usign it.
Don't get me wrong, I find this kind of copy protection completely wrong, but that is because it interfers with uses of my copuer that have nothing to do with the game or copy protection, and it is not that upfront about it really.
Strictly spoken you are right, its a trojan, not a virus. It poses to be a game, in fact it is a program that limits what you can use your computer for.
> You bought it. What you charge people for is irrelevant. You bought a game. If you don't like it, don't play it. No-one's going to pay you anything.
How you obtained it is completely irrelevant for it being a virus or a trojan or whatnot. That depends entirely on the purpose and functions of the program.
When such a game installs this driver onto a machine without very clear and explicit warning about this effect of the copy protection, that game should be considered a trojan, nothign more and nothign less.
> PC games will never go away, but if the market keeps shrinking due to the increasing ease of piracy... then the number and quality of games will almost certainly decrease.
Now.. if the ease of piracy indeed increased...
When CD-ROMs got practical, publishers thought that that was a form of copy protection in itself, and cd writing technology kinda killed that idea.. but it is still as easy/difficult now as copying a floppy was 2 decades ago.
> There are times where it'd be handy to have a small handheld unit to grab the latest news headlines. During commercials, for example. You're not going to drag your laptop out for that. WIth the Palm, though, you hit 'on' and click a bookmark. Quick check of email? No problem.
And just install omniremote or whatever and you have a nice programmable remote as well (yeah.. a laptop can do that as well.. but its kinda unwieldy)
Logging in and having the light version enabled in your user preferences takes out a lot of the junk.. makes it a lot nicer for small devices without the extreme terseness of the palm version.
Last time I checked, a zire 72 can record video.. playing works on a 71.. theres a nice mpeg player as well.. connecting a dvd player will be a problem tho I guess.
Sound has been there for quite some time as well (using my z71 as mp3 player..)
The only thing it really lacks is some kind of mass storage.. but hrm.. I actually bought it as a pocketsize agenda/addressbook/webbrowser/notepad.. the rest is all just fun but mostly useless features for that purpose.
Hmm.. got me some usb connected hp printer/scanner thingy.. went to their site, saw I needed some hpijs 'driver' for Linux..
I blindly type cd/usr/ports/print/hpijs and check.. its there.. make install.. follow half a screen of instructions at the end and my printing worked.. ( cd/usr/local/share/doc/ is a good idea as well
KDE didn't have any trouble with it either.
Now.. getting scanning to work with this thing is another story...
At any rate.. might be different with other printers.. I don't use printers much.
> Right now, cracked boxes are used for sending spam. If you slow down the rate that it's possible to send spam by 1000, then you get a thousandfold decrease in spam.
If only that were true. Currently, despite thousands of Windows machines being used for sendign spam at any given time, in fact only a small part of the compromised machines is actually being used.
A thousandfold slowdown of the rate of sending just means a larger part of all those zombies will be used to get the job done. The factor you talk about is very easy to manage considering the total number of compromised machines out there.
An interesting sidenote, this just makes it more interesting for spammers to pay people to hack into larger computer systems for them to use them to compute hashes (yeah... imagine a beowolf cluster of whatever to compute them;)
The problem is not so much that you remove water (tho it has to come from somewhere in the end) but that you change the temperature distribution of the water.
If this is a problem or not should be properly investiugated. The consequences of it could be none at all, or way beyond what anyone would expect.. or anywhere inbetween.
It is a bit like the weather.. an completely insignificant event at one place can be the cause of a very dramatic event at some other place.
While what you say is true, it in no way changes that the temperature at low levels will rise as a consequence. Explaining how the water gets that cold says absolutely nothign about what happens when you remove it, it only suggests that if you leave it alone long enough, the water at low levels will have cooled down again.
What damage it causes inbetween I do not know, but I do know that it has to be looked at. We have made too many mistakes assuming such things were harmless.
That is nice... lets see when there is a result (have seen enough results from the people involved in Fragonfly, so that was not intended as a cynical statement, just as a huint that only what exists today can be used today)
Anyway, unlike what some people believe, this kind of competition between different BSD distributions is a good thing, it allows people to go their own way with their ideas, and after a while all BSDs get a better solution (if the idea turned out to be better that is)
Hmm... despite name changes, Claria doesn't leave any doubt about what they are doing.. that the average user is too clueless to realize the consequuence is an entirely different thing, till then they won't care.. Seems that times are changing somewhat tho.
> a) don't feel like opening arbitary ports to the world from a potentially-insecure application with privs to write to the entire drive and
Which is an utter BS argument in this specific case: - You do not have to run the game as admin/root, so it won't have complete write access to everything - It is not listening on a port for this purpose (it is if you decide to run a server, but that is a different thing), instead, it is ASKING a server on the net about the key.
> b) don't feel like being in the company of people who think "OMG ROFL U SUK!" is intelligent discourse (read: don't play online)
So wtf are you doing on Slashdot?
Maybe you should try to learn to read... you are being pointed at an example (in this specific case a game, but it can be really any kind of program) where a key and central server are used for controlling copies of said program.
If you run only open source software then that is unlikely to affect you, but really, what point did you want to make? It definitely affects peopel who do not play games as well.
> Much of their first season focused on such topics as Ouija boards, quack medicine (magnet therapy, for example) and UFO abductions. They weren't exactly topics that were tough to make some logical assumptions about from the start.
And the problem is that while such logical assumptions may appeal to you, and to the public, they are just that, logical assumptions. That is no standard whatsoever to call peopel a liar because there is no evidence or even hint of evidence that the logical assumption is true.
Yeah, its entertaining, but not a way to make a good case. For that I do not really have to see the program (even if I could.. it is not being broadcasted in EUrope for what I know, we do have similar programs tho)
Slashdot Mirror
> The chances of the CD being damaged before the next sequel comes out is miniscule
I guess it was kinda meant jokingly but not very relevant really.. some games have a sequal, some don't... besides.. despite 2 sequals, I do still play the original version of Quake for example.
It is of course funny to realize that you being able to post that rant, and us beign able to read it is payed for by advertisement...
It is not theft, it is making it difficult if not impossible for the source you are using to continue providing the content you were using them for.
> It should be considered as what it is, after carefully looking into the situation. If it turns out that the trojan-like effects were agreed to in the EULA or wherever, then it's not really a trojan, to the extent that the original trojan horse was a trick, whereas this one wouldn't be.
Of course one could argue that before bringing it in, the Trojas should have looked inside the horse, its not like it was unknown that such a construction would be hollow and a good place to hide in (just like EULAs are a good place for hiding things)
The end user will in many cases have no clue whatsoever about the potential consequences of this if they find it in the EULA to begin with.
At any rate, if this is what they want, let them make an auto booting CD with all their junk on it so they don't have to install it on my harddisk.
I can quite live with a game that boots from CD and only works when booted from the original CD provided I can obtain a spare of the CD in case it breaks.
This would also give the game producers a lot more control over the environment they are running in (and you could still use the harddisk for updates as long as you keep them seperate from the OS and applications there and don't try to stick them into the users config.
> I don't know how you can imagine that it hasn't been looked at.
Yeah, such things have always been looked at so carefully in the past that there is no reason whatsoever to doubt they looked at it.
> The Environmental Assessment was completed and approved in 1998.
That is good, and somewhat informative. Would be even more informative if you could provide a link to the research.
> This technology helps the environment by reducing use of refrigerants, reducing electricity use, and reducing air pollution.
The purpose of this is pretty obvious..
> The kind of knee-jerk uninformed obstructionism these posts demonstrate harms environmentalism by making it look ridiculous.
Uh yeah, whatever, typical case of pot kettle I'd say (if you consider the post that you replied to a knee-jerk reaction to begin with), unless you could maybe point us at some nice research into the matter.
> So anyways, I gave him back the CDs. After knowning all the heart and soul (not to mention blood sweat and tears from nonstop coding)Carmack and gang put into project, I had no other choice. After work, I bought a copy simply because Carmack has EARNED himself the sale of another copy.
;P
First of all, I definitely agree that ID earned themselves to sell this game (and others that they made).
Having said that, I'll play the cracked version, but bought the original nonetheless.. you can do both at the same time
> When you install it, it tells you if it has copy protection. If it does, return it to the store, and get a refund. In sane parts of the world (I don't know about the US) that's a perfectly reasonable request.
It is a completely reasonable request, but so is the request for UPFRONT information about this on the box. All this will do is make consumers more warry of buying games, so in the end this will only bite the publishers back.. I can't believe how stupidly blind they seem to be when it comes to copying.
Yes, you just bought a box with some media in it.. you own the box and the media. You do not own what is on the media but luckily the box comes with a license for usign it.
Don't get me wrong, I find this kind of copy protection completely wrong, but that is because it interfers with uses of my copuer that have nothing to do with the game or copy protection, and it is not that upfront about it really.
> LOL! It's not a virus.
Strictly spoken you are right, its a trojan, not a virus. It poses to be a game, in fact it is a program that limits what you can use your computer for.
> You bought it. What you charge people for is irrelevant. You bought a game. If you don't like it, don't play it. No-one's going to pay you anything.
How you obtained it is completely irrelevant for it being a virus or a trojan or whatnot. That depends entirely on the purpose and functions of the program.
When such a game installs this driver onto a machine without very clear and explicit warning about this effect of the copy protection, that game should be considered a trojan, nothign more and nothign less.
> PC games will never go away, but if the market keeps shrinking due to the increasing ease of piracy... then the number and quality of games will almost certainly decrease.
Now.. if the ease of piracy indeed increased...
When CD-ROMs got practical, publishers thought that that was a form of copy protection in itself, and cd writing technology kinda killed that idea.. but it is still as easy/difficult now as copying a floppy was 2 decades ago.
> There are times where it'd be handy to have a small handheld unit to grab the latest news headlines. During commercials, for example. You're not going to drag your laptop out for that. WIth the Palm, though, you hit 'on' and click a bookmark. Quick check of email? No problem.
And just install omniremote or whatever and you have a nice programmable remote as well (yeah.. a laptop can do that as well.. but its kinda unwieldy)
Logging in and having the light version enabled in your user preferences takes out a lot of the junk.. makes it a lot nicer for small devices without the extreme terseness of the palm version.
http://www-132.ibm.com/search/701.html
Still have 2 of them.. too bad they are 486 class machines.
The keyboard is quite nice still.
> There's even a few very well done games as well. Thief3D comes to mind off the top of my head.
Spy hunter!
(sorry.. have been addicted to that game since its first incarnation in the 80s)
Last time I checked, a zire 72 can record video.. playing works on a 71.. theres a nice mpeg player as well.. connecting a dvd player will be a problem tho I guess.
Sound has been there for quite some time as well (using my z71 as mp3 player..)
The only thing it really lacks is some kind of mass storage.. but hrm.. I actually bought it as a pocketsize agenda/addressbook/webbrowser/notepad.. the rest is all just fun but mostly useless features for that purpose.
Hmm.. got me some usb connected hp printer/scanner thingy.. went to their site, saw I needed some hpijs 'driver' for Linux..
/usr/ports/print/hpijs and check.. its there.. make install.. follow half a screen of instructions at the end and my printing worked.. ( cd /usr/local/share/doc/ is a good idea as well
I blindly type cd
KDE didn't have any trouble with it either.
Now.. getting scanning to work with this thing is another story...
At any rate.. might be different with other printers.. I don't use printers much.
> Right now, cracked boxes are used for sending spam. If you slow down the rate that it's possible to send spam by 1000, then you get a thousandfold decrease in spam.
;)
If only that were true. Currently, despite thousands of Windows machines being used for sendign spam at any given time, in fact only a small part of the compromised machines is actually being used.
A thousandfold slowdown of the rate of sending just means a larger part of all those zombies will be used to get the job done. The factor you talk about is very easy to manage considering the total number of compromised machines out there.
An interesting sidenote, this just makes it more interesting for spammers to pay people to hack into larger computer systems for them to use them to compute hashes (yeah... imagine a beowolf cluster of whatever to compute them
The problem is not so much that you remove water (tho it has to come from somewhere in the end) but that you change the temperature distribution of the water.
If this is a problem or not should be properly investiugated. The consequences of it could be none at all, or way beyond what anyone would expect.. or anywhere inbetween.
It is a bit like the weather.. an completely insignificant event at one place can be the cause of a very dramatic event at some other place.
While what you say is true, it in no way changes that the temperature at low levels will rise as a consequence. Explaining how the water gets that cold says absolutely nothign about what happens when you remove it, it only suggests that if you leave it alone long enough, the water at low levels will have cooled down again.
What damage it causes inbetween I do not know, but I do know that it has to be looked at. We have made too many mistakes assuming such things were harmless.
Hmm... offtopic? more like troll.. and for once a somewhat funny one ;)
That is nice... lets see when there is a result (have seen enough results from the people involved in Fragonfly, so that was not intended as a cynical statement, just as a huint that only what exists today can be used today)
Anyway, unlike what some people believe, this kind of competition between different BSD distributions is a good thing, it allows people to go their own way with their ideas, and after a while all BSDs get a better solution (if the idea turned out to be better that is)
Hmm... despite name changes, Claria doesn't leave any doubt about what they are doing.. that the average user is too clueless to realize the consequuence is an entirely different thing, till then they won't care.. Seems that times are changing somewhat tho.
Privacy is about more then the government seeing that you do something that is not desired or even illegal.
It is about the government and others not invading your life without very good reason to do so.
For a democracy this is essential, and in a very essential case, it is even guaranteed (secret voting)
If you want to let others know about your private life should normally be your choice, not that of the government.
> a) don't feel like opening arbitary ports to the world from a potentially-insecure application with privs to write to the entire drive and
Which is an utter BS argument in this specific case:
- You do not have to run the game as admin/root, so it won't have complete write access to everything
- It is not listening on a port for this purpose (it is if you decide to run a server, but that is a different thing), instead, it is ASKING a server on the net about the key.
> b) don't feel like being in the company of people who think "OMG ROFL U SUK!" is intelligent discourse
(read: don't play online)
So wtf are you doing on Slashdot?
Maybe you should try to learn to read... you are being pointed at an example (in this specific case a game, but it can be really any kind of program) where a key and central server are used for controlling copies of said program.
If you run only open source software then that is unlikely to affect you, but really, what point did you want to make? It definitely affects peopel who do not play games as well.
> Much of their first season focused on such topics as Ouija boards, quack medicine (magnet therapy, for example) and UFO abductions. They weren't exactly topics that were tough to make some logical assumptions about from the start.
And the problem is that while such logical assumptions may appeal to you, and to the public, they are just that, logical assumptions. That is no standard whatsoever to call peopel a liar because there is no evidence or even hint of evidence that the logical assumption is true.
Yeah, its entertaining, but not a way to make a good case. For that I do not really have to see the program (even if I could.. it is not being broadcasted in EUrope for what I know, we do have similar programs tho)