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Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Second Life Seeks Sensitive Data About Residents

deviantphil writes: Linden Labs, the company that runs Second Life, is seeking to roll out a new age verification mechanism which among others things may require residents to turn over their Social Security Number, government ID, or other sensitive personally identifying data in order to access content which is "explicitly sexual or excessively violent in nature". This would be equivalent to requiring a person to give out their Social Security Number before purchasing a game rated "M".
Spam

Submission + - Utah Anti-Kids-Spam Registry a "Financial Fail

Eric Goldman writes: "A couple of years ago, Utah and Michigan enacted "Child Protection Registries" that allow parents to register kids' email addresses and then requires certain email senders to filter registered email addresses before sending their emails. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the Utah registry has been a "finanacial failure." Initially projected to generate $3-6 million in revenues for Utah, it has instead generated total revenues of less than $200,000, 80% of which has gone to Unspam, the for-profit registry operator. As a result, Utah's share of the registry's revenues: a paltry $37,445. Worse, Utah has spent $100,000 (so far) to defend the law from constitutional challenges."
Television

CNN To Release Debates Under Creative Commons 151

remove office writes "After calls from several prominent bloggers and a couple of presidential candidates, CNN has agreed to release the footage from its upcoming June presidential debates uncopyrighted. Senator Barack Obama was the first candidate to call for all presidential debates to be released under Creative Commons, with fellow Democratic hopeful John Edwards following shortly afterwards. CNN will be the first to do so with their June 3rd and 5th Democratic and Republican debates. MSNBC hosted the first presidential debates recently but refused to release them under Creative Commons, opting instead to post online only commercial-ridden clips in Windows Media format."
Censorship

Submission + - ABC - takes Gravel and Paul out of running

isotope23 writes: After leaving Ron Paul out of their online poll for "who won the Republican debates"? ABC now has left both Paul and Gravel out of their list of candidates running for president in 2008 How exactly does ABC "overlook" including the two staunchly anti-war candidates (both of whom were in nationally televised debates) in their list? Does ABC stand for "Already Been Chosen" at this point? Update after pressure from Digg users, ABC has listed Paul in their poll and restarted it, however both Gravel and Paul are still not listed in the PDF.
Editorial

Submission + - Blizzards's ban targets today's busy gamer

Marcus Eikenberry writes: "If you're a hard working adult, parent, or student who enjoys today's MMO's but have no time to grind to level 70, Blizzard's recent actions scream "Your S.O.L." Earlier this week Blizzard banned thousands of accounts in a matter of days. Buying, selling, trading, and even giving away your account results in banning without a second chance. Instead of innocent until proven guilty you're simply guilty. They even use their godly powers and ban any account associate with your credit card if you chose the monthly billing option. That's not accounting for the gamers who lost their accounts using game time cards. Those who haven't been banned have their accounts on a temporary lockdown until an I.D that has been notarized is faxed in and approved. Even if they get that information to Blizzard it will take time for the hold to be taken off, leaving the account dead until they deem fit. A majority of gamers believe that buying or trading an account is cheating, giving other players an unfair advantage. Although, what if you're a casual player as opposed to a hard core player? Not every gamer has the luxury of being able to play eight or more hours a day. Casual gamers want to experience the end game fun without spending a massive amount of time away from reality and their responsibilities. It's well known that trading an account is a violation of the terms of service. Even if you decide to give your account away it will result in a ban. Some will argue that it's not worth the ban and definitely not worth losing their other accounts that had nothing to due with the violation. The customer is still paying their monthly dues and Blizzard is still generating an income. Blizzard has yet to release a statement on why the harsh crack down this week, but few have their theories. Marcus Eikenberry from Markee Dragon Inc, a trusted guru in the online gaming community, gives his trusted opinion at: http://www.markeedragon.com/u/ubbthreads/showflat. php?Board=newsmd&Number=502154 Press Contacts: Marcus Eikenberry Markeedragon@markeedragon.com (866) 533-5010 www.MarkeeDragonInc.com Blizzard Entertainment Inc (949) 955-1382 www.Blizzard.com"
Privacy

Submission + - Bush seeks to protect telcos from prosecution

illeism writes: Ars Technica is reporting that the Bush administration is seeking to pass the Defence Liability that would retroactively free the phone companies from prosecution for helping the government.


Prepare yourself for the longest single sentence you have ever read:
Notwithstanding any other law, and in addition to the immunities, privileges, and defenses provided by any other source of law, no action shall lie or be maintained in any court, and no penalty, sanction, or other form of remedy or relief shall be imposed by any court or any other body, against any person for the alleged provision to an element of the intelligence community of any information (including records or other information pertaining to a customer), facilities, or any other form of assistance, during the period of time beginning on September 11, 2001, and ending on the date that is the effective date of this Act, in connection with any alleged classified communications intelligence activity that the Attorney General or a designee of the Attorney General certifies, in a manner consistent with the protection of State secrets, is, was, would be, or would have been intended to protect the United States from a terrorist attack.


That's from section 408 of the proposed bill, and it's buried beneath the innocuous headline "Liability Defense." As the government explains later in an analysis of the bill, "companies that cooperate with the Government in the war on terror deserve our appreciation and protection — not litigation." Any court case dealing with the issue would be thrown out of court, and the protection would include all phone company interaction with the intelligence community since September 11.
Microsoft

Submission + - Dell Linux Conspiracy Theory

Spacey Spade writes: "I've heard that Microsoft pretty much owns Apple these days, and it occured to me that:

1) Microsoft knows Vista is unpopular
2) Microsoft wants Apple to get a larger user base
      a) because of the resistance from Europe (good goin guys)
      b) If an operating system becomes an appliance they cannot make money off of it, so they make it complex on purpose. Hey! Let's have two OS's that are hard to support!

Here's the shield they have in place to keep Linux from making headway: DELL !!!!!
Dell is in it too. Dell is taking their sweet time offering Linux. It promises but will not deliver. The threat of Dell offering Linux would keep other enterprises from taking steps to offer Linux, because they would be crushed by Dell.

I dunno... just an idea, but people in touch should check this out for the sake of Linux, or the BSD's.

Spacey"

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