Virtualization is currently the biggest threat to Windows and at the same time Microsoft cannot afford to alienate (too much) its corporate users. They know they cannot forbid corporate users (nominal buyers of Vista Business edition) from using virtual machines, they may have plenty of technical justifications for doing it.
The dangers of virtualization come from the home users, because it enables them to switch easily to Linux. Some time ago Microsoft tried to prevent double-booting for that reason. Now, with virtualization it's even much easier to work with the two OS. Too many home users currently stay with Windows because of the games, or because it's too much work to rebuild a personal environment.
The threat for the Windows quasi-monopoly is the Linux box with a few Windows virtual machines for the games and legacy software, and this threat comes from the home users, not from the corporate side.
The second threat is that a VM is essentially a throw away environment, a characteristic which is bad for the Microsoft business. For example, they cannot force users to keep WGA: so difficult to eradicate from a real machine, so easy to eliminate on a VM. With VM machines it's also very difficult to track usage and personal info.
If Ralsky deserves only one second of jail for each minute infuriated users have lost deleting his crap, this could ammount to thousands of years of jail.
I'll be generous and I'll accept that his time in jail be divided by ten if he tells the Feds everything he knows !
Today, spamming is a very profitable business, but it will disapear rapidly when it will cost them more to send their messages than they'll get from it.
To be viable, any solution, legal or technical, has to satisfy this condition : it must be prohibitively expensive to send unsollicited messages.
....strong suspicion that this delicately crafted piece of BS has been financed from Hollywood/MPAA.
Who else has interest to shoot down the DVD format for replacing it with formats ( HD-DVD or BlueRay, who cares...) which are not, or at best marginally better (in terms of quality) for the consumer.
If HD-DVD or BlueRay wins over the DVD format, guess who'll be the big winners...
And do you think that all the movies will be re-released with a much better resolution under these formats ?
I suspect that the code has reached the unmaintainable state. It is in such a poor shape that any modification on a line of code breaks two or three features somewhere else and introduces new bugs.
We used to call that the Clown's car syndrome : you turn the lights on, it opens the door. You close the door, it stops the engine. You restart the engine, hubcaps fall....
Is it seen as a USB mass storage device ?
If not, you have failed. I do not want to see any kind of your proprietary software on my PC to get access to your device.
I don't think that we should minimize this. It is certainly not innocuous.
Blizzard has certainly the right to prevent cheating, it has even to do it for respect to all its customers, however they should not be using these methods (tools like "The Warden")>
Several points:
OK, stealing the credit card details or social security numbers on the title bars, I don't really believe it.
However, only the fact that the tool can pick and process an email address on a window title makes this a serious privacy breach and is totally unacceptable. I leave the rest to your imagination
It is trivial to change the name of an executable and it is relatively easy to change the title of any window or any signature of an executable. Therefore, as it is reported, The Warden is totally useless to detect cheating tools or to stop them except from stupid / uninformed cheaters. I can only conclude that The Warden does a bit more than sending the flag "I'm cheating"
It should be called a Trojan : it has all the functionalities and I don't think that it is installed with informed consent. The content of the EULA is =deceptive= and any knowledgeable person aware of the functionalities of this software would never accept it on a PC containing personal information. It is a security hole deliberately installed by Blizzard, it's collecting and processing personal information, and if any criminal third party succeeds in using it, Blizzard will have a huge responsibility.
I don't imagine Blizzard deliberately breaking the law. however a Blizzard employee : YES ! A criminal piggybacking on this functionality : YES !
If you don't want that shit on your computer, don't play the game.
Right ! Typical situation(fortunately : not mine!): Tell that to your son who's a teenager and who've been screaming for months to play WoW on the family computer, and try to explain him why you refuse.
Regarding the EULA, there are several articles which ( I hope ) wouldn't stand very long in court in case of a problem.
The fact that Valve or certain other companies do this kind of thing is no excuse. Blizzard ( as others ) has taken a great risk
...Let's wait for a test in court.
Blizzard is just collecting/processing a large amount of more or less personal and traceable information with strictly no control or accountability ( unlike banking and medical information for which there is some level of accountability, though still inadequate ). In these circumstances I cannot imagine any company or employee sitting on this amount of data and not using it sooner or later for other purpose.
Essentially Blizzard has properly installed a Trojan with WoW. There is strictly nothing to prevent Blizzard to get more information than they say they do, nothing to prevent them from processing this information for any other purpose than prevent cheating, nothing to prevent an unscrupulous Blizzard employee to sell this information to spammers or any kind of criminal. All this could happen without your knowledge. And worse, WOW servers will now be targeted by all possible hackers. The first one who succeeds will be instantly rewarded with a goldmine of information and the largest botnet he could ever dream.
I don't think that Blizzard has realized the risk they are taking with The Warden. At the first incident Blizzard will get hell in the press and in court, EULA or not EULA.
I'm waiting for the day the makers of spyware land in jail !
If the defendants get away only with fines, this case will do nothing and will not stop them. The fines will just be part of the cost for doing business.
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I got it! Vista is a misnomer, it shoud have been TANGO: one step forward, 2 steps back !
Get a larger Hard Drive !
-Can I have XP instead of Vista on this one ?
-Can I install Ubuntu ?
Amoroso is full of it that I wouldn't be surprised if he believes in his own BS.
Blue-Ray Coasters and HD DVD coasters, they'll join my collection of AOL coasters !
The dangers of virtualization come from the home users, because it enables them to switch easily to Linux. Some time ago Microsoft tried to prevent double-booting for that reason. Now, with virtualization it's even much easier to work with the two OS. Too many home users currently stay with Windows because of the games, or because it's too much work to rebuild a personal environment.
The threat for the Windows quasi-monopoly is the Linux box with a few Windows virtual machines for the games and legacy software, and this threat comes from the home users, not from the corporate side.
The second threat is that a VM is essentially a throw away environment, a characteristic which is bad for the Microsoft business. For example, they cannot force users to keep WGA: so difficult to eradicate from a real machine, so easy to eliminate on a VM. With VM machines it's also very difficult to track usage and personal info.
( No truth has been hurted writing this post )
Well....Considering the support you get from Microsoft, that does not make a big difference
If Ralsky deserves only one second of jail for each minute infuriated users have lost deleting his crap, this could ammount to thousands of years of jail.
I'll be generous and I'll accept that his time in jail be divided by ten if he tells the Feds everything he knows !
Cheers !
Two oxymorons in a single title ! ( ...huuum .....at least two ! )
No parent will buy a cellphone to their kid unless the feature is disabled.
An automatic update of WMP and your PC gets owned, and nothing can be done to prevent it!
Then consumers will rush to this format despite RIAA attempts to move to the other one.
I'm waiting.....
It will be in jail !!!!
Today, spamming is a very profitable business, but it will disapear rapidly when it will cost them more to send their messages than they'll get from it.
To be viable, any solution, legal or technical, has to satisfy this condition : it must be prohibitively expensive to send unsollicited messages.
We still have to find this solution...
I always had the feeling that "Security Auditing" and "Quality Assurance" were concepts totally alien in Redmond.
Who else has interest to shoot down the DVD format for replacing it with formats ( HD-DVD or BlueRay, who cares...) which are not, or at best marginally better (in terms of quality) for the consumer.
If HD-DVD or BlueRay wins over the DVD format, guess who'll be the big winners...
And do you think that all the movies will be re-released with a much better resolution under these formats ?
Windows without security holes !
We used to call that the Clown's car syndrome : you turn the lights on, it opens the door. You close the door, it stops the engine. You restart the engine, hubcaps fall....
-Well ...only one in one thousand !
-Let's see : $2.50 x (# customers) / 1000 .....Hey! it's profitable !
-Let's go for it...
The pornbot, the pharmabot, the nigerianbot, the casinobot....
Is it seen as a USB mass storage device ? If not, you have failed. I do not want to see any kind of your proprietary software on my PC to get access to your device.
Blizzard has certainly the right to prevent cheating, it has even to do it for respect to all its customers, however they should not be using these methods (tools like "The Warden")>
Several points:
OK, stealing the credit card details or social security numbers on the title bars, I don't really believe it.
However, only the fact that the tool can pick and process an email address on a window title makes this a serious privacy breach and is totally unacceptable. I leave the rest to your imagination
It is trivial to change the name of an executable and it is relatively easy to change the title of any window or any signature of an executable. Therefore, as it is reported, The Warden is totally useless to detect cheating tools or to stop them except from stupid / uninformed cheaters. I can only conclude that The Warden does a bit more than sending the flag "I'm cheating"
It should be called a Trojan : it has all the functionalities and I don't think that it is installed with informed consent. The content of the EULA is =deceptive= and any knowledgeable person aware of the functionalities of this software would never accept it on a PC containing personal information. It is a security hole deliberately installed by Blizzard, it's collecting and processing personal information, and if any criminal third party succeeds in using it, Blizzard will have a huge responsibility.
I don't imagine Blizzard deliberately breaking the law. however a Blizzard employee : YES ! A criminal piggybacking on this functionality : YES !
If you don't want that shit on your computer, don't play the game.
Right ! Typical situation(fortunately : not mine!): Tell that to your son who's a teenager and who've been screaming for months to play WoW on the family computer, and try to explain him why you refuse.
Regarding the EULA, there are several articles which ( I hope ) wouldn't stand very long in court in case of a problem.
The fact that Valve or certain other companies do this kind of thing is no excuse. Blizzard ( as others ) has taken a great risk
Blizzard is just collecting/processing a large amount of more or less personal and traceable information with strictly no control or accountability ( unlike banking and medical information for which there is some level of accountability, though still inadequate ). In these circumstances I cannot imagine any company or employee sitting on this amount of data and not using it sooner or later for other purpose.
Essentially Blizzard has properly installed a Trojan with WoW.
There is strictly nothing to prevent Blizzard to get more information than they say they do, nothing to prevent them from processing this information for any other purpose than prevent cheating, nothing to prevent an unscrupulous Blizzard employee to sell this information to spammers or any kind of criminal. All this could happen without your knowledge.
And worse, WOW servers will now be targeted by all possible hackers. The first one who succeeds will be instantly rewarded with a goldmine of information and the largest botnet he could ever dream.
I don't think that Blizzard has realized the risk they are taking with The Warden. At the first incident Blizzard will get hell in the press and in court, EULA or not EULA.
I'm waiting for the day the makers of spyware land in jail !
If the defendants get away only with fines, this case will do nothing and will not stop them. The fines will just be part of the cost for doing business.