Not only that, but the vast majority of these 'studies' are usually coming a company that supports or is supported by one of the elements to be tested. I don't read reports that Linux is better than Windows for the same reason:
- Windows marketing has something to sell - Linux zealots have something to prove
I know this is not always the case (so please don't 'correct' me with a torch), but MS is always trying to say "See! We really are secure!" and we all laugh. But on the other side of the coin, I've heard Linux proponents claim that the Linux desktop is really easy to use. I swallowed my pride a while back, so I laugh at that as well.
I have one home computer with Linux, and another with Windows, and each has thier jobs that they perform well at. I'll use what works before picking a technological dogma.
Unless Blizzard has GMs/players specifically coaxing people into staying on the game, I fail to see how they're responsible even if WoW was already out for three years. A gamer has a choice to start playing and whether to keep playing or to stop. Yes, the social aspect can be addictive, and there is such a thing as video game addiction, but the same is true for alcohol, television and even porn. With very limited exceptions in exceedingly rare cases can you logically blame the addiction on the substance itself.
I think it was a bubble about as big as a cell phone actually;) Yeah, music/gaming on your phone could be neat and all, and maybe plenty of people think it's the coolest thing since sliced bread. But nokia just 'reported' that it failed: we needed them to actually tell us this? I think the N-Gage is the perfect example of what happens when you try to cram too much into a device that already needs to be a phone, which is no meager task.
Advanced technology be damned I tell you! (sarcasm here, people) but I still get plenty of dropped calls and basic connection failures. I think the size of phones sort of limits them to being good at being a phone and about one other task. With the possible exception of a PDA though, I don't think I've seen any multi-function phone that does a secondary task well enough to make someone stop using their dedicated camera/music player/game device.
Spy der Mann hit it almost squarely on the head with this. People have been stretching themselves too thin in some attempt to add widgets to your cell phone because we all love everything to be portable, and most of us already have cell phones to begin with. The only problem here is that there wasn't any lack of product, but rather the quality of the products have been crippled in many (but not all) cases by limitations of the hardware.
While I may have been rash to immediately rule out the possibility of exchanges for systems that others failed to pick up, some of the claims online are still sounding rather shady while others seems all too plausible. At first I wondered if MS was keeping the other 3/4 of the shipment in stock just to build hype and frenzy over limited supply, but the crash reports have made me wonder if they were really doing a controlled test for recall rather than deal with it (if it happened) in a giant mess with people feeling like it was putting the hurt on their holiday gaming. This way, if they have to recall, they can excercise damage control.
Yeah, I've heard the crash reports too. Some of them sound down right dubious. Someone even claims that they got the same problem after exchanging their system. Wow, what an utter load of BS. Even still, most of the crash reports I've read have been problems relating to the hard drive rather than the power supply.
While the system is tempting and all, "generally positive" isn't enough to make it worth the effort to make my way through the mobs with a pitchfork. I'll wait to see if there's enough errors to warrant a recall, and then see how well the games work/play. After the world is a little more sane, I'll think about buying one unless PS3 starts tempting me.
Considering that Sony has becomes a multimedia giant, I highly doubt the corrupt big-wigs in one sector will really have any clout in another. The only reason I have doubts about PS3 is that PS2 and PSP have largely become systems of mindless sequels. Though there are titles to break this trend, they are very few and far in between. If they can get more great things coming like Magna Carta and DDS, then I'm all for it, otherwise, I'm sticking with a PC
What seriously unnerves me about the RIAA's statement is that they say there's nothing unusual about this case, refering to DRM. If they think that rootkit DRM CD's (are|should be) commonplace, I'm really reconsidering backing up my new CD purchases in fear of what may come.
That kind of idea is opperating on the foundation of victims of MTV marketing with no clue to anything outside of the mainstream. On the other hand, a lot of legal download services and even internet radio stations work on the 'long tail' method of getting word around. So even though some artist gets knocked into the.99 cent bin for not allowing Sony to rootkit their CD, if they still get mention on the "people who downloaded $foo also listened to..." lists, there is still a healthy chance of survival despite lack of exposure.
Another idea to consider is how many of the cheaper songs will be targeted by listeners more to save some money only to find out that the artist is really good. As a final argument, how likely do you find it that Apple may just advertise the artists under-exposed by the labels just give the execs a subtle slap in the face?
While you are correct in the modern context (and current dictionary definition) of the word, the roots of the word itself imply that a terrorist is traditionally someone who uses fear tactics and general psychological fuckery to further their goals (see also: The current US presidency). If this thug is threatening to fire-bomb and murder a few people in order to protect his scamming business, I would classify him as a low-level terrorist, however poorly organized.
Precisly: this kid should be better labled as a terrorist or a thug (not the hip-hop variety) rather than a spammer. I still find it horrible that he was cleared of two accounts of threatening to kill.
I understand how important it is to have vibrant images as part of a great gaming experience, but this review gave me the sensation that if I don't own an HDTV, the resolution task force is going to come to my house with clubs. Not only did I save myself $400 dollars by getting my desposit back, I saved myself the price of a new HDTV that I don't have (and can't afford anyway).
Somehow, I don't feel like I'm losing anything by gaming on PC anymore.
"I think Apple just gave mid summer as an estimate to give the developers of 3rd party applications more time, as well as themselves if they needed it"
If you ask me, I think Apple gives these kind of dates because they know how quickly tech information can leak to the public regardless of security and secrecy. Meanwhile, developers have probably been churning this stuff out for a good long time in preperation. This way, we're expecting mid-summer and Apple gets to surprise everyone with "one more thing". That's jolly ol' saint Jobs' marketing for you. I can't say that it's a bad thing, but it just seems like 'them';)
Actually, this case should be far from over, and I'm not talking about Sony either. Consider this:
(Forgive for forgetting the name but...) Someone had to discover the rootkit for us to know about it --obvious. He had to violate the EULA and DMCA to do, thus violating the user agreement and breaking a law --insidious.
I couldn't care less less about a user agreement to be screwed becoming null and void, but the fact that someone had to technically break the law to discover a potentially serious problem deserves examination. When a company can twist the law to keep people from discovering their nefarious deeds, we need to dust off the books and revise how these laws can be implemented. I can actually think of it as 'lucky' that this problem was serious enough to prevent Sony from playing the legal card against our knight in UV reactive acrylic liquid cooled armor;)
Yes, I'm enthused about this prospect, but sadly, not about the actual product. I think it offers some interesting features, but for $400, I would like to see a slightly higher storage capacity. After all, Nokia should take a cue from everyone else using the newer generations of Flash RAM. Frankly, the capabilities leave the imagination open to great ideas, but when I can actually store a useful amount of files on it, I'll be impressed
"Remember all those silly computer labs back in high schools in the '80s? Did anyone get any real educational value out of them?
Of course they did! Some of them learning to crack the school network, going to on to becoming the legendary uber-hackers, eventually being hired by computer security firms!</completeanduttersatire>
You obviously didn't see my closing tag. It was actually a joke.
Slashdot has blasted many a site off the map before, but some have survived. I'm just saying it's funny that they post something about a new system built on reliability when it was already wanged before I was even able to comment. One would think Microsoft would have the guns to handle/.ers by now.
"We're sorry -- you have reached this page because a web server error occurred." They're talking about reliability and yet it looks like we already sladotted the page. Somehow, this leaves me wanting more</toungeincheek>
I understand fully. Which is why I do get a 300-400 dollar card every several years. But I've seen people sink money into 2-3 new cards a year or more just for SLI. Seriously, beyond a certain point, the human eye can't detect the framerates that some 'hardcore' fans tell me looks so much better. They think they see a difference because a higher number must mean better quality, and so their mind rationalizes with them. So in the end, they wouldn't notice the difference if you took their FRPS down by 10, but they will convince themselves that they can see the difference between 70 and 80. It's like someone telling you that they hear the difference between two sounds because they assume that you're trying to test them when they really just heard the same thing twice.
And depending on how much your monthly bills are, $600 can be a lot of money.
I fully understand your points, but I also think you put too much credit on those that monitor the game. It's pretty easy for Blizzard to take action against an entire guild that prides itself for cheating (yes, there is one if it still exists). However, random players using subtle hacks are much harder to monitor when there are as many people signed in as there are on WoW.
Though I could be wrong about this, it doesn't look like The Warden actually does send all your computer use info to another company. From the descriptions I've read (please don't correct me with a torch if I'm mistaken), all that info stays on your computer. It seems like The Warden checks for hashes on your computer and those hack-hashes and only those get sent anywhere out of your computer. From the way it appears, all the computing to detect hacking is done by The Warden on your computer with regularly updated hashes to scan for. It'd be like saying that Symantic virus scanning sends a list of every file on your computer to the company for them to find viruses in. That just doesn't seem logical. Putting all that responsibility on the servers is a little when when the Dark Iron server used to be known for crashing due to the Penny Arcade vs. PvP raiding party battles. With all the costs that go into keeping the servers alive and kicking, I'd hate to see how expensive the game would become if they needed more servers just for 'rule compliance engines' to scan through everything as well. Besides, there would need to be error correction engines on top of the rules compliance checks so that you don't get booted for lag-aporting (for those who know what that is).
Yeah, they should let you know that they have software to make sure that you're not cheating in a more plain to see format. But I guess I just assume that this should be built into online-games anyway. And if you've never seen a problem with rampant cheating in an online game, then I guess you never played enough Diablo 1 online. I had to use a hack to keep people with artificial Godly Plate of The Whale Armor and lord only knows what in(s)ane weapon/spell to town-kill me. And it wasn't just my server either. There were large problems with people hacking the crap out of Diablo online. Things are more refined now, but I still can't fault Blizzard for security measures.
You seemed to have missed the point that 'a lot of games' does not mean 'all games', 'any games', or any derivative thereof. And honestly, the point of my post is that I'm willing to sacrifice some detail and put my settings at 75-80% instead of maxed-out if it'll save me from spending close to a thousand dollars a year in upgrades.
This isn't all that funny. I mean, it does make me laugh, but it's far more true than humorous. I constantly get berated by the 'hardcore' gamers for not having the fastest CPU/RAM/GPU/HD when I can still run a lot of games just as well as anyone else. The problem with hardcore gaming equipment is that it has become something like MTV selling you 'cool'.
Guess what? That wicked dual-core CPU actually runs games slower than its single core cousin. That brand-spankin' new video card that cost you $400(or more)? I pay that much once every several years on my video card. The difference is that I don't care if I squeeze out my maximum frames per second because most people can't even detect the difference if the game didn't have an option to show the number in the corner of the screen like some veritable rating of thier manhood (sorry for my gender bias on that). And that super ultra OHMYFUCKINGGODITMAKESMYEXPLODEITSSOFAST low-latency RAM is giving you a performance boost of 2% of what I've got now.
I find it educational to read these reports so I can make educated purchasing choices. For that, I'm quite grateful. However, I find it kind of sad that the parent post is unsettlingly accurate in that the 'hardcore pc gamers' will shove this to the side for the ATI SXL 10G Super Elite XTRME Pro card next week. Witness what happens when PC gaming meets MTV-esque marketing.
Well the problem is addressing these perceived shortcomings of Linux compared to Windows/OS X/whatever is that some people view Linux as the name of a single operating system...but it's not. For the power users, go with something like Gentoo/Slackware or a distro equally technical and 'pure' to the Unix-like roots. If you want a Linux distribution to compete with Windows, then we may be looking at something like a more refined Mandriva/openSUSE flavor.
But when it comes to installing things to the system, I think the majority of distros need software with some sort of system that has both a GUI installer that you can select whether you want it installed on the entire system, or just your home directory (I still graple with those troubles), and so on. But it should still be accesible from the command line like a normal source package to allow the power users to completely customize their installation.
I could be way out of my leauge on this topic (or how possible my idea could be), but that's just my 22 cents.
Sure, brag about it because you got to post the story. Now that I'm reading about it, mine's 24,000 seconds. <griping>Curse you slashdot effect</griping>
Incorrect. They do tell you about these programs, you simply click "I Agree" in favor of reading it.
Sorry, I had to vent that, but here's a serious point about what a game is supposed to 'do'. Yes it crunches numbers for physics, graphics, etc, and that's all fine and good. But what's the point in an age of gaming in which the word "mod" is as ubiquitous as it is misconstrued for personal gain? As I said earlier in this topic, I hated the day in Diablo1 online when I actually had to use a cheat for nothing other than to keep other people from cheating around me. Shouldn't it be a game's job to also create a level playing field for people to actually enjoy?
Besides, do you really think that there are real people reading through all your computer's activities? It seems a little more reasonable that The Warden is programmed to decode all activities into hashes and only those that match ones of known WoW hacks would set off sirens. From the description of the program, it looks like it isn't doing anything more than scanning for a beefed up MD5 hash that matches WoW hacks. It monitors much more information, but if it doesn't match that WoW hack hash, then no human eyes ever see it beyond your computer.
Anyway, if I ever join Wow, I'll have to thank Blizzard for trying to get rid of rampant cheaters at the expense of looking like spyware distributors to those who don't realize the purpose behind it.
Slashdot Mirror
Not only that, but the vast majority of these 'studies' are usually coming a company that supports or is supported by one of the elements to be tested. I don't read reports that Linux is better than Windows for the same reason:
- Windows marketing has something to sell
- Linux zealots have something to prove
I know this is not always the case (so please don't 'correct' me with a torch), but MS is always trying to say "See! We really are secure!" and we all laugh. But on the other side of the coin, I've heard Linux proponents claim that the Linux desktop is really easy to use. I swallowed my pride a while back, so I laugh at that as well.
I have one home computer with Linux, and another with Windows, and each has thier jobs that they perform well at. I'll use what works before picking a technological dogma.
Unless Blizzard has GMs/players specifically coaxing people into staying on the game, I fail to see how they're responsible even if WoW was already out for three years. A gamer has a choice to start playing and whether to keep playing or to stop. Yes, the social aspect can be addictive, and there is such a thing as video game addiction, but the same is true for alcohol, television and even porn. With very limited exceptions in exceedingly rare cases can you logically blame the addiction on the substance itself.
I think it was a bubble about as big as a cell phone actually ;) Yeah, music/gaming on your phone could be neat and all, and maybe plenty of people think it's the coolest thing since sliced bread. But nokia just 'reported' that it failed: we needed them to actually tell us this? I think the N-Gage is the perfect example of what happens when you try to cram too much into a device that already needs to be a phone, which is no meager task.
Advanced technology be damned I tell you! (sarcasm here, people) but I still get plenty of dropped calls and basic connection failures. I think the size of phones sort of limits them to being good at being a phone and about one other task. With the possible exception of a PDA though, I don't think I've seen any multi-function phone that does a secondary task well enough to make someone stop using their dedicated camera/music player/game device.
Spy der Mann hit it almost squarely on the head with this. People have been stretching themselves too thin in some attempt to add widgets to your cell phone because we all love everything to be portable, and most of us already have cell phones to begin with. The only problem here is that there wasn't any lack of product, but rather the quality of the products have been crippled in many (but not all) cases by limitations of the hardware.
While I may have been rash to immediately rule out the possibility of exchanges for systems that others failed to pick up, some of the claims online are still sounding rather shady while others seems all too plausible. At first I wondered if MS was keeping the other 3/4 of the shipment in stock just to build hype and frenzy over limited supply, but the crash reports have made me wonder if they were really doing a controlled test for recall rather than deal with it (if it happened) in a giant mess with people feeling like it was putting the hurt on their holiday gaming. This way, if they have to recall, they can excercise damage control.
Yeah, I've heard the crash reports too. Some of them sound down right dubious. Someone even claims that they got the same problem after exchanging their system. Wow, what an utter load of BS. Even still, most of the crash reports I've read have been problems relating to the hard drive rather than the power supply.
While the system is tempting and all, "generally positive" isn't enough to make it worth the effort to make my way through the mobs with a pitchfork. I'll wait to see if there's enough errors to warrant a recall, and then see how well the games work/play. After the world is a little more sane, I'll think about buying one unless PS3 starts tempting me.
Considering that Sony has becomes a multimedia giant, I highly doubt the corrupt big-wigs in one sector will really have any clout in another. The only reason I have doubts about PS3 is that PS2 and PSP have largely become systems of mindless sequels. Though there are titles to break this trend, they are very few and far in between. If they can get more great things coming like Magna Carta and DDS, then I'm all for it, otherwise, I'm sticking with a PC
What seriously unnerves me about the RIAA's statement is that they say there's nothing unusual about this case, refering to DRM. If they think that rootkit DRM CD's (are|should be) commonplace, I'm really reconsidering backing up my new CD purchases in fear of what may come.
That kind of idea is opperating on the foundation of victims of MTV marketing with no clue to anything outside of the mainstream. On the other hand, a lot of legal download services and even internet radio stations work on the 'long tail' method of getting word around. So even though some artist gets knocked into the .99 cent bin for not allowing Sony to rootkit their CD, if they still get mention on the "people who downloaded $foo also listened to..." lists, there is still a healthy chance of survival despite lack of exposure.
Another idea to consider is how many of the cheaper songs will be targeted by listeners more to save some money only to find out that the artist is really good. As a final argument, how likely do you find it that Apple may just advertise the artists under-exposed by the labels just give the execs a subtle slap in the face?
While you are correct in the modern context (and current dictionary definition) of the word, the roots of the word itself imply that a terrorist is traditionally someone who uses fear tactics and general psychological fuckery to further their goals (see also: The current US presidency). If this thug is threatening to fire-bomb and murder a few people in order to protect his scamming business, I would classify him as a low-level terrorist, however poorly organized.
;)
That's just my 22 cents
Precisly: this kid should be better labled as a terrorist or a thug (not the hip-hop variety) rather than a spammer. I still find it horrible that he was cleared of two accounts of threatening to kill.
I understand how important it is to have vibrant images as part of a great gaming experience, but this review gave me the sensation that if I don't own an HDTV, the resolution task force is going to come to my house with clubs. Not only did I save myself $400 dollars by getting my desposit back, I saved myself the price of a new HDTV that I don't have (and can't afford anyway).
Somehow, I don't feel like I'm losing anything by gaming on PC anymore.
"I think Apple just gave mid summer as an estimate to give the developers of 3rd party applications more time, as well as themselves if they needed it"
;)
If you ask me, I think Apple gives these kind of dates because they know how quickly tech information can leak to the public regardless of security and secrecy. Meanwhile, developers have probably been churning this stuff out for a good long time in preperation. This way, we're expecting mid-summer and Apple gets to surprise everyone with "one more thing". That's jolly ol' saint Jobs' marketing for you. I can't say that it's a bad thing, but it just seems like 'them'
AIM bot's daily schedule:k inggroup);}
- for(i=0;ibuddies.length;i++){
- if(!shadylookinggroup){buddy[i].list.add(shadyloo
- get beer;}
You don't see this coming? I do.
Actually, this case should be far from over, and I'm not talking about Sony either. Consider this:
;)
(Forgive for forgetting the name but...) Someone had to discover the rootkit for us to know about it --obvious.
He had to violate the EULA and DMCA to do, thus violating the user agreement and breaking a law --insidious.
I couldn't care less less about a user agreement to be screwed becoming null and void, but the fact that someone had to technically break the law to discover a potentially serious problem deserves examination. When a company can twist the law to keep people from discovering their nefarious deeds, we need to dust off the books and revise how these laws can be implemented. I can actually think of it as 'lucky' that this problem was serious enough to prevent Sony from playing the legal card against our knight in UV reactive acrylic liquid cooled armor
Yes, I'm enthused about this prospect, but sadly, not about the actual product. I think it offers some interesting features, but for $400, I would like to see a slightly higher storage capacity. After all, Nokia should take a cue from everyone else using the newer generations of Flash RAM. Frankly, the capabilities leave the imagination open to great ideas, but when I can actually store a useful amount of files on it, I'll be impressed
"Remember all those silly computer labs back in high schools in the '80s? Did anyone get any real educational value out of them?
Of course they did! Some of them learning to crack the school network, going to on to becoming the legendary uber-hackers, eventually being hired by computer security firms!</completeanduttersatire>
You obviously didn't see my closing tag. It was actually a joke.
/.ers by now.
Slashdot has blasted many a site off the map before, but some have survived. I'm just saying it's funny that they post something about a new system built on reliability when it was already wanged before I was even able to comment. One would think Microsoft would have the guns to handle
"We're sorry -- you have reached this page because a web server error occurred."
They're talking about reliability and yet it looks like we already sladotted the page.
Somehow, this leaves me wanting more</toungeincheek>
I understand fully. Which is why I do get a 300-400 dollar card every several years. But I've seen people sink money into 2-3 new cards a year or more just for SLI. Seriously, beyond a certain point, the human eye can't detect the framerates that some 'hardcore' fans tell me looks so much better. They think they see a difference because a higher number must mean better quality, and so their mind rationalizes with them. So in the end, they wouldn't notice the difference if you took their FRPS down by 10, but they will convince themselves that they can see the difference between 70 and 80. It's like someone telling you that they hear the difference between two sounds because they assume that you're trying to test them when they really just heard the same thing twice.
And depending on how much your monthly bills are, $600 can be a lot of money.
I fully understand your points, but I also think you put too much credit on those that monitor the game. It's pretty easy for Blizzard to take action against an entire guild that prides itself for cheating (yes, there is one if it still exists). However, random players using subtle hacks are much harder to monitor when there are as many people signed in as there are on WoW.
Though I could be wrong about this, it doesn't look like The Warden actually does send all your computer use info to another company. From the descriptions I've read (please don't correct me with a torch if I'm mistaken), all that info stays on your computer. It seems like The Warden checks for hashes on your computer and those hack-hashes and only those get sent anywhere out of your computer. From the way it appears, all the computing to detect hacking is done by The Warden on your computer with regularly updated hashes to scan for. It'd be like saying that Symantic virus scanning sends a list of every file on your computer to the company for them to find viruses in. That just doesn't seem logical. Putting all that responsibility on the servers is a little when when the Dark Iron server used to be known for crashing due to the Penny Arcade vs. PvP raiding party battles. With all the costs that go into keeping the servers alive and kicking, I'd hate to see how expensive the game would become if they needed more servers just for 'rule compliance engines' to scan through everything as well. Besides, there would need to be error correction engines on top of the rules compliance checks so that you don't get booted for lag-aporting (for those who know what that is).
Yeah, they should let you know that they have software to make sure that you're not cheating in a more plain to see format. But I guess I just assume that this should be built into online-games anyway. And if you've never seen a problem with rampant cheating in an online game, then I guess you never played enough Diablo 1 online. I had to use a hack to keep people with artificial Godly Plate of The Whale Armor and lord only knows what in(s)ane weapon/spell to town-kill me. And it wasn't just my server either. There were large problems with people hacking the crap out of Diablo online. Things are more refined now, but I still can't fault Blizzard for security measures.
You seemed to have missed the point that 'a lot of games' does not mean 'all games', 'any games', or any derivative thereof. And honestly, the point of my post is that I'm willing to sacrifice some detail and put my settings at 75-80% instead of maxed-out if it'll save me from spending close to a thousand dollars a year in upgrades.
This isn't all that funny. I mean, it does make me laugh, but it's far more true than humorous. I constantly get berated by the 'hardcore' gamers for not having the fastest CPU/RAM/GPU/HD when I can still run a lot of games just as well as anyone else. The problem with hardcore gaming equipment is that it has become something like MTV selling you 'cool'.
Guess what? That wicked dual-core CPU actually runs games slower than its single core cousin. That brand-spankin' new video card that cost you $400(or more)? I pay that much once every several years on my video card. The difference is that I don't care if I squeeze out my maximum frames per second because most people can't even detect the difference if the game didn't have an option to show the number in the corner of the screen like some veritable rating of thier manhood (sorry for my gender bias on that). And that super ultra OHMYFUCKINGGODITMAKESMYEXPLODEITSSOFAST low-latency RAM is giving you a performance boost of 2% of what I've got now.
I find it educational to read these reports so I can make educated purchasing choices. For that, I'm quite grateful. However, I find it kind of sad that the parent post is unsettlingly accurate in that the 'hardcore pc gamers' will shove this to the side for the ATI SXL 10G Super Elite XTRME Pro card next week. Witness what happens when PC gaming meets MTV-esque marketing.
Well the problem is addressing these perceived shortcomings of Linux compared to Windows/OS X/whatever is that some people view Linux as the name of a single operating system...but it's not. For the power users, go with something like Gentoo/Slackware or a distro equally technical and 'pure' to the Unix-like roots. If you want a Linux distribution to compete with Windows, then we may be looking at something like a more refined Mandriva/openSUSE flavor.
But when it comes to installing things to the system, I think the majority of distros need software with some sort of system that has both a GUI installer that you can select whether you want it installed on the entire system, or just your home directory (I still graple with those troubles), and so on. But it should still be accesible from the command line like a normal source package to allow the power users to completely customize their installation.
I could be way out of my leauge on this topic (or how possible my idea could be), but that's just my 22 cents.
Sure, brag about it because you got to post the story. Now that I'm reading about it, mine's 24,000 seconds.
<griping>Curse you slashdot effect</griping>
Incorrect. They do tell you about these programs, you simply click "I Agree" in favor of reading it.
Sorry, I had to vent that, but here's a serious point about what a game is supposed to 'do'. Yes it crunches numbers for physics, graphics, etc, and that's all fine and good. But what's the point in an age of gaming in which the word "mod" is as ubiquitous as it is misconstrued for personal gain? As I said earlier in this topic, I hated the day in Diablo1 online when I actually had to use a cheat for nothing other than to keep other people from cheating around me. Shouldn't it be a game's job to also create a level playing field for people to actually enjoy?
Besides, do you really think that there are real people reading through all your computer's activities? It seems a little more reasonable that The Warden is programmed to decode all activities into hashes and only those that match ones of known WoW hacks would set off sirens. From the description of the program, it looks like it isn't doing anything more than scanning for a beefed up MD5 hash that matches WoW hacks. It monitors much more information, but if it doesn't match that WoW hack hash, then no human eyes ever see it beyond your computer.
Anyway, if I ever join Wow, I'll have to thank Blizzard for trying to get rid of rampant cheaters at the expense of looking like spyware distributors to those who don't realize the purpose behind it.