There's mixed reports on wether or not these CD's are in the european market or not, so I can't give a straight answer on the second question.
On the first - there's an EULA tied to a custom music player included on the CD which Sony are trying to use as a catch-all.
Mark has the full EULA copied onto Sysinternals. Linky
Most people don't know what the law says. When they complain to Sony, they just get given the 'It's in the EULA - You agreed to it' response, and short of going to a lawyer, most people aren't going to realise that.
It's basically a way of conning the uninformed out of their legal rights, and that's the issue at hand, methinks.
I was kinda reffering not so much to the rootkit, but to the plans for Blu-Ray. As you're probably aware, they're planning to make the BR players 'self-destruct' if you do something with them that Sony doesn't like - Legal, perhaps, if they cover it in enough shrinkrap, but not something that people will tolerate.
On the other token, the rootkit may actually be legal here in the UK thanks to that freaking EULA.
Basically, it can be argued that the user gave permission when they clicked through the EULA - and even though that EULA is invalid here, the whole 'giving permission' thing probably isn't. Serious pain in the arse.
They'll still be liable for the damages, tho. There's already a confirmed virus in the wild that tries to exploit the RK. Backdoor.Win32.Breplibot.b
Oh, and then we've got the whole thing with the RK including LAME components.
NO SONY BMG PARTY SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE, EITHER DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR OTHERWISE, ARISING OUT OF THE BREACH OF ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY, TERM OR CONDITION, BREACH OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY MISREPRESENTATION, FAILURE OF ANY REMEDY TO ACHIEVE ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY ARISING OUT OF, OR RELATED TO, THIS EULA OR YOUR USE OF ANY OF THE LICENSED MATERIALS (SUCH DAMAGES INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO, LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF REVENUE, LOSS OF DATA, LOSS OF USE OF THE PRODUCT OR ANY ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT, DOWN TIME AND USER'S TIME), EVEN IF THE SONY BMG PARTY CONCERNED HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. IN ANY CASE, THE ENTIRE LIABILITY OF THE SONY BMG PARTIES, COLLECTIVELY, UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF THIS EULA SHALL BE LIMITED TO FIVE US DOLLARS (US $5.00). SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES IN CERTAIN INSTANCES, SO THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS ARTICLE WILL NOT APPLY ONLY WHEN AND TO THE EXTENT THAT APPLICABLE LAW SPECIFICALLY REQUIRES LIABILITY DESPITE THE FOREGOING DISCLAIMER, EXCLUSION AND LIMITATION.
And this little bit too:
Article 10. GOVERNING LAW AND WAIVER OF TRIAL BY JURY
1. THE VALIDITY, INTERPRETATION AND LEGAL EFFECT OF THIS EULA SHALL BE GOVERNED BY, AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH, THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK APPLICABLE TO CONTRACTS ENTERED INTO AND PERFORMED ENTIRELY WITHIN THE STATE OF NEW YORK (WITHOUT GIVING EFFECT TO ANY CONFLICT OF LAW PRINCIPLES UNDER NEW YORK LAW). THE NEW YORK COURTS (STATE AND FEDERAL), SHALL HAVE SOLE JURISDICTION OF ANY CONTROVERSIES REGARDING THIS AGREEMENT; ANY ACTION OR OTHER PROCEEDING WHICH INVOLVES SUCH A CONTROVERSY SHALL BE BROUGHT IN THOSE COURTS IN NEW YORK COUNTY AND NOT ELSEWHERE. THE PARTIES WAIVE ANY AND ALL OBJECTIONS TO VENUE IN THOSE COURTS AND HEREBY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THOSE COURTS.
2. YOU HEREBY WAIVE ALL RIGHTS AND/OR ENTITLEMENT TO TRIAL BY JURY IN CONNECTION WITH ANY DISPUTE THAT ARISES OUT OF OR RELATES IN ANY WAY TO THIS EULA OR THE SOFTWARE.
So yeah, they tried to get out of their corperate liabilities.
Anyway, It's good to see this happening. It's important to make sure that the major labels realise that while DRM is legal, there are limits to what people will tolerate - and damaging peoples machines is not something that people are going to tolerate.
Heck, with luck they might even water down Blu-Ray as a result. I can dream:)
It's called the Ordinance Survey, and is repeated pretty frequently. The organisation responsible is still an arm of the british government (200 years ago it was had the functions our present ministry of defence has).
It funds itself by selling the maps it produces - IE, although a part of the government, it operates as a sulf-sufficient business - and that in turn means that only the people who need it are paying for it, as opposed to all of us paying a tax on it.
Works pretty well.
To be fair, the US government has already opposed the.xxx tld on political grounds, and the Commerce Department has gone on record as saying that they have the 'final say' on anything ICANN does.
With that in mind, saying that the US doesn't exert direct control is kind of misleading.
Another issue here is funding. ICANN tries to bill other countries for their domain names in order to support itself, yet many countries are unwilling to pay (for example, South Africa has refused to pay what it deems an 'arbitrary tax'). As a result, ICANN is suffering from financial problems - Allocating an oversight body a budget from the UN would be a cinch since everyone wants to keep their respective networks operating.
Somehow, I think google et all would be quick enough to react to the change. www.google.co.uk, search for 'Perl', find (first match) and bookmark.
The example you've given is kind of borked in that most people don't know the url of a given website unless they
a) See it in a ad.
b) Find it in a search engine.
c) Get pointed at it by an Ad or other website.
Since all three of those mechanisms would adapt to the change, it doesn't become any easier or harder for someone to locate a website whose URL is unknown to them. And if you know the url, there's no problem in the first place.:)
Also, bear in mind that an individual countries DNS servers might re-route calls to 'something.org' to 'something.org.cc' anyway, so any impact would only likely happen if you're searching for an overseas site.
you can differentiate between roots by using a different protocol to access them. For instance, instead of http://slashdot.org/, I might find that via another root by using eunet://slashdot.org.us or uk://slashdot.us or something.
Remember that the internet is a network of networks - in theory, multiple root systems would be little different to having two machines with two different operating systems sharing infomation on a lan. Just much, much bigger.
Aye, but that might be a good thing in this context.
What we're talking about is control of the TLD's, correct? Well, the US government has already intervened with ICANN's operation of that by vetoing the addition of a.xxx TLD. In theory, there's nothing to stop them exerting greater pressure on other matters, which could result in overseas sites or tld's that the US administration doesn't like simply dissapearing.
Sure, the UN might not get anything done - but that works both ways. They may not advance the tld file - but they're not likely to start ripping it apart either. And even if they did, by the time they got around to it we'd have probably moved on to some other root system anyway.
I don't know about the GP, But I know I always use the numpad when typing numbers - Even if there's only one number to type. Odd, perhaps, but true all the same.
chances are that it will retail for less than that once the supply chain sorts itself out. I'm hedging my bets for the $200-$220 range, which sounds about right given the benchmarks. If it stays on the market, it'll probably go even lower than that over the next 3-6months, which could make it a good solution for builders into the new year.
So far as the chips go, the GS is more akin to the 7800's - different manufacturing process, which is how they've got the core clocked that much higher without it pumping out more heat.
'Fair Use'.
I have a legal right under international copyright law to format-shift any media in my possession. I also have a right that allows me to make backups - be it recording onto cassette, ripping to my ipod, making a backup/mix CD, whatever - its perfectly legal, and ICL recognises that.
It's wrong for me to *Distribute* any of those copies I make, but not to make them. That's the distinction.
Also, there is no contract. A contract has to be presented BEFORE the item it is attached to is given/sold/leased/whatever. To attach terms to a sale after the sale is made is simply deceit - I don't know about the U.S, but here in the UK it is actually ILLEGAL for a company to attach terms in that manner. Hence, Sony's EULA is in no way binding.
The only protection the CD has is Copyright law. As long as the purchaser remains within the laws fair use constraints (I.e, not re-publishing it), there is nothing unethical, or illegal taking place. Unless you live in the USA with its shitty, overly-broad DMCA.
There's a Dual-GPU version of the 6600 available from Gigabyte. The problem mostly comes down to power consumption and heat.
That's more or less why SLI and X-fire are multiple-card solutions as opposed to expandable single-card solutions - it's that or have a single card with a heatsink so heavy it breaks the PCB.
I don't know how it works in the US, but Googles UK operation has to stay within the confines set out by the Data Protection Act.
You can actually do a quick search of UK companies and find out what infomation they're collecting as a result of the act. Yup, Even Google.
Data Controller Search from the Uk's Infomation Commissioners Office. Compare Google to Microsoft - and note that Microsoft sells personal infomation to third parties. Google, on the other hand, does not.
If you're not familiar with Asda or Tesco, they're two of the biggest supermarket chains in the UK. Tesco's dominating to the point that something like 1 in every 8 pounds spent anywhere is spent in a Tesco's store. ASDA is owned by wal-mart.
And both are in a big heated argument over who is cheaper. ASDA claims that they are qutoing a study of about 1,000 prodcts, and Tesco claims they are based on their own studies (don't know how many products). They're both in court suing each other for lying.:D
Anyway, both used to operate a policy whereby if you find the same product in a different chain at a lower price, they'd refund the difference - i think at one point ASDA was offering a refund of 200% of the difference. So far as I can tell, both of them have stopped operating that policy after trading standards intervened, but we've still got the whole 'Im cheaper', 'No I am!' thing going on. tesco still has the poilcy on their life insurance, btw.:|
Because technically, they aren't root kits on a windows machine. They're programs intercepting and redirecting OS system calls, so in that respect they are, but so many other programs and utilities do the same thing with the windwos environment that the number of false-positives would render any such software as damaging as a genuine nuisance like this one.
At least, that's my understanding of it. Meh.
Sorry, the gimmick AC was mine. Keeping hold of it for the inevitable followup to this thread. And I ballsed up with the defaults. *shakes fist*
Anyway.
" more likely the "non-technical" person wouldn't be going out of there way this much to cheat on WoW without knowing the risks "
- Missed what I was saying. What I meant was that normal, Non-tech users (IE, 95%+ of PC users) wouldn't realise what the kit was or what it was doing. The WOW cheats could then masquerade as innocent non-tech users and there would be no easy way to seperate the two - So do you start banning the regular users, or let the hackers get away with it?
Either way, you are going to end driving your own customers away.
This is a lose-lose for Blizzard, and the cheats know it. Worse still, this same argument can be applied to ANY videogame with active cheat detection/prevention that uses standard windows calls to the filesystem, so the implications are pretty bad.
Sorry, the gimmick AC was mine. Keeping hold of it for the inevitable followup to this thread.
Anyway.
" more likely the "non-technical" person wouldn't be going out of there way this much to cheat on WoW without knowing the risks "
- Missed what I was saying. What I meant was that normal, Non-tech users (IE, 95%+ of PC users) wouldn't realise what the kit was or what it was doing. The WOW cheats could then masquerade as innocent non-tech users and there would be no easy way to seperate the two - So do you start banning the regular users, or let the hackers get away with it? Either way, you are going to end driving your own customers away.
This is a lose-lose for Blizzard, and the cheats know it. Worse still, this same argument can be applied to ANY videogame with active cheat detection/prevention that uses standard windows calls to the filesystem.
One theory is that this is included on a mass-production CD. Most people are non-technical and wouldn't know what is on their system (until it crashes at any rate), which means that Blizzard couldn't try to ban people for having this particular rootkit on their system, which makes it insanely difficult to retain the integrety of their environment.
Worse still are the other potential applications of this. It wouldn't suprise me if malware vendors are already using this to try to hide their newest crapware, and when the inevitable Virii start moving in, there is going to be a seeeeerious problem.
Easy for google to prevent access to the full work
on
Reining in Google
·
· Score: 1
All you need to do is to break the book down into snippets, each a few lines long, and index each of those snippets seperately. Then, instead of searching the full text the way the main engine does, you can search through those snippet blocks and link back to the books Title/Author.
Since you never see the content of the next or previous snippet, it's impossible to recreate the entire book unless you already _have_ the text of the entire book.
If someone searches for the books title or author, simply show the first two or three snippets or a brief summary ('the blurb'?).
Slashdot Mirror
There's mixed reports on wether or not these CD's are in the european market or not, so I can't give a straight answer on the second question.
On the first - there's an EULA tied to a custom music player included on the CD which Sony are trying to use as a catch-all.
Mark has the full EULA copied onto Sysinternals. Linky
Most people don't know what the law says. When they complain to Sony, they just get given the 'It's in the EULA - You agreed to it' response, and short of going to a lawyer, most people aren't going to realise that.
It's basically a way of conning the uninformed out of their legal rights, and that's the issue at hand, methinks.
I was kinda reffering not so much to the rootkit, but to the plans for Blu-Ray. As you're probably aware, they're planning to make the BR players 'self-destruct' if you do something with them that Sony doesn't like - Legal, perhaps, if they cover it in enough shrinkrap, but not something that people will tolerate.
On the other token, the rootkit may actually be legal here in the UK thanks to that freaking EULA.
Basically, it can be argued that the user gave permission when they clicked through the EULA - and even though that EULA is invalid here, the whole 'giving permission' thing probably isn't. Serious pain in the arse.
They'll still be liable for the damages, tho. There's already a confirmed virus in the wild that tries to exploit the RK. Backdoor.Win32.Breplibot.b
Oh, and then we've got the whole thing with the RK including LAME components.
From the EULA :
:
NO SONY BMG PARTY SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE, EITHER DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR OTHERWISE, ARISING OUT OF THE BREACH OF ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY, TERM OR CONDITION, BREACH OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY MISREPRESENTATION, FAILURE OF ANY REMEDY TO ACHIEVE ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY ARISING OUT OF, OR RELATED TO, THIS EULA OR YOUR USE OF ANY OF THE LICENSED MATERIALS (SUCH DAMAGES INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO, LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF REVENUE, LOSS OF DATA, LOSS OF USE OF THE PRODUCT OR ANY ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT, DOWN TIME AND USER'S TIME), EVEN IF THE SONY BMG PARTY CONCERNED HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. IN ANY CASE, THE ENTIRE LIABILITY OF THE SONY BMG PARTIES, COLLECTIVELY, UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF THIS EULA SHALL BE LIMITED TO FIVE US DOLLARS (US $5.00). SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES IN CERTAIN INSTANCES, SO THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS ARTICLE WILL NOT APPLY ONLY WHEN AND TO THE EXTENT THAT APPLICABLE LAW SPECIFICALLY REQUIRES LIABILITY DESPITE THE FOREGOING DISCLAIMER, EXCLUSION AND LIMITATION.
And this little bit too
Article 10. GOVERNING LAW AND WAIVER OF TRIAL BY JURY 1. THE VALIDITY, INTERPRETATION AND LEGAL EFFECT OF THIS EULA SHALL BE GOVERNED BY, AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH, THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK APPLICABLE TO CONTRACTS ENTERED INTO AND PERFORMED ENTIRELY WITHIN THE STATE OF NEW YORK (WITHOUT GIVING EFFECT TO ANY CONFLICT OF LAW PRINCIPLES UNDER NEW YORK LAW). THE NEW YORK COURTS (STATE AND FEDERAL), SHALL HAVE SOLE JURISDICTION OF ANY CONTROVERSIES REGARDING THIS AGREEMENT; ANY ACTION OR OTHER PROCEEDING WHICH INVOLVES SUCH A CONTROVERSY SHALL BE BROUGHT IN THOSE COURTS IN NEW YORK COUNTY AND NOT ELSEWHERE. THE PARTIES WAIVE ANY AND ALL OBJECTIONS TO VENUE IN THOSE COURTS AND HEREBY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THOSE COURTS. 2. YOU HEREBY WAIVE ALL RIGHTS AND/OR ENTITLEMENT TO TRIAL BY JURY IN CONNECTION WITH ANY DISPUTE THAT ARISES OUT OF OR RELATES IN ANY WAY TO THIS EULA OR THE SOFTWARE.
So yeah, they tried to get out of their corperate liabilities.
bleh.
:)
Anyway, It's good to see this happening. It's important to make sure that the major labels realise that while DRM is legal, there are limits to what people will tolerate - and damaging peoples machines is not something that people are going to tolerate.
Heck, with luck they might even water down Blu-Ray as a result. I can dream
"People can share and spread opinions faster than ever before and that's accelerated the impact of public opinion on businesses"
:)
Unless of course, you're name is SONY, in which case it just means you can ignore public opinion faster.
It's called the Ordinance Survey, and is repeated pretty frequently. The organisation responsible is still an arm of the british government (200 years ago it was had the functions our present ministry of defence has).
It funds itself by selling the maps it produces - IE, although a part of the government, it operates as a sulf-sufficient business - and that in turn means that only the people who need it are paying for it, as opposed to all of us paying a tax on it.
Works pretty well.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4420210.stm - the BBC has both a report and a video (streaming).
To be fair, the US government has already opposed the .xxx tld on political grounds, and the Commerce Department has gone on record as saying that they have the 'final say' on anything ICANN does.
With that in mind, saying that the US doesn't exert direct control is kind of misleading.
Another issue here is funding. ICANN tries to bill other countries for their domain names in order to support itself, yet many countries are unwilling to pay (for example, South Africa has refused to pay what it deems an 'arbitrary tax'). As a result, ICANN is suffering from financial problems - Allocating an oversight body a budget from the UN would be a cinch since everyone wants to keep their respective networks operating.
.co, not .com. Commercial sites are normally .co.cc
Otherwise, valid point.
Somehow, I think google et all would be quick enough to react to the change.
:)
www.google.co.uk, search for 'Perl', find (first match) and bookmark.
The example you've given is kind of borked in that most people don't know the url of a given website unless they
a) See it in a ad.
b) Find it in a search engine.
c) Get pointed at it by an Ad or other website.
Since all three of those mechanisms would adapt to the change, it doesn't become any easier or harder for someone to locate a website whose URL is unknown to them. And if you know the url, there's no problem in the first place.
Also, bear in mind that an individual countries DNS servers might re-route calls to 'something.org' to 'something.org.cc' anyway, so any impact would only likely happen if you're searching for an overseas site.
you can differentiate between roots by using a different protocol to access them. For instance, instead of http://slashdot.org/, I might find that via another root by using eunet://slashdot.org.us or uk://slashdot.us or something.
Remember that the internet is a network of networks - in theory, multiple root systems would be little different to having two machines with two different operating systems sharing infomation on a lan. Just much, much bigger.
Aye, but that might be a good thing in this context.
.xxx TLD. In theory, there's nothing to stop them exerting greater pressure on other matters, which could result in overseas sites or tld's that the US administration doesn't like simply dissapearing.
What we're talking about is control of the TLD's, correct? Well, the US government has already intervened with ICANN's operation of that by vetoing the addition of a
Sure, the UN might not get anything done - but that works both ways. They may not advance the tld file - but they're not likely to start ripping it apart either. And even if they did, by the time they got around to it we'd have probably moved on to some other root system anyway.
I don't know about the GP, But I know I always use the numpad when typing numbers - Even if there's only one number to type. Odd, perhaps, but true all the same.
It was refferred to vocally by SCO in the case. read the comments at the bottom of the article - the court transcripts mention it at least twice.
chances are that it will retail for less than that once the supply chain sorts itself out. I'm hedging my bets for the $200-$220 range, which sounds about right given the benchmarks. If it stays on the market, it'll probably go even lower than that over the next 3-6months, which could make it a good solution for builders into the new year.
So far as the chips go, the GS is more akin to the 7800's - different manufacturing process, which is how they've got the core clocked that much higher without it pumping out more heat.
'Fair Use'. I have a legal right under international copyright law to format-shift any media in my possession. I also have a right that allows me to make backups - be it recording onto cassette, ripping to my ipod, making a backup/mix CD, whatever - its perfectly legal, and ICL recognises that. It's wrong for me to *Distribute* any of those copies I make, but not to make them. That's the distinction. Also, there is no contract. A contract has to be presented BEFORE the item it is attached to is given/sold/leased/whatever. To attach terms to a sale after the sale is made is simply deceit - I don't know about the U.S, but here in the UK it is actually ILLEGAL for a company to attach terms in that manner. Hence, Sony's EULA is in no way binding. The only protection the CD has is Copyright law. As long as the purchaser remains within the laws fair use constraints (I.e, not re-publishing it), there is nothing unethical, or illegal taking place. Unless you live in the USA with its shitty, overly-broad DMCA.
There's a Dual-GPU version of the 6600 available from Gigabyte. The problem mostly comes down to power consumption and heat.
That's more or less why SLI and X-fire are multiple-card solutions as opposed to expandable single-card solutions - it's that or have a single card with a heatsink so heavy it breaks the PCB.
I don't know how it works in the US, but Googles UK operation has to stay within the confines set out by the Data Protection Act.
You can actually do a quick search of UK companies and find out what infomation they're collecting as a result of the act. Yup, Even Google.
Data Controller Search from the Uk's Infomation Commissioners Office. Compare Google to Microsoft - and note that Microsoft sells personal infomation to third parties. Google, on the other hand, does not.
If you're not familiar with Asda or Tesco, they're two of the biggest supermarket chains in the UK. Tesco's dominating to the point that something like 1 in every 8 pounds spent anywhere is spent in a Tesco's store. ASDA is owned by wal-mart.
:D
:|
:D
And both are in a big heated argument over who is cheaper. ASDA claims that they are qutoing a study of about 1,000 prodcts, and Tesco claims they are based on their own studies (don't know how many products). They're both in court suing each other for lying.
Anyway, both used to operate a policy whereby if you find the same product in a different chain at a lower price, they'd refund the difference - i think at one point ASDA was offering a refund of 200% of the difference. So far as I can tell, both of them have stopped operating that policy after trading standards intervened, but we've still got the whole 'Im cheaper', 'No I am!' thing going on. tesco still has the poilcy on their life insurance, btw.
Kinda funny to watch actually.
Because technically, they aren't root kits on a windows machine. They're programs intercepting and redirecting OS system calls, so in that respect they are, but so many other programs and utilities do the same thing with the windwos environment that the number of false-positives would render any such software as damaging as a genuine nuisance like this one. At least, that's my understanding of it. Meh.
Sorry, the gimmick AC was mine. Keeping hold of it for the inevitable followup to this thread. And I ballsed up with the defaults. *shakes fist*
Anyway.
" more likely the "non-technical" person wouldn't be going out of there way this much to cheat on WoW without knowing the risks "
- Missed what I was saying. What I meant was that normal, Non-tech users (IE, 95%+ of PC users) wouldn't realise what the kit was or what it was doing. The WOW cheats could then masquerade as innocent non-tech users and there would be no easy way to seperate the two - So do you start banning the regular users, or let the hackers get away with it?
Either way, you are going to end driving your own customers away.
This is a lose-lose for Blizzard, and the cheats know it. Worse still, this same argument can be applied to ANY videogame with active cheat detection/prevention that uses standard windows calls to the filesystem, so the implications are pretty bad.
Sorry, the gimmick AC was mine. Keeping hold of it for the inevitable followup to this thread. Anyway. " more likely the "non-technical" person wouldn't be going out of there way this much to cheat on WoW without knowing the risks " - Missed what I was saying. What I meant was that normal, Non-tech users (IE, 95%+ of PC users) wouldn't realise what the kit was or what it was doing. The WOW cheats could then masquerade as innocent non-tech users and there would be no easy way to seperate the two - So do you start banning the regular users, or let the hackers get away with it? Either way, you are going to end driving your own customers away. This is a lose-lose for Blizzard, and the cheats know it. Worse still, this same argument can be applied to ANY videogame with active cheat detection/prevention that uses standard windows calls to the filesystem.
One theory is that this is included on a mass-production CD. Most people are non-technical and wouldn't know what is on their system (until it crashes at any rate), which means that Blizzard couldn't try to ban people for having this particular rootkit on their system, which makes it insanely difficult to retain the integrety of their environment.
Worse still are the other potential applications of this. It wouldn't suprise me if malware vendors are already using this to try to hide their newest crapware, and when the inevitable Virii start moving in, there is going to be a seeeeerious problem.
All you need to do is to break the book down into snippets, each a few lines long, and index each of those snippets seperately. Then, instead of searching the full text the way the main engine does, you can search through those snippet blocks and link back to the books Title/Author.
Since you never see the content of the next or previous snippet, it's impossible to recreate the entire book unless you already _have_ the text of the entire book.
If someone searches for the books title or author, simply show the first two or three snippets or a brief summary ('the blurb'?).
Boom, problem solved. NEXT.