Category Archives: News

News

Wired story about Carder plays like crime drama

One of my favorite kind of books to read are on the history of computing (and science in general), in particular ones which tell the story about not only the technology that’s developed, but the people who developed it, and how their personalities interacted. That’s why while the PBS documentaries  “The Machine That Changed The World” and “The Shape of the World” are interesting, I like “Connections”, “Revolution OS”, and “Triumph of the Nerds” more, because in addition to playing off the technological aspects, the personal aspects come up as well, how personalities interact, how they play off each other, and how the meeting of two people can have as much impact on the invention of a piece of technology as a the invention of a previous piece of technology was.

I mention all that because I got tipped off to this article at Wired Magazine. Basically, it’s almost the cybercrime equivalent of GoodFellas. The difference being, Henry Hill realized that being the mob was more hazardous than it’s worth, particularly since there were no possiblities for advancement for him – being Irish on his dad’s side instead of Italian – so he told the law what he knew. On the other hand, this story is, a bit, the polar opposite – the guy the story’s about, Max Butler, basically becomes the man you have to go through (through his site) in order to buy-and-sell stolen card numbers, as well as the equipment needed to take advantage of those numbers – which I’d certainly count as advancement. Not to mention, unlike Hill, Butler didn’t talk to the Feds, tell them everything they needed to know and go in the Witness Protection Program – he was caught and sent to prison for life – the first Cracker (I’m not going to use the word Hacker for a crook like thim) to get that punishment.

Okay, yeah, so he can get 30 years instead of life if he takes a plea bargain, but anyway, the story is fantastic. It plays out like a crime novel (in this case a true crime novel). I doubt it would work for a movie, maybe a documentary – it would be extremely difficult to dramatize the hacking process – and a lot of the interactions here are between people who have never met each other face to face, only online. Still, it’s an amazing read.

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News

News Analysis – Nielsen Media Research’s DMCA Request to Wikipedia

If you read Slashdot.org, you may have caught this news story. In short, Nielsen Media Research sent a DMCA takedown order to Wikipedia, asking them to takedown a series of catagory boxes and templates for organizing radio and TV stations by city, stating that it infringed on their copyright on the practice of organizing television and radio stations by market. Consequently, the Wikipedia foundation was forced to delete all the relevant templates, leaving the userbase scrambling to find a way to organize media articles without getting sued.

To be frank, the actions of Neilsen Media Research are a crock of bullshit. The copyright in question is no better, and in fact is almost worse then some of the bogus submarine patents that you read about weekly, and the copyright in question essentially gives the Nielsen essentially a monopoly on the classification and organization of broadcast stations by geography.

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News, Video games

Analysis – ESA rolls critical failure on “Diplomacy” Check, attacks ECA, GamePolitics

In the first decade of the 21st century, the Video Games Industry has found itself facing a lot of political pressure from Washington DC, as well as the politicians of various state legislatures. The Hot Coffee controversy started a wave of game legislation against the game industry, with many states passing legislature to impede the sale of video games that contained violent content (the levels of violence being legislated against varied from state-to-state).

Rising up against this sea of foes, was the Entertainment Software Association, then lead by Doug Lowenstein. Thanks to the dues paid by member corporations, the ESA was able to file suit in multiple state courts to block the aforementioned laws, and in many cases get them declared unconstitutional. Further, as an outgrowth of the ESA’s sibling organization, the Entertainment Merchant’s Association (or EMA came the Entertainment Consumer’s organization, or ECA, lead by Hal Halpin, which sought to bring a voice for those who play video games and other electronic media, so that someone is fighting for them. Among one of the ECA’s first actions was to join with GamePolitics.com, a blog that tracked attacks against gaming in the public sector, from politicians, and from the news media.

The reason I’m bring up this melodramatic alphabet soup is that there is dissension in the ranks – specifically between the ECA, and the ESA – and the ECA didn’t start it.

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News, Video games

Breaking News – Itagaki resigns from Tecmo

According to a news article at 1up.com, Tomonobu Itagaki is resigning from Tecmo and filing suit with his old company after the president of the company allegedly said he would not pay Itagaki a promised completion bonus for the game.

As someone who is a fan of the Dead or Alive games, as well as the Ninja Gaiden games, regret this turn of events a great deal. I hope that Itagaki’s lawsuit will result favorably for him. He is a talented game designer, and look forward to playing his future games. Also, I hope we don’t get a boycott in this case, at least not unless the lawsuit doesn’t go Itagaki’s way. If Itagaki wins, he’ll likely get paid his promised bonuses, as well as any promised royalties, and those will be decreased if there is a boycott. However, Itagaki loses, then would be the perfect time for gamers to vote with their wallets and take their money somewhere else.

Alternatively, rather then refusing to buy Tecmo games, this would be the perfect time, to show Tecmo just how much we enjoy Itagaki’s work. Rather then refusing to buy Tecmo games, instead, we only buy Itagaki’s games. All of them. And only the Tecmo games made by Itagaki. Have Itagaki make oodles of money for Tecmo showing two things.

  1. Itagaki is an asset that can make a lot of money for Tecmo, and thus they want him to work for them, and so they should reconcile.
  2. Itagaki is an asset that can make a lot of money for other companies, and so now that he’s on the market, they’ll want to hire him, so he gets a new job sooner.

Just my two bits.

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