Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - World of Warcraft borderline racketeering?

Submitted by jpolachak
jpolachak writes: I have been playing games for quite some time. I have even played some professionally. So I play World of Warcraft quite possibly the most dynamic and arguably the best game ever written. However I have had a severe problem with Blizzard(The makers of World of Warcraft for those of you who go outside). I woke up one morning and decided to check the auction house on WoW and see if my netherweave cloth had sold. Then I found out that my login did not work. I then decided to check my email and calm down. I then saw an email from Blizzard. It stated that your account was banned for using 3rd party software. I thought to myself are you kidding me. It also stated that if I wanted to dispute this the only way to accomplish anything was via email. So I then emailed account administration. I wrote a whole long article stating that I have never used 3rd party software. Hell I can't stand the people who use hacks in FPS games that I play. Well I then received an email in about 10 minutes stating that my account is being reviewed. Finally, after about 5 days I got a reply stating more or less we have looked at your account and our ruling stands. There was no information as to why I was banned. I then went through the whole process again hoping to get a different result. Hoping someone out there would believe me. Well in about a week after that I received more of the same email. However, none of the email ever told me what I did wrong. I have one question you need to ask yourself. Is it ok for Blizzard to never respond to people with the specifics or something as to why they were banned. I mean if you bought something at Sears you would expect that if you took it back and someone told you no. You would expect some kind of response as to why.

So my dilemma is this. I have started playing again. Not because I think Blizzard is doing things ethically but however because they quite possibly make the greatest game ever and I can help myself. So now how do I keep from getting banned again. Since I know that I did nothing wrong in the past? Thank You, Grotesk Gorefiend formerly Nekavon Burning Blade
Networking

Submission + - How to deal with an abusive web host?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I recently sent a DMCA takedown notice to a hosting company, regarding a customer who was blatantly posting copyrighted material from my website, along with attacks against me based on sexual orientation. I was told that, because they agreed with the person's attacks, the offending content would not be removed. They also claim that copyright is irrelevant, because they agree with their customer's "comments." I couldn't believe this response, but upon Googling the name of this host, I found dozens of webmasters and ISPs complaining about legal threats and spam attacks originating from this company. What is the correct way to deal with this issue?
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Mutliplatform OpenSource Sub-Sim released (sourceforge.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Danger from the Deep, an Open Source World War II German uboat simulation, striving for technical and historical accuracy, is now in its 0.3 incarnation. This latest version features a considerable amount of new features as well as tons of bug fixes. For those not familiarized with it, basically it's a "Battle of the Atlantic" simulation, focused in tactical and strategic component of uboat warfare. It tries to be the most historically and technically correct as possible, which on occasions might make the typical game a bit complex, due to complexity of the uboat systems being simulated. This however, will be minimized, once collaborative (network) game-play is implemented.

  Amongst the new features, Dangerdeep now appears in full OpenGL2.0/GLSL1.1 goodness, now uses VBOs and FBOs, and it's now multi-threaded. Add to that the new functionality, such as a "captain's cabin", a new ship's log, new models, improved ocean render, and tons of bug fixes. At the moment, it's supported on x86-32/64 Linux, Windows, and there are intel OSX and ppc64 OSX packages under-way. There were reports of Danger from the Deep working on Sparc64 Linux, as well as x86-32/64, IA64 and Sparc64 FreeBSD (5.x though).

Notice that you do need 3d hardware acceleration, with OpenGL 1.5 being the minimum required, and OpenGL2.0 being the recommended for all the eye candy, but you can find more informations on this release, and Danger from the Deep in general, at the project web page, http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/
The Internet

Submission + - AT&T willing to do MPAA, RIAA's dirty work (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Peerless
Peerless writes: AT&T plans to begin monitoring its network for pirated content. An AT&T VP says that his company's decision to offer IPTV made them realize that their interests are a lot more closely aligned with those of Hollywood than they used to be, but it's going to be tough to pull this off. 'The company says it will target only repeat offenders and that it will not violate user privacy or FCC directives on network openness. Who knows how this is all supposed to work, especially as legal, unencrypted files flow across the Internet from sites like iTunes and eMusic, along with thousands of smaller sites that serve as promotional vehicles for independent bands and filmmakers? We suspect that AT&T will start small, deploying some sort of P2P solution that looks for the transfer of unencrypted Hollywood blockbusters and major-label bands in complete form.' Ars points out that even if the solution is 99.5% effective, that's still going to result in a huge number of false positives. First the NSA, and now the MPAA and RIAA. Is there anyone AT&T won't spy for?
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Municipal Fiber Gets Final Approval (theadvertiser.com)

Submitted by
Teh Treag
Teh Treag writes: "After over three years of court battles with BellSouth, and Cox Communications over providing fiber to residential customers for broadband, telephone, and television, the final hurdles were crossed. The city of Lafayette, LA. expects the fiber to increase competition, drive down broadband prices, and attract technology business development. Expect the battle over funding the $125 million project to continue.
From the Daily Advertiser
"Certainly this is a day we've all been waiting for," said LUS Director Terry Huval...
John St. Julien has been maintaining a blog following this story from the beginning."
Spam

Submission + - FBI announces results of BotNet investigation

Submitted by E_Block
E_Block writes: The FBI and DOJ have announced (http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel07/botnet0613 07.htm) the results of "OPERATION BOT ROAST", which has identified over 1 million victims of "bot hearders".
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - FDA considering diluting chocolate

Submitted by shewfig
shewfig writes: The FDA is considering a redefinition of "chocolate" to allow substitution of vegetable oil ($0.70/lb) instead of cocoa butter ($2.30/lb) and whey protein instead of dry whole milk. There are already standard terms to differentiate these products from chocolate, such as "chocolatey" and "chocolate-flavored". The change, requested by industry group the Chocolate Manufacturers of America (CMA) http://www.chocolateusa.org/About-Us/ , will allow inferior products to masquerade as the real thing. Leading the resistance is high-end chocolate maker Guittard, from their website http://dontmesswithourchocolate.guittard.com/ with significant grass-roots support from the "Candyblog" — http://www.typetive.com/candyblog/

Deadline for consumer comments is April 25, so action is needed now.

FDA website on proposed change, oddly enough missing the exact proposed changes: http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dockets/07p0085/0 7p-0085.htm
The Internet

Submission + - Hong Knog to Offer Free Internet

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "The Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region says that they will allocate HK$200 million in the next two years to provide free Internet service at government-run establishments and sites like public libraries, parks and government office buildings."
Story avaiable at
http://www.chinatechnews.com/2007/04/10/5233-hong- kong-to-offer-free-internet-service/#more-5233
Businesses

Submission + - Peers at work?

Submitted by LoudMusic
LoudMusic writes: I work for an advertising agency of sixty-plus employees as the systems administrator. Eight years ago there were two of us but we successfully eliminated the need for a second administrator. I've now been doing my job essentially by myself for over six years. My boss is the CFO and a geek in his own right, but he's both busy with his own work and not adept enough in support and technology to truly be a peer. We are friends, but he's nearly old enough to be my father, so we have a little bit of generation gap. As for the rest of my coworkers, they're all sales people and artists and we have very little in common. So at work I have just a handful of people I would consider friends, and none of them capable or willing to help me with my work. Nearly all my geek friends have migrated to the regional technology corporations, one in particular, and spend all day working together on common projects — motivating, educating, and supporting each other in their careers. I've intentionally avoided moving to a corporate field because I enjoy working for a small business and I hear too much negative feedback about "corporate life". But maybe it's time to bite the bullet and be with my friends. Who has experienced both areas and which do you prefer? Why?
The Media

Submission + - Update: Colorado woman claims hackers killed site

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Colorado Woman's site taken down... claimed "stolen by hackers"

Colorado Woman Suzanne Shell runs "profane-justice". The site was slashdoted between March 19th 2007, and March 31st, 2007. Information Week reported a legal dispute between Susan Shell and Archive.org, where in spite of a lack of a robots.txt file, it was her belief that her rights were violated by archive crawlers.

The site was shutdown due to exceeding the monthly bandwidth allotment late March 19th, 2007 according EarthLink's error message. It's now Suzanne's contention that "On or about March 18-20, 2007,""this site was maliciously hacked""and sent out all over the world as hot-linked spam pop-ups or some""other similar abusive theft of""bandwidth and content." {quoted from here} and is claiming more than $276,050.00 in damages based on $.01/page and $.02/MB in stolen revenue. Her site claims over 36 million page loads since March 17, 2007.

Is this a case of an online vigilante took it upon themselves to hack the site and spam the world in a period of two days, or is this a case where getting publicity created an interest in her site and it was this interest that exceded her bandwidth allocation? Is it reasonable to claim $276,050.00 for 11 days of down time, or should Suzanne Shell have contacted her ISP and increase her monthly bandwidth allocation? Were hackers/unsolicited pop-ups/spam involved?

It's asked by Suzanne Shell that anyone who received the url to her site by "virtue of unsolicited pop-up, spam, email or any other mechanism" to contact the "FBI Computer Crime center (www.ic3.gov)" case I0703201751051092.
Communications

Submission + - US Gov't Secret Fiber Needs - "Mind-Blowing

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In an article about the Joseph Nacchio, former Qwest CEO, stock fraud case, an interesting bit of information came out: Nacchio's defense is that, as a member of a "government telecommunications panel" he had access to classified information on the government's telecommunication capacity needs: "A defense lawyer, Herbert J. Stern, described the government's capacity need as 'mind-blowing, mind-boggling'", which is "why Qwest was buying assets abroad." Sure, that's is his defense attorney talking and not a neutral analyst, but let's say it's true: What would the U.S. government transmit over this "mind-blowing" fiber capacity? And what would they need to send (or receive from) other countries?
The Internet

Submission + - Get arrested for using free wifi at the library

Submitted by
edmicman
edmicman writes: "Tech news outlets are reporting a story from Alaska where a man's laptop was confiscated after he was caught playing online games using the library's free WiFi connection:

Brian Tanner was sitting in his Acura Integra recently outside the Palmer Library playing online games when a Palmer police pulled up behind him. The officer asked him what he was doing. Tanner, 21, was using the library's wireless Internet connection. He was told that his activity constituted theft of services and was told to leave. The next day, Sunday, police spotted him there again.
"

Slashdot Top Deals

The last person that quit or was fired will be held responsible for everything that goes wrong -- until the next person quits or is fired.

Close