Violation of Security/Privacy...

Tue Oct 11 17:21:40 PDT 2005

> So they go through a lot of stuff and hash it, and complain if the hashes 
> match ones they don't like. The only thing it sends back
> to the company is "Yes, this hash matched". As invasions of
> privacy go, I'm not impressed. As for stealing resources,

Do I know what the hashes are?  Does the presence of something on my 
system mean that they should have access to it?  Considering the number of 
things that can be hidden in packets (as illustrated by the instructive 
talk Mark Langston gave last year as one example), should I really trust 
that some process poking around in _all_ my files/processes is genuinely 
ok?

> exactly how is it stealing system resources for a game to use
> cycles while you are running it? It's stealing resources by
> reading more files than it should and wearing out your disk
> bearings too fast? If using more CPU than you need is an
> offense against propriety, there isn't a lot of software
> that avoids stealing resources.

Well my system which is quite a speedy system, 3.2 GHz CPU, and 2GB of 
memory used to be able to run multiple applications and WoW at the same 
time.  Ie I could chill out working on stuff have the application 
minimized in part of the screen and work on other items, check email, etc 
on my 21 inch monitor.  Since the update, I can't.  In fact my system 
chugs.  So yes, I feel like the company has decided to steal some of my 
resources.  I see the function of them guaranteeing the integrity of their 
gaming environment as a separate requirement than my gaming experience.  I 
purchased a game, and pay a monthly fee to experience that game.  They 
shouldn't be borrowing my system resources to filter out addons.

Jennifer