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Powered by dark science and dark magic alike, he is nonetheless afraid of spoons. Josh covers tech news and over the top rants.
Goldmine in Virtual Reality
The BBC is reporting that a young investor who spent £13,700 worth to buy a virtual island has recouped his expenses and is making a profit after only a few months!
When Sony Attacks
A really interesting article on joystiq about the PS3′s copy protection is available. Apparently, it’s a system to prevent used games and pirated copies from playing on the system. From the patent application:
“A device and method for protection of legitimate software against used software and counterfeit software in recording media… A specific title code is read, and if this title code has been registered, the main unit shifts to a normal operation. If the code has not been registered, verification software is initiated… If matching does not occur, the disk is processed as illegitimate software… Since only titles for which legitimate software has actually been purchased and which have been initially registered in the machine table can be used, resale (so-called used software purchase) after purchase by an end-user becomes practically impossible.”
Somewhere, Over the Rainbow
In a day that will live in infamy, Idoicy has struck a terrific blow of ignorance to Reason and Intellect. The Kansas State Board of Education voted 6-4 to allow science students in public schools to hear materials critical of evolution in biology classes.
That’s bad enough. Hemmoraging these poor kids’ futures for some dumbass doctrinal viewpoint is one thing. No one in their right mind is going to be putting a technologically advanced business in Kansas now, they’re laughingstocks the world over (as they SHOULD be!), and the state is likely to enter a spiraling economic decay in the future.
But there is one point of their decision which is simply jaw-droppingly horrifying. No, that’s not it… it’s more than jaw-dropping. It’s… Lovecraftian in stupidity. It’s so stupid as to be mind-shatteringly moronic; no one sane could peer into the face of this incalcuable abyssal horror of stupidity and remain unchanged. It’s so idiotic as to be completely alien to any reasonable, sensible mind and no such mind could possibly look upon the visage without going insane, at least temporarily.
Sony's Comedy of Errors
“If you think things can’t get worse it’s probably only because you lack sufficient imagination.”
Oh, the Sony mess just keeps getting better and better. Not only does the DRM check up on you to make sure you’re making nice through the use of a Rootkit. Not only can the Sony DRM be used to cheat at World of Warcraft. Now the Sony DRM boondoggle has been discovered to phone home!
Big Blizzard is Watching
Those who play World of Warcraft probably know about the little service it runs called The Warden. The Warden is a program that runs statistical analysis on a player’s system to make sure that no cheating programs are being used.
What Blizzard failed to mention, of course, was that the program also does some pretty damned insidious things while searching for cheating programs. For instance, it also looks through all open windows on the system and reads text information. Text information that could contain e-mail addresses, credit card numbers, or anything of that sort. And it does this every fifteen seconds to every person who plays.
Virus Music – Sony Gets Down With the Sickness
So. Sony has gone to using rootkits as a method of providing Digital Restrictions Management.
For those who aren’t aware, here’s a quick rundown on what a rootkit and what DRM is: A root kit is a set of tools used by an intruder after cracking a computer system. These tools can help the attacker maintain his or her access to the system and use it for malicious purposes. In other words, they change the underlining OS so that it works against you, rather than for you.
DRM (short for Digital “Rights” Management a.k.a. Digital Restrictions Management) is the name applied to malware that stops you, the user, from doing what you want with the data you’ve bought and paid for. Typically, DRM is employed by paranoid pointy-haired bosses in the entertainment industry who are terrified that you might not have to pay their exorbitant prices for terrible content. Even worse, you might be able to change your media without having to fork over money to do so! The Horror!!
Into the Abyss
I like to think that I’m a pretty mentally with it. I mean, I might freak out if I saw Cthulhu or something, but it still takes a lot to actually shake me. I can look at those terrible medical photos on Snopes and not bat an eye. Horrific visions of apocalyptic scenes don’t faze me. But I have been to something which shook me to the core.
I went to a Bible study group.
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