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Comment Re:Frist Post! ...expires (Score 2, Insightful) 598

The DRM for TF2 works on a different principal, however. The game is online-only, so you can assume your player will have an internet connection when playing in the general server pool. The general server pool almost polices its self with many servers looking for only legitimate installs in order to prevent cheating. The game is also tied to Steam for DRM, so you can assume that the player has a Steam account. When playing online it checks for a legitimate Steam account, and LAN it checks for a legitimate install of Steam. Valve is also constantly releasing updates, requiring the game to be continuously re-hacked, like you said. Also, being that the servers in question are pirate servers, there is probably going to be a high hacker:legit player ratio.

So, as you can see, there are many many legitimate reasons why people would want to get a legitimate copy, and most of it has to do with playing the game online rather than the DRM measures. It is inherently tough to play pirated. For something like Gears of War, however, should not ever lock up. If I want to play single player now, I need an internet connection (not always possible for me) to update the DRM files that can break it this easily? No sale.

Comment Re:Thou shall not steal! (Score 5, Insightful) 230

It actually is closer to infringing on copyrighted goods, because that's exactly what it is.

Stealing means what was taken was against the owner's consent, and that the owner is now deprived of that good. Copyright infringement, on the other hand, means that you have made an unauthorized copy of a work and are selling it/giving it away/making more copys, which is the case here.

Comment Re:Doesn't bother me, since I never plan to go. (Score 1) 734

It's a country that can arrest and detain without warrant, without charges, without representation and without trial.

That's a gross overstatement. (It's seriously disgusting.) In the United Stats, people don't just get arrested willy-nilly. I'm not saying such a thing has happened, but if you're referencing Gitmo then that's all Afghanistan combatants (weather they really are combatants or not is another debate). Traveling to the United States from another country leaves no possibility of false imprisonment, though you can be detained. When they detain it's usually for a good reason, but just like every place there's idiots who will do it for a clearly innocent person. You just hear the US a lot because people like to hate.

Once you get in to the country, if you are arrested without a warrant, probable cause, and without charges you can expect the prosecution in any kind of trial to get reamed. Believe it or not, our judicial system isn't a bastion of corruption.

The Internet

Houses With Tails 307

nnfiber writes "What if home owners could also own their Internet connection? Tim Wu, of New America Foundation and Derek Slater, Google's Policy Analyst, say this can be a new effective way to encourage broadband deployment — an important issue in 'America's economic growth.' In his post, Timothy B. Lee says: 'That might sound like a crazy idea at first blush, but Wu and Slater do a great job of explaining how it might work. The key idea is "condominium fiber," an arrangement in which a number of neighboring households pool their resources to install fiber to all the homes in their neighborhoods. Once constructed, each home would own its own fiber strand, while the shared costs of maintaining the "trunk" cable from the individual homes to a central switching location would be managed in the same way that condominium and homeowners' associations currently manage the shared areas of condos and gated communities.'"

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