bengreene 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Ubisoft Shifts Its Future Plans To Include More 'Free To Play' Games

    bengreene ( profile ), 19 May, 2021 @ 02:55am

    Re: wait for it!

    They'll be online always games, so they won't need DRM. That doesn't mean some asshat won't try to add Denuvo to protect the "precious 4-8 week post-launch window" for a half baked MMO/Battle royale/MOBA ... and then proceed to blame piracy for the game's failure when they shut down the servers 4 months later rather than acknowledge the game shipped without key features, meaningful content, or any attractive reasons to replay the game. Ubi is stuck in it's ways. The lack of significant high-level firings following the exposed misconduct in the upper ranks means the same people are making decisions that have been there for years, if not decades. They have no fresh blood in the decision making ranks. This latest strategy smells strongly of them chasing other AAA publisher's successful ideas, but coming to the party late.

  • On the post: After 50,000 Layoffs And Absolute Chaos, AT&T Ends Its Bungled Media Experiment

    bengreene ( profile ), 19 May, 2021 @ 02:35am

    Re:

    I'm inclined to agree." Billing for, and ruining, networks" seems more appropriate.

  • On the post: Australian Crime Commission: Only Criminals Use Encrypted Communications

    bengreene ( profile ), 12 May, 2021 @ 04:28am

    Re:

    Nice salted and hashed password database of all your users you have there. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it. Oh, and by the way you're still liable for all fines and damages if you have a data breach. 'Cos this is where you end up if you follow the "logic" of the Luddites / shitweasels.

  • On the post: Appeals Court Says Families Of Car Crash Victims Can Continue To Sue Snapchat Over Its 'Speed Filter'

    bengreene ( profile ), 12 May, 2021 @ 02:40am

    Sued for making a speedometer?

    Can anyone correct me on this? Is the Court essentially saying it's ok for a case, essentially about a company effectively making a speedometer, to proceed?

    Why isn't the car manufacturer being sued for making a car that can go that fast? Why isn't the car manufacturer being sued for making a speedometer and including it in the car?

    There are already laws pertaining to speeding while driving. There are already laws pertaining to dangerous / reckless driving. There are laws (usually) about usage of phones while driving. The driver of the car broke all of these laws, not SnapChat.

    It's very difficult to see this decision as something other than being motivated by "Deep Pockets" or "Big Tech Bad" opinion.

  • On the post: The EPIC Effect: Microsoft Changes Revenue Split To Match EPIC Store, Steam Holds Firm

    bengreene ( profile ), 30 Apr, 2021 @ 06:06am

    Re:

    "Competition is good". Yes, that is correct. However, Epic is not attempting to compete. Epic's strategy is to buy their way into the PC games market, ideally to buy their way into first place. Epic are doing almost everything they can to avoid having to actually compete with Steam.

  • On the post: Howard Dean Is Out Stumping For Big Pharma Patent Protection, No Matter How Many People In Poor Countries Die As A Result

    bengreene ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2021 @ 07:48am

    Re:

    He's an actual threat to the lives of men, women and children that he has never met, let alone knows their names. Their only crime is not being rich enough (and morally bereft enough apparently) to afford his services. I'm not sure which is worse, that he knows what the logical consequences of what his "victory" will look like and still continues, or he has never bothered to actually consider what the logical consequences would look like.

  • On the post: UK Politicians Getting Serious About Ending End-To-End Encryption

    bengreene ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2021 @ 03:51am

    Abdication of responsibilities

    It is the responsibility of government (via judicial and law enforcement means) to enforce laws and prosecute people for breaking said laws. Whenever I see the "think of the children" argument from a government official it reads to me as nothing short of an admission that a government has failed in it's duty and needs some new shiny toy that will totally let them solve a social/human problem that they have unsuccessfully "cured" for centuries, (via various means of punishment).

    Their latest shiny toy is to stop trying to solve an unsolvable social/human problem and instead demand private institutions, not state institutions, successfully solve an unsolvable technological problem (and social/human problem) instead, or be held accountable for all wrongs committed by others.

    The icing on the cake is that the private institutions will also be punished (directly and indirectly) if they fail to implement said technological solution perfectly (no data breaches, no unintentional access, no successful hacking of the system, no bribed employee giving access on the side, etc., etc., etc.).

    It's nothing less than "It's too hard to do this right so it's now your problem. No, we won't pay you for it and if you fuck it up your 100% liable for all damages and costs. Heads I win, tails you loose. Nerd harder bitches!".

    I know the quote is "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" but since fucking when was it apparently government policy to believe in magic?

  • On the post: UK Child Welfare Charity Latest To Claim Encryption Does Nothing But Protect Criminals

    bengreene ( profile ), 01 Apr, 2021 @ 06:50am

    Re: Pedos use cars...

    They also use oxygen ...

  • On the post: Activision Forces Online Check DRM Into New Game, Which Gets Cracked In One Day

    bengreene ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2021 @ 01:42am

    Re: 'Teach you to pay us...'

    Exactly. I got nothing but snotty responses from Eidos when I tried to play Deus Ex Invisible War years ago. Apparently it wouldn't play if you had virtual CD drive software installed (Daemon Tools). In their opinion nobody could ever have a legitimate reason for installing such software, so the game gave an obscure and unhelpful error message. I couldn't uninstall Daemon Tools as I was using it daily to browse ISO files of product documentation for my job as I was travelling for several months. I had to get a no-CD patch from a decidedly less than legitimate site in the end so I could play the game I legitimately owned.

  • On the post: 2 Years Later, Valve's Hands Off Approach To Adult Games Is Still Confusing, Still Very Much Not Hands Off

    bengreene ( profile ), 26 Mar, 2021 @ 04:12am

    Not really games TBH

    These games are more like the bastard offspring of FMV and Chose Your Own Adventure. The games are essentially the product of a misogynist arsehole, sorry I meant to say pickup artist, where the said developer / protagonist of the game strokes his ego by chatting up attractive women while allegedly imparting "life skills" to the player.

    The background is that a pickup artist realised book stores are cluttered with a dime a dozen books on how to be a "super seducer" but that the gaming space was very light, if not completely clear, of that type of content. The various adult dating sim type games that Valve keeps flipflopping on don't really enter this space. So the developer saw an untapped market just waiting breathlessly for his glorious presence.

    In reality the games are essentially a short video clip where you chose the super seducers response from a set of 4 or so possible responses, which then play the appropriate video clip. The first game seemed to rely on a lot of negging techniques so you know you're dealing with a positive role model that respects and values women. While there is no nudity in the games from what I understand, I can see why Valve decided they don't really need the additional revenue such a miserable series of games brings to the table.

    /S in liberal quantities for the folks who don't recognise it when they see it.

  • On the post: Despite A Decade Of Complaints, US Wireless Carriers Continue To Abuse The Word 'Unlimited'

    bengreene ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2021 @ 03:57am

    Re:

    Yes, that is technically true ... but still a dick move. If you hire a car, and for a not so small price you are offered an "unlimited range" package, you'd be more than a wee bit fucked off if the gearbox automatically locks itself to 1st gear after 100 miles.

  • On the post: The Internet Is Not Just Facebook, Google & Twitter: Creating A 'Test Suite' For Your Great Idea To Regulate The Internet

    bengreene ( profile ), 19 Mar, 2021 @ 07:40am

    Re:

    • Microsoft.com (sales and support portal all in one)
    • outlook/office365 (used by hundreds of thousands of people globally every day)
    • Hotmail (show it some love)
    • AWS
    • Azure
    • GOG.com
    • Epic(to be more specific Fortnight)
    • Playstation Network
    • XBox Network
    • SalesForce
    • Oracle
    • PayPal

  • On the post: Broadband ISP Frontier Just Keeps Happily Ripping People Off With Bogus Fees, And Zero Real Repurcussions

    bengreene ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2021 @ 03:49am

    Time for turnabout perhaps?

    Perhaps there ought to be some organised means of impressing on the corrupt congress-critters in question just how frustrating this is. Of course the difficulty is in finding a common service they all use.

    This is a bit unusual, but I might just have found it ... what about hookers / escort services and the like?

    Oral sex: $25
    Additional below the line charges:

    • Unzipping fee, additional $5. No, it really doesn't unzip itself.
    • Maintenance fee, additional €5. Otherwise known as the "I damn near froze to death wearing next to nothing in December" fee.
    • Environmental fee, additional €5. Otherwise known as the "I see, you're too good to clean up after yourself you asshole" fee.
    • Union dues, additional €5.
    • Union levy, additional $5. For the pimp/madam this time.
    • etc.

  • On the post: Appeals Court Rejects New York Police Unions' Attempt To Block Disclosure Of Disciplinary Records

    bengreene ( profile ), 25 Feb, 2021 @ 03:01am

    Who is covering their ass here?

    I suspect this is less about the officers, that shouldn't be permitted protect a wet paper bag from catching fire let alone carry a firearm in public, and more about protecting the higher ranks.

    The higher ranks that regularly exonerate the bad apples on review board. The higher ranks that divert complaints down dead ends so they never reach a review board, etc. The higher ranks that lean on the good, or at least indifferent, apples in the ranks to stay quiet.

  • On the post: Oxford University Study Shows Small Correlation Between Playing Video Games And 'Well Being'

    bengreene ( profile ), 23 Feb, 2021 @ 04:24am

    Re: Re: Re:

    If little Timmy has gone to bed then turn off the WiFi. Yes, I know I'm a cruel bastard :-)

  • On the post: Oxford University Study Shows Small Correlation Between Playing Video Games And 'Well Being'

    bengreene ( profile ), 22 Feb, 2021 @ 07:45am

    Re: Re:

    "That's their culture" No it's not. It's immature people behaving badly out of hearing or line-of-site of a responsible adult. No way would 13 year old Timmy scream "I f##ked your mom in the ass last night" while playing Fortnite/Gears/CS GO on the PC/PS/XBox in the living room while his own dear mother/father was sitting 6 feet away watching [insert relevant soap opera or home improvement show]. At least not if Timmy's parental figures had a scrap of manners and cared a damn about little Timmy.

  • On the post: CBP Facial Recognition Program Has Gathered 50 Million Face Photos, Identified Fewer Than 300 Imposters

    bengreene ( profile ), 18 Feb, 2021 @ 06:57am

    Facial Recognition alone or ??

    I'd like to see the breakdown of how much of the stated successes were only possible to catch via facial recognition alone? How many of them would have been detected at a point where documentation was checked, fingerprints scanned, etc.

    I suspect the actual success numbers are probably even lower than what has been stated when the rest of the detection mechanisms are taken into account.

  • On the post: Parler Attempting to Come Back Online, Still Insisting The Site's Motivation Is 'Privacy' Despite Leaking Details On All Its Users

    bengreene ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2021 @ 08:54am

    Translation?

    "We believe privacy is paramount"

    Possible translation?
    Privacy is paramount for the owners of this site, not for the users. The owners of the site will use the info gathered on the users of the site in their plea-bargain to avoid jail time.

  • On the post: Irony: German Chancellor Merkel Upset At Twitter For Banning Trump; Meanwhile Germany Demands Social Media Blocks Dangerous Content

    bengreene ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2021 @ 04:09am

    "It's quite ridiculous for her now to complain that companies are doing what she and her government have been demanding all along."

    I suspect her complaint isn't really about Twitter banning The Tangerine Panda, it's the fact a private company did so without being instructed to do so by her / any government. I think she sees this action as the thin end of the wedge and can see that this may potentially limit what she can say / communicate on a private platform in the future.

  • On the post: Ajit Pai, Easily The Most Controversial FCC Boss In History, Will Step Down January 20

    bengreene ( profile ), 01 Dec, 2020 @ 02:54am

    Spelling?

    Controversial? I'm pretty sure that's not how you spell the word corrupt. Is this one of those UK English spelling versus US English spelling situations? :-)

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