Tribalwar

Pirated Windows 7 Builds Botnet with Trojan

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 08:33 AM | Thursday, May 14, 2009 | (url: http://www.eweek....)

Security researchers at Damballa report shutting down the command and control server of a botnet built by a Trojan bundled with pirated copies of Windows 7 RC. The Trojan is believed to have infected thousands of users.

Attackers pushing pirated, malware-laced copies of Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 operating system have been actively trying to build a botnet.

According to researchers at Damballa, attackers hid a Trojan inside of pirated copies of the operating system and began circulating them on BitTorrent sites. Damballa reported that it shut down the botnet's command and control server May 10, but by that time infection rates had risen as high as 552 users per hour.

3D Realms to Shut Down

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 07:19 PM | Wednesday, May 6, 2009 | (url: http://www.shackn...)

A very reliable source close to Duke Nukem Forever developer 3D Realms today confirmed to Shacknews that the company has been shut down.

The closure came about as a result of funding issues, our source explained, with the shut down said to affect both 3D Realms and the recently resurrected Apogee name. Employees of both entities have already been let go.

Phone calls and e-mails to various 3D Realms veterans have thus far gone unanswered, with publishing partner Take-Two likewise unavailable for comment.

Google Losing up to $1.65M a Day on YouTube

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 12:51 PM | Tuesday, April 14, 2009 | (url: http://www.intern...)

Google is spending more than $2 million a day on YouTube -- and it is nowhere near seeing a return on that investment. Indeed, it may be losing up to $1.65 million daily on the video site.

According to financial firm Credit Suisse and Internet measurement provider comScore Inc. , YouTube Inc. is on track to serve 75 billion video streams to 375 million unique visitors in 2009.

That's the good news. The bad? To support those visitors, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) will spend more than $2 million dollars daily -- to be exact, up to $2,064,054 a day, or $753 million annualized, according to Internet Evolution calculations of YouTube's costs derived from a range of sources, including Bear Stearns & Co. Inc. , comScore, Credit Suisse, and Google itself.

Microsoft owns up to "E74" 360 errors, expands warranty

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 03:26 PM | Tuesday, April 14, 2009 | (url: http://arstechnic...)

A popular gaming blog tracked a new kind of Xbox 360 error, the E74, and Microsoft has finally owned up and added the issue to the three-year "Red Ring of Death" warranty. This is a win for consumers, but it's yet another black eye for Microsoft's hardware.

While Xbox 360 systems may be known more for the dreaded "red ring of death" than any other hardware failure, one gaming blog has been tracking the rise of the "E74" error, an issue that causes the console to crash and show a multi-language kill screen. You'll also get a single red section on your system's power button. Microsoft is aware of the problem, and has since amended it's three-year warranty to cover the error.

In Australia, banned links could cost $11,000 a day

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 09:54 AM | Tuesday, March 17, 2009 | (url: http://www.smh.co...)

The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.

Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark's list of banned websites.

The move by the Australian Communications and Media Authority comes after it threatened the host of online broadband discussion forum Whirlpool last week with a $11,000-a-day fine over a link published in its forum to another page blacklisted by ACMA - an anti-abortion website.

"The first rule of censorship is that you cannot talk about censorship," Wikileaks said on its website in response to the ACMA ban.

Midway Games Files for Chapter 11

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 12:46 PM | Thursday, February 12, 2009 | (url: http://www.midway...)

idway Games Inc. (NYSE: MWY) today announced that the company and its U.S. subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The filing does not include the company's non-U.S. operations, which will continue business as normal.

In its filing with the Bankruptcy Court, the company cited that the November 28, 2008, change in ownership triggered accelerated repurchase obligations relating to two classes of Midway debt, which Midway anticipated it would be unable to satisfy.

"This was a difficult but necessary decision," said Midway Chairman, President and CEO Matt Booty.

Google Explains "Harmful Site" Glitch

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 11:54 AM | Saturday, January 31, 2009 | (url: http://googleblog...)

We work with a non-profit called StopBadware.org to get our list of URLs. StopBadware carefully researches each consumer complaint to decide fairly whether that URL belongs on the list. Since each case needs to be individually researched, this list is maintained by humans, not algorithms.

We periodically receive updates to that list and received one such update to release on the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here's the human error), the URL of '/' was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and '/' expands to all URLs. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file.

DRM Shuts Down PC Version of Gears of War

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 06:22 AM | Friday, January 30, 2009 | (url: http://arstechnic...)

It seems that the DRM on Gears of War came with a built-in shut off date: the digital certificate for the game was only good until January 28, 2009. Now that the game fails to work unless you adjust your system's clock, what's Epic's response? "We're working on it."

Did Epic assume no one would be playing the title once 2009 came around? It's hard to understand why there would be an end-date hard-coded into the title's DRM, especially one that came less than three years after the game was released. Many PC gamers are leery of any kind of DRM that must dial into a central server to authenticate, wondering what happens if those servers are shut down. Now we knowin this case, the game shipped with DRM that was essentially counting down until the game would cease to work.

Australia To Block BitTorrent

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 10:24 AM | Monday, December 22, 2008 | (url: http://www.news.c...)

"Censorship Minister Stephen Conroy announced today that the Australian Internet Filters will be extended to block peer-to-peer traffic, saying, 'Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial.' This dashes hopes that Conroy's Labor party had realised filtering could be politically costly at the next election and were about to back down.

InstantAction is now free

Submitted by: Hurricane Harold @ 05:26 PM | Wednesday, December 10, 2008 | (url: http://blog.insta...)

"Rokkitball, Galcon and all the maps on MBO, ThinkTanks, and ZAP have now been unlocked for unlimited free plays.

Now, for those early adopters who purchased ActionPasses. Fear not, we want to reward you for your dedication. Since you purchased some of this content you will soon have access to 3 unreleased private betas! Ace of Aces (aerial dogfighting), Lore: Aftermath (big time mech action), and BLUR (arcade racing). You may also be eligible for a refund if you purchased any ActionPass or a Map Pack, refund dates are between now and June 1st 2009."

Game Over? Jack Thompson Disbarred

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 01:23 PM | Thursday, September 25, 2008 | (url: http://kotaku.com...)

Is it finally game over for Florida lawyer and violent video game opponent Jack Thompson? Judgment has been entered in the case that started last year and came to a head when Judge Dava Tunis recommended permanent disbarment for the bombastic, showboating law man. The court has approved the report and has ordered that JT is official disbarred as of 30 days from today.

Rumor: Microsoft to Cancel Seinfeld Ads

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 07:14 AM | Thursday, September 18, 2008 | (url: http://valleywag....)

Remember those awful Microsoft ads with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates? Well, now you can forget them. Microsoft flacks are desperately dialing reporters to spin them about "phase two" of the ad campaign a phase, due to be announced tomorrow, which will drop the aging comic altogether. Microsoft's version of the story: Redmond had always planned to drop Seinfeld.

New Duke Nukem Forever Footage

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 05:50 PM | Thursday, June 5, 2008 | (url: http://www.shackn...)

As promised, the first episode of the Jace Hall Show contains the first smidgen of gameplay footage from 3D Realms' long, long anticipated shooter Duke Nukem Forever.

The footage represents the first media to be released from the current iteration of the game since the teaser trailer was debuted last December.

6 OiNK users arrested

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 01:47 PM | Monday, June 2, 2008 | (url: http://www.thereg...)

Cleveland police have today confirmed that six people have been arrested for allegedly sharing music files via the defunct BitTorrent tracker OiNK.cd.

Five men aged between 19 and 33, and a 28-year-old woman were detained "in relation to uploading pre-release music", the force said in a statement. Three of the arrests were made on Friday 23 May, and three on Wednesday 28 May.

Spore & Mass Effect will require Periodic Online Validation

Submitted by: KnightMare @ 06:14 PM | Tuesday, May 6, 2008 | (url: http://www.shackn...)

BioWare technical producer Derek French has said that the PC versions of both Mass Effect and Spore will make use of copy protection that will require online validation every ten days to continue working.

If customers do not come online after ten days, the game will cease to function. "After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run"