Actually, the key generators for Diablo 2 are a mix of both - real and malware. Groups like Razor1911 cracked that many moons ago, and it's never been fixed by Blizzard. Why should they bother anyhow, the game is 'ancient' in software years. You should have seen the havoc caused when people were buying the Diablo Battlepack when it was first new and finding their legit keys banned right off the bat - because they used the same system for the 'new' Battlepack as they did for the original Diablo 2/LOD. THAT had already been cracked by pirates for WELL over a year.
It took quite a bit of sending in photos of individuals holding boxes, copies of receipts, etc to get that problem resolved for more than a few people.
Correction: The only way to protect against stupid users is to not let them within twenty feet of a computer to start with. Outside of this, there is no stopping them, no matter if you set their rights into oblivion or not. They always find a way to fsck something up.
There is the argument to be made that plain-text passwords should never be allowed to begin with, nevermind which platform, 3rd-party software, or hardware architecture that a system is comprised of.
That being said, there could be just a wee tad bit of blame laid at the feet of the programmers of the software/hardware for allowing this to be possible in the first place.
The Broadcom-based 'wired' NICs in quite a few Dell/HP/Gateway/etc systems still have no proper Linux support, even over 10 years after they some of them were last used in a retail system.
You must be thinking of Intel when it comes to wired NIC cards just working.
I've had Windows 7 start and run (in 'Classic' mode) on a laptop with an ATI 16MB graphics card. If you couldn't get it to run on a Radeon, you're not trying hard enough.
It runs perfectly fine on my desktop that has a Radeon 9600XT 256MB card. Most graphical goodness included. It also runs just fine on my other two desktops. One featuring a Radeon 9200 128 MB card and the other a nVidia FX5500 256MB card, again, with some graphics options tuned down.
I would suggest you try older drivers. Many cards have no support past a certain driver version.
Not true:) Check your WinXP (even under SP3) services once. Remote Desktop and NetBIOSHelper (amongst other stupid things like SSDP Discovery service and Remote Registry) is enabled by default. Nothing regarding networking is disabled by default using IPSEC, Group Policy, etc. Ditto under Windows 2000 SP4. As for the Windows Firewall? Ports 80 and 25 blocked by default, if that. FFS, even WinOBJ (Many Component Services Objects) items are remotely accessible by default using RPC - using no password on an account.
Anonymous Logins are allowed by default.
This may be different under Vista and Windows 7, however.
That may be, but now many cablecos are dropping OTA local channels on their streams altogether. I have to use an antenna to get mine. They want you to pay and pay some more, so anything that has the word "free" in it is anathema to them.
Northwestern PA, how I hate thee and thy shitty single providers.
Only good news I've heard recently is that several companies applied for and were granted some of that broadband expansion money the Fed is offering. Two of the six companies have already started surveying for fiber-optic rollout.
The PS3 getting their footing back would require them actually dropping the price to something approaching a game console and not an ATV, and also providing games that people actually want to play.
So far, even the PS3 'exclusives' have been underwhelming.
What choice do gamers have if the price is set at $50? Go without every game released? Piss off. Not our fault douchebag publishers are getting greedier and greedier by the day.
There have been a few cases of Chinese workers that have been found guilty of this and A) put into prison and B) deported back to China and declared persona non grata afterwords.
Chi Mak and Dongfan Chung are two that come to mind.
My set-top player goes directly to the menu if I tell it too with a nice Main Menu button on the remote....
The only thing it still plays as mandatory is the FBI warning, which is something I can live with. It ignores all of the other "do-not-skip" flags enabled on commercial dvds.
Actually, if you use Xbox Live! You -are- technically paying a monthly fee to play multi-player games. It's working out quite well for Microsoft, btw. Outside of Valve and Blizzard, they have the largest online market segment for paid gaming. Once the shareholders + C-level execs of the big publishers get the bright idea of charging you rental fees for their all of their online multi-player games (EA, I am looking at you in particular), watch Valve turn Steam into a monthly fee-based system (on top of what you pay to "purchase" the game), because the game publishers require them to. The revenue stream is too significant to ignore for much longer. It also solves the second-hand gaming "problem" in one fell swoop.
The first steps for this are already in falling into place (requiring always-on internet for single-player games, etc), now we just have to see how hard the game publishers push for it.
It may sound like ridiculous hyperbole to you, but he is alas, correct in more than a few jurisdictions. 'Illegal or Malicious Tampering' is one of those vague terms used in such laws, so I've heard.
That is because they made the mistake of re-branding their search engine right as they were bringing all of the Live! services together. They should have left it as Live Search and retained what brand recognition they had.
This is what happens when idiot marketing drones get final say over anything regarding your product.
Think about this for a few minutes: Xbox Live!, and the rest all have Live in the title, and is quickly and easily recognizable because of this. What PHB moron changes their branded search engine title from Live Search to Bing in the face of this fact? Especially when they are aiming to push quite a few of the existing 'PC-only' Live services out to the gamers via Xbox Live!, Zune, and Games for Windows titles and marketplaces. They are working hard to establish their own complete set of branded services tied into A) PC (Games for Windows + Media Center) B) Xbox (Live! and Live! Marketplace) C) WebTV D) Zune. The entire point was to gain a much larger consolidated chunk of the 'home entertainment/home theater' market via one-stop-shopping for 'useful' services and product.
It's a rather large part of the long-term strategy they have, that they even bothered making Zune and Xbox 'home entertainment' devices. Those devices were developed strictly (from an MS standpoint) as advanced sales/sales alignment tools (that happen to double as useful entertainment devices).
Some stupid marketing fucks had to go and 'screw the pooch'. GREAT JOB! You just did a HUGE marketing no-no, you overpaid assholes.
Quite a few people don't like Microsoft as a corporate entity, and that is fine. I happen to respect the engineering talent they employ, and actually enjoy using some of their products. Their wired and wireless optical/laser mice and wireless ergonomic keyboards for instance, are the best that I've ever used, bar none.
Ahhhh, young grasshoppa'. You shall be enlightened!
A certain Republican Governor of South Carolina, Mr. Mark Sanford, claimed he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when in actuality, he was in Argentina getting his groove on with his Latina hoochie-mama. He's married, and was quite vocal about being "Pro-Family".
Hence all of the jokes, and why 9/11 Repugs holding public office are hypocrites of the first magnitude.
OT Comment: They only charge you more for Lexus maintenance because of the name Lexus. The cars themselves use off-the-shelf Toyota parts. If you have any modicum of ability to do auto repairs and own a Lexus, keep this in mind the next time you consider taking your car to the shop.
We used to anyhow. Boo-fscking-hoo. If you are that much of a lazy fsck, I suggest you sell your computer on Craigslist or eBay within the next 24 hours, and never get another one. My sister was swapping BIOS chips out before she was 6.
The poster replying to you, above me, is correct in his response. The only things I have to add:
1) It would have also provided a cheaper and more efficient way for both buyers and sellers to contact eBay and PayPal support staff, etc instead of emailing them and waiting days for a response.
2) It would have allowed Sellers to contact favored Buyers and vice-versa for other auction listings, or items they want to sell/are looking to buy but AREN'T listed on eBay, but maybe ARE listed on their non-eBay website as being for sale.
3) It would have given Sellers a way to contact favored Buyers to advertise or make other offers such as discounts, instead of selling a specific item per se. Think about being able to contact a long-time loyal customer, and based upon their past purchases from your eBay storefront, being able to call them up via Skype and offer them something related, or a special discount on shipping for future purchases.
4) It would have given Sellers a way to conduct more specific Customer Satisfaction Surveys, by contacting Buyers and chatting with them, kind of like how pollsters do now for political stuff. (The stupid star feedback rating eBay uses is ridiculous and useless for the most part, where commenting is concerned. Comment length is restricted amongst other things.)
5) It could have been a good foundation to add more of a 'social media' aspect to some portions of eBay. Think Buyers and Sellers Communities, where their could have been real-time feedback to one another about certain sellers or buyers or the like.
These are just a few of the ideas that floated around in my head from the time eBay's bid for Skype was first announced.
Give it time, and they will soon have A) their own armies and B) the willpower to actually attack something when it is in their best financial and political interests to do so.
Blackwater (or similar) goes to the highest bidding GOP-related (oh yes, I brought politics into this) oil company to raid say Venezuela for the oil and gas fields?
Not so far-fetched.
I think the only thing keeping them from doing so is current international law frowns upon it.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the key generators for Diablo 2 are a mix of both - real and malware. Groups like Razor1911 cracked that many moons ago, and it's never been fixed by Blizzard. Why should they bother anyhow, the game is 'ancient' in software years. You should have seen the havoc caused when people were buying the Diablo Battlepack when it was first new and finding their legit keys banned right off the bat - because they used the same system for the 'new' Battlepack as they did for the original Diablo 2/LOD. THAT had already been cracked by pirates for WELL over a year.
It took quite a bit of sending in photos of individuals holding boxes, copies of receipts, etc to get that problem resolved for more than a few people.
Correction: The only way to protect against stupid users is to not let them within twenty feet of a computer to start with. Outside of this, there is no stopping them, no matter if you set their rights into oblivion or not. They always find a way to fsck something up.
There is the argument to be made that plain-text passwords should never be allowed to begin with, nevermind which platform, 3rd-party software, or hardware architecture that a system is comprised of.
That being said, there could be just a wee tad bit of blame laid at the feet of the programmers of the software/hardware for allowing this to be possible in the first place.
Hindsight is so useless :P
The Broadcom-based 'wired' NICs in quite a few Dell/HP/Gateway/etc systems still have no proper Linux support, even over 10 years after they some of them were last used in a retail system.
You must be thinking of Intel when it comes to wired NIC cards just working.
I've had Windows 7 start and run (in 'Classic' mode) on a laptop with an ATI 16MB graphics card. If you couldn't get it to run on a Radeon, you're not trying hard enough.
It runs perfectly fine on my desktop that has a Radeon 9600XT 256MB card. Most graphical goodness included. It also runs just fine on my other two desktops. One featuring a Radeon 9200 128 MB card and the other a nVidia FX5500 256MB card, again, with some graphics options tuned down.
I would suggest you try older drivers. Many cards have no support past a certain driver version.
Except not all keyboards come with an ALT key, just like not all keyboards come with a 'Windows' key or a 'Command' key.
Don't assume every user has access to one.
Not true :) Check your WinXP (even under SP3) services once. Remote Desktop and NetBIOSHelper (amongst other stupid things like SSDP Discovery service and Remote Registry) is enabled by default. Nothing regarding networking is disabled by default using IPSEC, Group Policy, etc. Ditto under Windows 2000 SP4. As for the Windows Firewall? Ports 80 and 25 blocked by default, if that. FFS, even WinOBJ (Many Component Services Objects) items are remotely accessible by default using RPC - using no password on an account.
Anonymous Logins are allowed by default.
This may be different under Vista and Windows 7, however.
You can. Just try looking in a phone book for all of those nice * code designations.
There is also the joy known as having an unpublished number; not to be confused with the less-than-useful unlisted number. Look them up :)
That may be, but now many cablecos are dropping OTA local channels on their streams altogether. I have to use an antenna to get mine. They want you to pay and pay some more, so anything that has the word "free" in it is anathema to them.
Northwestern PA, how I hate thee and thy shitty single providers.
Only good news I've heard recently is that several companies applied for and were granted some of that broadband expansion money the Fed is offering. Two of the six companies have already started surveying for fiber-optic rollout.
As long as the combination of those devices is in any way, shape, or form, result in a use that is "novel", then yes, you more than likely can.
The PS3 getting their footing back would require them actually dropping the price to something approaching a game console and not an ATV, and also providing games that people actually want to play.
So far, even the PS3 'exclusives' have been underwhelming.
What choice do gamers have if the price is set at $50? Go without every game released? Piss off. Not our fault douchebag publishers are getting greedier and greedier by the day.
There is no way a few public users can keep up with hundreds of attorneys filing thousands of documents each day in all these courts.
And that right there, is a very sad fact that should never have been allowed to exist.
There have been a few cases of Chinese workers that have been found guilty of this and A) put into prison and B) deported back to China and declared persona non grata afterwords.
Chi Mak and Dongfan Chung are two that come to mind.
My set-top player goes directly to the menu if I tell it too with a nice Main Menu button on the remote....
The only thing it still plays as mandatory is the FBI warning, which is something I can live with. It ignores all of the other "do-not-skip" flags enabled on commercial dvds.
Actually, if you use Xbox Live! You -are- technically paying a monthly fee to play multi-player games. It's working out quite well for Microsoft, btw. Outside of Valve and Blizzard, they have the largest online market segment for paid gaming. Once the shareholders + C-level execs of the big publishers get the bright idea of charging you rental fees for their all of their online multi-player games (EA, I am looking at you in particular), watch Valve turn Steam into a monthly fee-based system (on top of what you pay to "purchase" the game), because the game publishers require them to. The revenue stream is too significant to ignore for much longer. It also solves the second-hand gaming "problem" in one fell swoop.
The first steps for this are already in falling into place (requiring always-on internet for single-player games, etc), now we just have to see how hard the game publishers push for it.
You sir, are quite amusing :)
Friended, seeing as how you were already a Friend of a Friend.
As for the topic @ hand?
Who cares. It was useless, ego-centric Twitter and useless, ego-centric Facebook.
It may sound like ridiculous hyperbole to you, but he is alas, correct in more than a few jurisdictions. 'Illegal or Malicious Tampering' is one of those vague terms used in such laws, so I've heard.
That is because they made the mistake of re-branding their search engine right as they were bringing all of the Live! services together. They should have left it as Live Search and retained what brand recognition they had.
This is what happens when idiot marketing drones get final say over anything regarding your product.
Think about this for a few minutes: Xbox Live!, and the rest all have Live in the title, and is quickly and easily recognizable because of this. What PHB moron changes their branded search engine title from Live Search to Bing in the face of this fact? Especially when they are aiming to push quite a few of the existing 'PC-only' Live services out to the gamers via Xbox Live!, Zune, and Games for Windows titles and marketplaces. They are working hard to establish their own complete set of branded services tied into A) PC (Games for Windows + Media Center) B) Xbox (Live! and Live! Marketplace) C) WebTV D) Zune. The entire point was to gain a much larger consolidated chunk of the 'home entertainment/home theater' market via one-stop-shopping for 'useful' services and product.
It's a rather large part of the long-term strategy they have, that they even bothered making Zune and Xbox 'home entertainment' devices. Those devices were developed strictly (from an MS standpoint) as advanced sales/sales alignment tools (that happen to double as useful entertainment devices).
Some stupid marketing fucks had to go and 'screw the pooch'. GREAT JOB! You just did a HUGE marketing no-no, you overpaid assholes.
Quite a few people don't like Microsoft as a corporate entity, and that is fine. I happen to respect the engineering talent they employ, and actually enjoy using some of their products. Their wired and wireless optical/laser mice and wireless ergonomic keyboards for instance, are the best that I've ever used, bar none.
Ahhhh, young grasshoppa'. You shall be enlightened!
A certain Republican Governor of South Carolina, Mr. Mark Sanford, claimed he was hiking the Appalachian Trail when in actuality, he was in Argentina getting his groove on with his Latina hoochie-mama. He's married, and was quite vocal about being "Pro-Family".
Hence all of the jokes, and why 9/11 Repugs holding public office are hypocrites of the first magnitude.
OT Comment: They only charge you more for Lexus maintenance because of the name Lexus. The cars themselves use off-the-shelf Toyota parts. If you have any modicum of ability to do auto repairs and own a Lexus, keep this in mind the next time you consider taking your car to the shop.
We used to anyhow. Boo-fscking-hoo. If you are that much of a lazy fsck, I suggest you sell your computer on Craigslist or eBay within the next 24 hours, and never get another one. My sister was swapping BIOS chips out before she was 6.
Cry me a freaking river, you hoser.
Forget de-orbiting it. It should be converted into a fueling station for Mars-bound spaceflights.
The poster replying to you, above me, is correct in his response. The only things I have to add:
1) It would have also provided a cheaper and more efficient way for both buyers and sellers to contact eBay and PayPal support staff, etc instead of emailing them and waiting days for a response.
2) It would have allowed Sellers to contact favored Buyers and vice-versa for other auction listings, or items they want to sell/are looking to buy but AREN'T listed on eBay, but maybe ARE listed on their non-eBay website as being for sale.
3) It would have given Sellers a way to contact favored Buyers to advertise or make other offers such as discounts, instead of selling a specific item per se. Think about being able to contact a long-time loyal customer, and based upon their past purchases from your eBay storefront, being able to call them up via Skype and offer them something related, or a special discount on shipping for future purchases.
4) It would have given Sellers a way to conduct more specific Customer Satisfaction Surveys, by contacting Buyers and chatting with them, kind of like how pollsters do now for political stuff. (The stupid star feedback rating eBay uses is ridiculous and useless for the most part, where commenting is concerned. Comment length is restricted amongst other things.)
5) It could have been a good foundation to add more of a 'social media' aspect to some portions of eBay. Think Buyers and Sellers Communities, where their could have been real-time feedback to one another about certain sellers or buyers or the like.
These are just a few of the ideas that floated around in my head from the time eBay's bid for Skype was first announced.
Give it time, and they will soon have A) their own armies and B) the willpower to actually attack something when it is in their best financial and political interests to do so.
Blackwater (or similar) goes to the highest bidding GOP-related (oh yes, I brought politics into this) oil company to raid say Venezuela for the oil and gas fields?
Not so far-fetched.
I think the only thing keeping them from doing so is current international law frowns upon it.