06-06-2003, 03:47 AM
Pete,Jun 5 2003, 10:50 PM Wrote:Legal solutions implemented in the USA for global technical problems (1) don't work and (2) are stupid.OK, I expressed myself poorly
The real solution in my view is both technical and legal
The frustration here is that Blizzard's efforts have been solely technical
Now for fun profit and fame a lot of amateur hacks spring up. The game is very popular and the nature of closed BNet and the drop system mean that cheats and dupes will always have appeal to many players
The key to stopping this is deterrence
Purely technical measures do not deter once the cheating culture is entrenched - 131 000 accounts were locked in April with no noticeable effect on the culture
Legal measures would close down most of the websites that distribute cheats and sell dupes
Sure, if someone is determined to distribute them and as slick as you argue they might be, Pete, they can keep going
But if a 14-year old kid gets a court summons through the mail then the parents are going to have words. If a college gets a letter about the involvement of its machines in hacking then questions will be asked of the students
There are dotcoms out there profiting on the dupe economy. They could be shut down in one court application. And there is E-Bay which would probably simply stop the trade in dupes if asked to
Copyright violation, or at least Intellectual Property violation, is arguable. Could Mousepad distribute Maphack without mentioning Blizzard's trade-marked product? Has he not analyzed at their proprietary code to work out his shareware and based his offering upon it?
As for foreign jurisdictions Blizzard is an international company with offices abroad and is part of Vivendi. Besides even in non-US countries we have laws and we have lawyers. It's not that hard or expensive to serve an injunction on someone who doesn't fight it in court
So there are three choices I think for Blizzard
1) Give up. Invest less and less energy on technical fixes since the hackers can't be beaten
2) Muddle along as they are. A handful of dedicated people fixing hack after hack - surely not why they wanted to work at a games company?
3) Supplement their current policy of technical fixes with an active interest in pursuing people who distribute cheats, hacks and dupes
No particular reason why they should adopt 3) at this late stage but I'll certainly keep banging the drum :)