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Going to be funny to see what the false positive rate is for those warnings.

Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

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Despite all the excuses (I was just testing it, I'm too poor, after completing it I've decided it's not worth anything, etc) people pirate because they can get away with it. There is no fear of being caught and punished. CD Projekt is attempting to change that, I hope it works out for them but I'm not convinced it will.

Well, crossing fingers and hoping that they succeed. A number of pathetic individuals could use some teaching of bad choices leading to bad consequences. I'll probably pre-order it at gamersgate (since I've got some bad experiences with the gog website).

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” - Albert Einstein
 

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Despite all the excuses (I was just testing it, I'm too poor, after completing it I've decided it's not worth anything, etc) people pirate because they can get away with it. There is no fear of being caught and punished. CD Projekt is attempting to change that, I hope it works out for them but I'm not convinced it will.

Well, crossing fingers and hoping that they succeed. A number of pathetic individuals could use some teaching of bad choices leading to bad consequences. I'll probably pre-order it at gamersgate (since I've got some bad experiences with the gog website).

 

I would buy a GoG version, you can always burn it on DVD, you get more goodies and all the money goes directly to the developer (gog is owned by CDProjekt).

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I would buy a GoG version, you can always burn it on DVD, you get more goodies and all the money goes directly to the developer (gog is owned by CDProjekt).

I tried buying from them in the past... their transaction provider didn't like any of my credit cards so I dropped them.

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” - Albert Einstein
 

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Yeah, I had to call my credit card company in order to straighten things out with GoG. It ended up working fine, and I managed to get a few games from them, but now they're gone anyhow as I understand it.

 

I can't recall a significant problem I've had with a game due to the anti-piracy efforts on the part of publishers. The poverty argument falls a little flat. After all, did they pirate their PCs also? Did they pirate their operating systems? Did they pirate the electrical service?

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Yeah, I had to call my credit card company in order to straighten things out with GoG. It ended up working fine, and I managed to get a few games from them, but now they're gone anyhow as I understand it.

 

 

so sad... PR stunt backfire.

 

GOG never closed, it was a hoax designed to gather interest.


Killing is kind of like playin' a basketball game. I am there. and the other player is there. and it's just the two of us. and I put the other player's body in my van. and I am the winner. - Nice Pete.

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Yeah, I had to call my credit card company in order to straighten things out with GoG. It ended up working fine, and I managed to get a few games from them, but now they're gone anyhow as I understand it.

 

I can't recall a significant problem I've had with a game due to the anti-piracy efforts on the part of publishers. The poverty argument falls a little flat. After all, did they pirate their PCs also? Did they pirate their operating systems? Did they pirate the electrical service?

Hey, after they buy the PC, their electricity, and broadband service, how do you expect them to afford games? Geeze.
"Show me a man who "plays fair" and I'll show you a very talented cheater."
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Well I'm pretty sure they'd download their OS, if games are overpriced where they are, you can bet Windows is to boot. Hardware, electricity and broadband might be reasonably priced locally.

Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

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A beginning of a new trend?
Gamers who download upcoming PC exclusive The Witcher 2 illegally could receive a letter demanding they pay a fine or face legal action.

If gamers refuse to pay the fine, which will be more than the cost of the game, they could end up in court, developer CD Projekt told Eurogamer.

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:) It'll be DRM free

:( I disagree strongly with the practice of "shake down" letters

 

I'm conflicted :p

 

Shake down letters? Do you also disagree with security guards nabbing shoplifters?

 

Despite all the excuses (I was just testing it, I'm too poor, after completing it I've decided it's not worth anything, etc) people pirate because they can get away with it. There is no fear of being caught and punished. CD Projekt is attempting to change that, I hope it works out for them but I'm not convinced it will.

When company A mass mails letters to people that says pay X dollars or we'll take a you to court -- that's a shake down. Especially if they send out enough of these letters (doesn't have to be very many) that it would be financial infeasible to take all or even a majority of the recipients to court. They're hoping to instill enough fear that a large percentage of the recipients simply fold and send them the money they're asking for. Usually the amount of money asked for is low enough that taking the risk of ending up in court is not an attractive option even from a time management perspective (time lost from work etc..).

 

The problem that I have with this is that if an innocent person receives one of these letters what do they do? Do they just give in and send the company the money that's being asked for or do they take the risk they might wind up in court where they would have to pay much more in legal fees to defend themselves.

 

Here's a research paper on piracy detection and false positives:

http://dmca.cs.washington.edu/dmca_hotsec08.pdf

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Here's a research paper on piracy detection and false positives:

http://dmca.cs.washington.edu/dmca_hotsec08.pdf

So, if you are tech savvy enough, knowing how to forge your network pacakages, you can frame another ip address for your actions. Not to mention that infiltrating and broadcasting intent to transmit pirated software even if you don't pass along any data is sort of asking for it. Besides the entire experiment being somewhat contrieved, wanna bet that the majority of internet users wouldn't know how to? The entire idea for the majority seems to be that they want instant gratification without any cost to themselves. They don't want to have to actually do anything, because that sort of thwarts the purpose of it (i.e. how can I get something without doing anything in return).

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” - Albert Einstein
 

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After all, did they pirate their PCs also? Did they pirate their operating systems? Did they pirate the electrical service?

yes, yes, they did :p

 

keep in mind, that a lot of people still use old operating systems like Windows Millenium or XP. back in the day Micrisoft didn't have representatives in many countries. naturally, Windows'd get copied and redistributed by bootleggers. besides, modded versions of Windows tend to run more stable.

 

as for the PC, there's a huge market of used parts. it's not a problem to build a relatively fast machine by gathering components from different people and/or bigger stores that offer hardware at very low prices.

 

electricity is something different, of course. mine costs me 20 bucks a month at most, that is if I leave the PC running for a couple of weeks. usually, though, it's around 10-15 dollars.

Walsingham said:

I was struggling to understand ths until I noticed you are from Finland. And having been educated solely by mkreku in this respect I am convinced that Finland essentially IS the wh40k universe.

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So, if you are tech savvy enough, knowing how to forge your network pacakages, you can frame another ip address for your actions. Not to mention that infiltrating and broadcasting intent to transmit pirated software even if you don't pass along any data is sort of asking for it. Besides the entire experiment being somewhat contrieved, wanna bet that the majority of internet users wouldn't know how to?

That was only one of the issues they pointed out.

 

The entire idea for the majority seems to be that they want instant gratification without any cost to themselves. They don't want to have to actually do anything, because that sort of thwarts the purpose of it (i.e. how can I get something without doing anything in return).

Yes, that's exactly why piracy is so popular. The tactic of trying to sue every pirate while having innocent people caught in the crossfire will most likely fail though. Currently the US Copy Right Group is running into roadblocks with their mass lawsuit against pirates. I figure a lot of this will hinge on how that case turns out.

 

I'd rather have stronger, hardware based DRM...

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Here's a research paper on piracy detection and false positives:

http://dmca.cs.washington.edu/dmca_hotsec08.pdf

So, if you are tech savvy enough, knowing how to forge your network pacakages, you can frame another ip address for your actions. Not to mention that infiltrating and broadcasting intent to transmit pirated software even if you don't pass along any data is sort of asking for it. Besides the entire experiment being somewhat contrieved, wanna bet that the majority of internet users wouldn't know how to?

The generalised method used in that paper has been used regularly even prior to the paper being published. Various torrent sites freely admit to seeding their lists with spoofed IPs and that is how you end up with elderly couple from Bognor Regis who only use the internet for email and facebook getting a rude letter accusing them of downloading Snoop Dogg's entire back catalogue.

 

It's a bit like the whole DRM thing- it doesn't matter how much effort you put in to it, some hacker with time on his hands will find a way to circumvent it as soon as they get motivated enough.

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I'd rather have stronger, hardware based DRM...

Even hardware DRM gets cracked or bypassed.

 

Battling PC piracy by any means is simply a lost cause.

Only producer specific platforms will manage to have some success due to cost-effectiveness of solutions used.

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100% success isn't required in order to be a worthwhile venture. The majority of traffic violators probably don't get caught, either.

 

Giving up the battle is the first step to making it de facto legal. At that point any and all stigma against the behavior stops existing.

Edited by Tale
"Show me a man who "plays fair" and I'll show you a very talented cheater."
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Yeah, I had to call my credit card company in order to straighten things out with GoG. It ended up working fine, and I managed to get a few games from them, but now they're gone anyhow as I understand it.

 

I can't recall a significant problem I've had with a game due to the anti-piracy efforts on the part of publishers. The poverty argument falls a little flat. After all, did they pirate their PCs also? Did they pirate their operating systems? Did they pirate the electrical service?

Hey, after they buy the PC, their electricity, and broadband service, how do you expect them to afford games? Geeze.

Let's not forget that eyefinity setup that MUST take priority before actually paying for the games you play on it... :lol:

You're a cheery wee bugger, Nep. Have I ever said that?

ahyes.gifReapercussionsahyes.gif

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Yeah, I'm not exactly thrilled. I'm all for skipping ahead a few hundred years to see how the world has changed, but Cyrodiil was bleeding boring.

 

Maybe it was just the way they did it. If they don't go the way of (seemingly) copy pasted dungeons without any loot or narrative content, maybe a much similar setting would be more engaging. And if they change their level scaling to something better.

Edited by Tale
"Show me a man who "plays fair" and I'll show you a very talented cheater."
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The problem that I have with this is that if an innocent person receives one of these letters what do they do? Do they just give in and send the company the money that's being asked for or do they take the risk they might wind up in court where they would have to pay much more in legal fees to defend themselves.

 

The way I read it was that they were going to work with torrent services (or something like that) to find users. I sort of envisioned them embedding something into a torrent. I remember when a friend of mine got a letter from his ISP stating that they had detected him downloading copyrighted material (a movie. Star Wars Ep2 I think...). I'm guessing that this information is not embedded into the actual content.

 

If the information gathered can only be gathered via the actual torrent and is not related to the game data in any way, wouldn't it be impossible for a legit user to be a false positive?

 

EDIT: I see: spoofed IPs.

Edited by Thorton_AP
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