Jump to content

jamotto

Members
  • Posts

    1,719
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by jamotto

  1. Pirates will always exist, however the way Stardock is going about to try and reduce the problem is the right way in my opinion, Also what Starforce did was very tacky.
  2. GalCiv 2 news quote:Digg is reporting that a website is implying that we want Galactic Civilizations II to be pirated. Absolutely not! Of course we DO NOT want our game to be pirated. We're a small company, every lost sale hurts us. This got started because sales reports on Galactic Civilizations II have been much higher than anticipated. We've now outsold the first Galactic Civilizations in North America in the first 10 days. Last week we were apparently the #1 PC game at Walmart. Naturally, some peple have taken the conclusion that because we don't have copy protection on our game, that we invite piracy. That is not the case, we simply think there are other ways to stop piracy than CD checks, strict DRM, etc. What we do is provide a serial # that users can choose to enter when they install and use that unique serial # to download free and frequent updates. Our license allows you to install the game onto as many machines that you own that you want as long as only one copy is being used at once. How many sales are lost because people want to have a game on their laptop and desktop and don't want to drag CDs around so choose not to buy the game? Our company also makes utility software. We've been around a long time -- 14 years now. Our software gets pirated. We don't like it but piracy is a fact of life. The question isn't about eliminating it, it's about reducing it and trying to make sure that people who would buy your product buy it instead of steal it. Our primary weapon to fight piracy is through rewarding customers through convenient, frequent, free updates. If you make it easy for users to buy and make full use of your product or service legitimately then we believe that you'll gain more users from that convenience than you'll lose from piracy. We realize that some people or companies might feel threatened at any evidence that implies that draconian DRM schemes or CD copy protection may not make that big of a difference in sales. For example, we were quite disturbed to discover that the company that makes Starforce provided a working URL to a list of pirated GalCiv II torrents. I'm not sure whether what they did was illegal or not, but it's troubling nevertheless and was totally unnecessary. All software is pirated, there's no way around it. We've been making software for over 10 years. We don't like our software being pirated. Like I said, every lost sales has an impact on us. But there are other ways to reduce it than through draconian copy protection systems. Incidentally, the site that Starforce's forum admin linked to "prove" how much our software was being pirated we visited, followed the instructions on the site to get our game removed and the links were removed within a couple of hours. We'll continue to follow-up with them.
  3. quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Is anyone blown away by these shots released yesterday?
  4. WASHINGTON--New broadband taxes may be on the horizon, if an influential senator and his like-minded colleagues get their way. At a Tuesday hearing convened by the Senate Commerce Committee, several senators from largely rural states called for expansion of the Universal Service Fund (USF), a multibillion-dollar pool of money that's currently used to subsidize telecommunications services in rural and other high-cost areas, schools and libraries.
  5. yea, they never want to be upstaged.
  6. LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Don Knotts, who kept generations of TV audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show" and would-be swinger landlord Ralph Furley on "Three's Company," has died. He was 81.
  7. you can read the filing here The link is to a pdf file.
  8. who needs photoshop when you can do this with MS Paint Picture If you use dial-up this page will take awhile to load as the picture is 3MB in size.
  9. Link quote:US record-label body the RIAA and movie-industry moguls at the MPAA are attempting to argue that copying a CD to a computer for carrying on an iPod does not, and has never, constituted fair use. A report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation says 14 organisations, including the two mentioned, have submitted a filing as part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's regular review process of exemptions to provisions against tampering with technological protection measures. This means that, in essence, all rights to copy anything are held by the copyright owner. Those rights can be sold or assigned, which is why a record label can reproduce and distribute a given musician's songs. Since copyright holders haven't granted specific permission to make a copy of a song, you aren't allowed to, by the letter of the law. Within American law, "fair use" is an exception that, among other things, allows people to make copies within certain circumstances and constraints. So making a copy of a CD for your own personal use is within the scope of fair use. That's the way copyright law has worked for quite some time. But these new claims show that the right to tote your CD's contents around on your MP3 player were never expressly given, and that, for some reason, fair use doesn't apply. The implication is that all this time, they've been graciously allowing us to make tapes and MP3s from CDs bought for personal use. The RIAA also claims that digital rights management has only increased legitimate access to copyright works.
  10. Well if this goes uncontested then I suspect people who drink will be next as it just makes good business sense or so they say.
  11. When the first high-definition DVDs finally hit shelves this spring, a mad scramble may ensue--not for the discs themselves, but to figure out what computers and devices are actually able to play them in their full glory.
  12. quote:Originally posted by LostInSpace: I find nadda anywhere about this Kerry's speech. When did it occur?search for Gore not Kerry.
  13. quote:Originally posted by Race Bannon IV: Two words-Peter Jackson Even he can't save this one.
  14. Should be a good game no matter the outcome.
  15. The zip file contains 9 files consisting of 2 Roam scripts 1 Instant Action (base defense) script 1 readme.txt file explaining how to install the scripts and which scripts work with UC, UCAWA, UCGOLD and BCM/BCMG To download from Rapidshare 1.)scroll to the bottom of the page where you should see "Select your download:" hit the "free" button. 2.)after the short delay input the three characters in the "here:" box 3.)Hit "Start Download" 4.)Enjoy
  16. A good friend of mine has created 3 scripts for your enjoyment. You can download them here
  17. Anti-copying malware installs itself with dozens of games
  18. quote:...and engaging in unfair competitionWith who? The porn industry?
  19. link quote:ARLINGTON, Virginia -- Insider attacks and industrial espionage could become more stealthy by hiding malicious code in the core system functions available in a motherboard's flash memory, researchers said on Wednesday at the Black Hat Federal conference. “ It is going to be about one month before malware comes out to take advantage of this. This is so easy to do. You have widely available tools, free compilers for the ACPI language, and high-level languages to write the code in. ” A collection of functions for power management, known as the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI), has its own high-level interpreted language that could be used to code a rootkit and store key attack functions in the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) in flash memory, according to John Heasman, principal security consultant for U.K.-based Next-Generation Security Software. The researcher tested basic features, such as elevating privileges and reading physical memory, using malicious procedures that replaced legitimate functions stored in flash memory. "Rootkits are becoming more of a threat in general--BIOS is just the next step," Heasman said during a presentation at the conference. "While this is not a threat now, it is a warning to people to look out." The worries come as security professionals are increasingly worried about rootkits. Earlier this month, a security researcher warned that the digital-rights management software, which experts say resembled a rootkit, used by music giant Sony BMG remained on hundreds of thousands of servers. Last year, the first rootkit for the Mac OS X was released to the Internet. While some attacks have attempted to affect a computer's flash memory, most notably the CIH or Chernobyl virus in 1998, the ability to use the high-level programming language available for creating ACPI functions has opened up the attack to far more programmers. One rootkit expert at the conference predicted that the technology will become a fundamental part of rootkits in the near future. "It is going to be about one month before malware comes out to take advantage of this," said Greg Hoglund, CEO of reverse engineering firm HBGary and editor of Rootkit.com. "This is so easy to do. You have widely available tools, free compilers for the ACPI language, and high-level languages to write the code in." The firmware on most modern motherboards has tables associating commands in the ACPI Machine Language (AML) to hardware commands. New functionality can be programmed in a higher level ACPI Source Language (ASL) and compiled into machine language and then flashed into the tables. However, the ability to flash the memory depends on whether the motherboard allows the BIOS to be changed by default or if a jumper or setting in the machine setup program has to be changed. Security professionals at the conference disagree over how many machines would have the ability to write to flash memory turned on by the manufacturer. While Hoglund believed that most computers would not have protections against writing to flash memory turned on by default, NGSSoftware's Heasman disagreed. "The obstacles to deployment are numerous," Heasman said. "Almost all machines have a physical protection, such as a jumper on the motherboard, against flashing." Yet, an insider attacker could flash their laptop before they leave a company and then use the rootkit, which would survive reinstallation of the operating system. The insider could then gain access to the corporate network at a later time. Because the amount of memory that could be used by an attacker in the BIOS firmware is small, it is unlikely that an entire rootkit will be stored in the motherboard's memory. Instead, only specific functions and bootstrap code would likely be hidden there. Another benefit of programming to the ACPI Source Language is that, for the most part, the code can be ported easily to any platform. "This is platform independent," Heasman said. "We can write a backdoor for Windows that will elevate privilege, and turn around and use the code on Linux." The research into adding BIOS capabilities to rootkit software stresses the need for better rootkit detectors, argued another researcher who presented at Black Hat Federal on the topic of rootkits. "John Heasman's presentation was very interesting and useful in convincing people that we need to change our thinking about rootkit/compromise detection," said Joanna Rutkowska, an independent security consultant with invisiblethings.org. "Today, many people believe that it's just enough to enumerate all the potential triggering points ... I don't agree with this approach, as it seems to be lots of places which can be used as a triggering point - John has just showed us how to use BIOS for this, but we can also think about advanced file infection and many others." Instead, current detection software needs to focus on explicit integrity scanning of a compromised system, not look for specific compromised files that could be hidden with techniques such as flashing rootkit components into the BIOS, she said. "This is only the triggering aspect of the malware," Rutkowska said. "Basically you can take any of the available malware and add a BIOS-level trigger, or installer, to them. However, after that malware is activated it needs to go to the operating system memory and needs to interact with OS somehow." Defensive software should look to detect that activity explicitly, she sai.d.
  20. More of a hard core tank sim and less a game, however some might enjoy this. Due out any time now. quote:The Steel Beasts product line is a PC-based simulation of small-unit armored and mechanized combat. It models the gunner’s, commander’s and driver's positions of various armored fighting vehicles in a virtual 3D environment and is capable of networked and solitaire training for single-vehicle, platoon, and reinforced-company scenarios with a high level of tactical confidence.eSim Games Link to where you can pre order
  21. Link quote:Beloved series' developer may have moved on, but its publisher might still have designs on the franchise. Take-Two may have locked down the rights to the spiritual successor of System Shock, but Electronic Arts is making sure the original franchise stays put. Electronic Arts registered a trademark last month on the title "System Shock" for use in video games. Interestingly enough, it also made note that the trademark was to apply to "a computer game that may be accessed network-wide by network users," or "an online computer game accessed and played via mobile and cellular phones and other wireless devices." An EA representative was not immediately available for comment as to whether the trademark was a sign that the dormant franchise would soon be awoken, or if it was just a bit of routine upkeep of the company's intellectual property. The System Shock name has been in the news a bit lately as Irrational Games, developer of the classic System Shock 2, was purchased by Take-Two Interactive, which recently registered a trademark for BioShock, Irrational's "spiritual successor" to the System Shock franchise. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more on BioShock and any future System Shock titles as details become available.A new System Shock in the works?
  22. quote:Originally posted by Carl Burning: The new Camaro looks like garbage im afraid to say.Yea, I would have to agree with you. Shame GM didn't bother to use any part of concept drawings that appeared on Camaro fansites, they were sweet. quote: The Challenger is a different story. starting to save up for it's 30g price tag
×
×
  • Create New...