Comment MSN Gaming Zone Backgammon allows cheats... (Score 4, Funny) 102
MSN Rated Backgammon doesn't even charge extra for cheats. Anyone who can figure out the bugs in their poorly written and administered code can employ the well know "Stalled Time Out Exploit". In this case, a "staller" who refuses to complete their turn can make the game "time out" on their legitimate opponent. This awards them the rating points and takes them away from the victim. I have been documenting and reporting every instance of this cheat every time it occurs to me for two years. But its been happening since 2003. At this point, I have a folder full of screen captures and one hundred unanswered letters to the "Zone Master" and it is all I'll show for this effort. I feel like I'm in jail with Tim Robbins in 'Shawshank Redemption' writing to the department of corrections for a library fund....
Its always AMAZING to me when an institution remains totally, willfully IGNORANT of a widespread problem. What is even MORE egregious is MSN's complete DENIAL that the problem even exists - so that when you pursue answers to why you keep experiencing this, there is NO MENTION in any of there FAQ or help forums. At one point I was so pissed off I took the issue up in a Microsoft Dev Forum (which pissed them off) and finally an admin admitted to be that Microsoft had in all likelihood purchased the application from a third party vendor and that they did not have the ability to repair the code. These bugs were not a problem at first, until they were discovered and exploited, and as Microsoft has proven to the world, a defect exists only after it does damage to the customer, and only then if it becomes widely recognized. Screw you MSN. I gonna play opera in the jail yard and expose the warden as a crook. Now if I could just get a pile of cash burieded by an oak tree...