Blizzard Entertainment Uses Spyware to Verify EULA Compliance

Thank you Notok. That's the best reasoned argument against warden that I've seen. Very well thought out, and very persuasive.

I don't actually see anything stopping such programs being used in other multiplayer online games, though I understand how this would upset some people. Also, I've heard of them being used in the past in Halflife Counterstrike, but never sought the details of them (a friend of mine played counterstrike), and as a guess, I suppose punkbuster must also do a 'similar' thing.

People do tend to follow the crowd. Some don't care about privacy. Others do care but don't know there's a privacy issue.

Yet privacy by itself is never the sole issue. If it was, then we wouldn't give our names to any govt department, we wouldn't use mobile phones, we wouldn't use the internet etc.

Like most things in life, there's a balance.

I can understand why people fear losing that balance through other peoples apathy, yet beyond online multiplayer gaming and some security (eg prevx) I see no other possibility where people would find such programs acceptable <utility programs with adware would seem a different issue, though I could understand how someone would bundle them together. But as a case in point, they have been around for quite a while, and while people choose to use them - they aren't widely accepted by any decent percentage of the population>

You know, no one ever answered whether or not they played mulitplayer online games ? (I ask that question again more out of curiosities sake than anything else)

 

You'd be surprised at what they can pull off.. often times all they have to do is make you think that everyone else thinks that way

 

Brilliantly expressed Notok.
You have summed up a whole swath of problems that hinder people's progress today.

Say, does anybody have a candy bar?

 

LOL,

 

A much better attempt this time, for the first time trying to address the slippery slope argument. But still wrong. It's clear to me from your responses you don't really know what it means. Particularly below where you ramble about how the slippery slope arguement has implications for blah blah blah but you don't say anything intelligent about it.

Unlike certain people, I make up my own mind on issues, just because I agree with a certain person on certain points, doesn't mean I agree with him on everything. BTW I have no idea if he is an expert, but surely he is more expert than "I don't know programming but can yet talk about why radar programs can't work vikorr"

I'm just showing you why it's silly to call a program benign because it's selective on what it sends back to the server. You talk about anviruses, on warden etc, by the same defintion a keylogger is selective.

It's sad. Any bystander can see Notok and I are saying the same things, clearly he has the patience to walk you through all the small baby steps of what the slippery slope argument involves. I made the mistake of assuming you would know it, but even after i explictly named it, you still didn't get it.

But at least i see some glimmering of understanding finally slowly coming through.

After me mentioning it for nth time? Okay better than nothing.

Vikkor, is interesting how you can type so much and yet say nothing. For someone who says that his job is related to this, is that all you can say? Sprout generalities?

<insert logical argument i don't understand> is an interesting one, because it can be applied to many things : Firearms, freedoms/rights, laws, litigation, social welfare, foreign aid, drugs, alcohol, multiculturalism, religion, and probably numerous other things I can’t think of off the top of my head just now (and no, I’m not going to discuss these, as most relate to politics or religion, unless you want to PM me anyway)

Is this like your last attempt to list all types of ways in which privacy can be compromised ? Trying to impress me?

Again, I refer you to my earlier reply. Are you saying that because all this is done, warden is okay? Or that spyware by commercial companies is okay?
Does keeping your percective mean not yelling about spyware that merely aggregates your browsing habits because your ISP knows more?

If the answer is no, why bring in a red herring?

 

fg someone or other

This isn't in response to anything you have said, because quite simply, you chant slogans without actually saying anything that shows you know what your slogans mean. Talking with a person who chants slogans without reason, as you are proving, is quite pointless.

now now, you are back to name calling. And would you care to name the people who can't make up their mind on issues (and substantiate it). I thought it was quite clear what everyone who has posted here thinks of the present issue.

One prevents cheats, one steals money...one sends only information on cheating, the other sends financial and identity information.....so by definition, the first is benign (refer to a dictionary if you need to)

both of you disagree with warden and the privacy issue it brings, but you just chant slogans, whilst Notok is able to reason why he disagrees. You have not explicitly named anything, nor have you shown that you have an iota of what the slogans you chant mean, nor how they work. So attempting to lecture me without saying anything of substance just makes you seem foolish to me.

Those certainly are only generalities. As the paragraph you are refering to said, I'm happy to discuss them in PM's (if someone has a genuine interest in them). That paragraph you are refering to also should make it clear that discussing most of those 'generalities' will be against ToS (or whatever the board rules are called) to discuss them here (also they are different subjects and rightly belong in their own thread if they were to be discussed).

now this is just getting boring. Unfortunately my respect for you, whoever you are, keeps heading downhill. It certainly doesn't seem far from the bottom to me.

I've already answered these questions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Considering the consistent post by post display you are putting on, this will indeed be my last post in response to you on this subject. You have shown quite clearly that you are in the habit of making erraneous assumptions about people which you are unable to justify when asked - that you simply ignore the things you get wrong, and you have shown just as clearly that you cannot post anything more substantial that slogans and incompatible comparisons, thrown in with childish tantrums and namecalling.

 

http://www.rootkit.com/newsread_print.php?newsid=371

 

i haven't read this thread but Greg Hoglund wrote the original article.