b.cognosco

Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.

Most Popular

Book Reviews

Recently

Friday, October 14, 2005

EULA-based Deep Root Spying On Blizzard Entertainment Customers

I Spy With My Little EULA (Donna Wentworth)

You may recall that Blizzard is the videogame company that sued three software programmers for creating BnetD, a free, open source program that allowed gamers to play games they purchased with others on the platform of their choice. Blizzard claimed that the programmers violated several parts of the company's End User Licensing Agreement (EULA), including a provision on reverse-engineering. But it turns out that's not all that Blizzard's lawyers have inserted in the fine print. As Bruce Schneier reports, the company is also using its Terms of Use agreements to justify spying on gamers' computers.

Writes Greg Hoglund, co-author of Exploiting Software, How to Break Code:

I watched the [software] warden sniff down the email addresses of people I was communicating with on MSN, the URL of several websites that I had open at the time, and the names of all my running programs, including those that were minimized or in the toolbar. These strings can easily contain social security numbers or credit card numbers, for example, if I have Microsoft Excel or Quickbooks open w/ my personal finances at the time. ...[The scanning] certainly will result in warden reporting you as a cheater. I really believe that reading these window titles violates privacy, considering window titles contain alot of personal data. But, we already know Blizzard Entertainment is fierce from a legal perspective. Look at what they have done to people who tried to make BNetD, freecraft, or third party WoW servers.

As Schneier says, this is truly scary stuff. Yet even a few of the security-savvy readers at Schneier's weblog are downplaying its significance. Why? Annalee Newitz has a theory that rings true to me: people think of routine spying as normal. […]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 11:11 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Privacy, Security, Technology

Byzantine Generals - How Many Liars Can You Tolerate

Byzantine generals

(classic problem)

Definition:

The problem of reaching a consensus among distributed units if some of them give misleading answers. To be memorable, the problem is couched in terms of generals deciding on a common plan of attack. Some traitorous generals may lie about whether they will support a particular plan and what other generals told them. Exchanging only messages, what decision making algorithm should the generals use to reach a consensus? What percentage of liars can the algorithm tolerate and still correctly determine a consensus?

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 10:38 AM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Policy & Regulation, Strategy, Technology

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Siemens USA - Wafer-Thin Color Displays for Packaging

Another development in the eInk/e-paper arena, scientists at Siemens have unveiled technology for thin, disposable, color displays that can be used on packages to show instructions, different langauges, etc. The switching rate of the technology is even fast enough to show moving pictures.

Siemens USA - Wafer-Thin Color Displays for Packaging

[...] At the Plastics Electronics trade fair in Frankfurt, Siemens developers exhibited extremely thin, miniature color displays that can be printed onto paper or foil. And the displays can be produced at very low cost compared to LCD panels. The first displays will become available on the market in 2007.

The displays show information about products, or even operating instructions for devices, directly on the packaging. A pillbox, for example, could display instructions for how it should be taken and provide this information in several languages with the push of a button. Admission tickets for trade shows could indicate the booths where various exhibitors are located. It’s also conceivable that small computer games will be on packages or that equipment boxes will display animations that give users step-by-step operating instructions when a button is pushed. [...]

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 9:50 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Manufacturing, Technology

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Chinese Correspondent Joins Skype Journal

Very cool announcement – telecom specialist Richard Zhao Liang of Beijing has joined Skype Journal. Good move!. I’m looking forward to reading Richard’s reports.

Insights from Beijing on Skype

by Bill Campbell.

Please say hello to Richard Zhao Liang.

Richard publishes the blog Telecom, Security and P2P .

Richard will join us on Skype Journal from time to time to give you special up dates on Skype news and events from Beijing.

Richard earned a PhD degree from Peking University (1997), majoring in fiber-optic communications. He has over 8 years of professional experience on telecommunications and security with certificates of CISSP, ITIL, BS7799. He is the Principal Consultant in China for Computer Associates.

Thanks Richard for joining us and sharing your views.

See his first Skype Journal post, Skype’s Road to China 

Posted by:  Terry Frazier at 3:09 PM  | Permanent Link  | Trackback URL | 
Categories: Collaboration, Technology

Syndication

Contact

 

Presence

 

 
 ICQ

 

 

 

www.flickr.com More of GratefulZed's photos

This Page was last updated: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:06:57 GMT