> 1) It's pretty clear that we all don't want Verant (or anyone
> else) snooping
> around in such things as Internet directories et al. If I recall
> correctly - the impression that this was being done - was from a
> post from a
> Necro board of a log of program that claimed they were reading this. Has
> anyone here verified this?
>
> Smedly claimed that this was false...
Smedly is probably correct. The VAST majority of EQ players are kids. At
the time that the poll was taken (roughly 2pm EST the entire United States
adult population of EQ (or at least the vast majority of it) was at work.
Thus, unable to participate in the Poll. Since there were likely kids
already coming home from school and at home when he released the numbers
(around 4-5pm EST) the only people who were likely polled were teens,
college students and grade schoolers. All of whom are very likely to:
Not Care and thus choose "Yes" on Mr. Smedley's Poll.
I personally would like to see his Poll results as of 8pm EST *(when they
yanked the poll down by the way, BEFORE Prime time, when most adults play)*
The Poll, to be accurate, would have had to be left up for at least 48
hours. So, no, I don't doubt the numbers they got from their little poll.
But the poll, as demonstrated above, is inaccurate due to the sampling
taken.
> 2) Smedly claimed all they did (and I thought Kevin Crawford
> verified this)
> is that they run a Win32API call to see what active process were
> and what's
> in memory.
>
> If this is all Verant is doing - I'm not so sure I have a problem
> with this.
> I don't want them reading my hard drive - there is a chance for
> proprietary
> info. Hypothetically there's a chance that (say you had a word processor
> doc running) that proprietary info is in memory - but that's kind of a
> stretch. Plus - if you were really concerned about it - you
> should just be
> careful to shut everything down before starting EQ (I do this anyway to
> conserve memory).
>
> I'm curious what others think about this. Again - no scanning of file -
> simply checking memory and active processes.
I have a problem with any of my data being "sampled" by a 3rd party whom I
have not given permission to. Furthermore a 3rd party who then transmits my
data back to themselves in clear text. ;). They could easily have solved
this, as someone else posted, by simply having the client shut down if it
found a problem and transmit a message to VI stating that the client found
illegal software on the system.
> What's kind of silly about this - is how hard is it to change the name of
> the program? Couldn't you even code the program to generate a random
> process name everytime you ran?
Yep, easily
> And isn't there a REALLY simple solution to thsi? Couldn't Verant encrypt
> their packets? Perhaps this additional overhead would negatively impact
> performance - but I'd think if they are clever enough they could come up
> with something that would make it really hard for these programs.
> Especially since they could subtly change the algorhtym ever time they
> patch..
They shouldn't be sending the data back. That's illegal and even Violates
the laws of California. Which, now that I think about it, is probably the
real reason they "chose" to stop scanning systems.
Kev
AKA: Lyrnia