Forgot your password?

typodupeerror

Second Life: third party viewer DDoS scandal

Submitted by Godwin O'Hitler
Godwin O'Hitler writes "Modular Systems, who develop the popular Emerald client for Second Life, have confessed to hijacking the internet connections of its 80,000 users to mount a DDoS attack on the Web site of someone they didn't get along with, while writing the incident off as a silly prank: http://blog.modularsystems.sl/2010/08/20/shenanigans/
Many residents are in uproar over being involuntary accomplices in the attack, which was revealed by the targeted site's owner, posting on the SL forums as resident Imma Twig.

It remains to be seen how Linden Lab will respond to this matter. It looks like its going to be a stern test of their credibility in enforcing the terms of their recently rewritten third party viewer policy. The attack seems to be a clear contravention of paragraph 2.d.3 of said policy: http://secondlife.com/corporate/tpv.php — not to mention any potential legal recriminations."

Comment: Just a minute (Score 1) 110

by Godwin O'Hitler (#28744401) Attached to: Brazil Demands Repatriation of UK Hazardous Waste

People are talking as though the whole of the UK has got together and decided to send their shite to Brazil.
Though I don't doubt such a plan has its merits, the summary does makes it clear that it was SOME BRAZILIAN OUTFIT that perpetrated the misdeed: "We'll get rid of your waste for you. Don't worry. We have a safe place to put it."

No propblem. Let Brazil send it back, and let the Brazilians who initiated the wrongdoing take care of it.

Blame where blame is due, please. :rolls eyes:

Comment: Re:suckers (Score 1) 645

You're right. Ludditism doesn't even come into it, even if one day electronic books beat the shit out of real physical books on every count.
Books are something you can collect and appreciate for their simple presence on your bookshelf.
It's not just Luddites who'd rather have Botticelli's Venus hanging in their room than a downloadable photograph they can look at on their laptops.

Comment: Re:Contract Law? (Score 1) 645

If they didn't have the right to sell the book, surely the morally correct action from Amazon would be to take full responsibility for their error and come to an agreement with the copyright owners for the right to allow people to keep the book. At Amazon's expense of course.

I think Amazon is great, but I'd never dream of using it (or any other supplier for that matter) for stuff I wasn't sure of being able to keep.

Comment: Re:Legally, how? (Score 1) 645

"Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon."

Try as i may there's only one way I can successfully parse that sentence:
"Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless [said content is] otherwise expressly provided by Amazon."

The content is certainly expressly provided by Amazon. Whether the qualifier "otherwise" applies or not is anybody's guess. They might well have been trying to say "unless [some other condition is] expressly provided by Amazon" but they don't say that; and the sentence is surely ambiguous enough for such meaning not to be taken as read.
IAABAL (...anything but a...), but I imagine that when it comes to enforcing a contract, if a sentence is complete gibberish it is simply ignored.

Comment: Re:Summary? (Score 1) 310

by Godwin O'Hitler (#28739477) Attached to: Why OpenBSD's Release Process Works

You do realise there's such a thing as a skew normal distribution?
Your examples might be skewed bell curves but they're still bells, not inverted bells as 4D6963 was hypothesising. Their cumulative probability is still a nice smooth S curve.
Does their being skewed change how many people fall within the limits you've set for your definition of average? Nope. The majority of people are still average and that applies to all walks of life.

Comment: Re:Summary? (Score 1) 310

by Godwin O'Hitler (#28727213) Attached to: Why OpenBSD's Release Process Works

Nah it's not that big an assumption. Just a statistical one. The population is way large enough to assume with BIGNUMBER% certainty that it follows a normal distribution.
If you do that, of course, you have to set upper and lower boundaries for your definition of average. Maybe that's the road you were going down.

Life. Don't talk to me about life. - Marvin the Paranoid Anroid

Working...