Here is a list of rights you can sign away via EULA, and areas outside of DBG's control where an EULA is considered a binding contract: (This space intentionally left blank)
to detect the quest of macros you would literally need the capability to scan someone's entire PC, you can put it anywhere.
Anyone else reminded of the humancentipad episode of South Park? Where Kyle signs away his life in the iTunes user agreement?
EULAs are a giant cover your behind that nearly no one ever reads. Just because they have reserved the right to do something, does not mean they actually will. Most of us with concerns about the privacy and potential technical issues assume (at least I do) they are smart enough to have learned from their own and other companies' mistakes in this realm. Despite having absolutely nothing to hide, if they were to start doing anything out of the normal, I would uninstall and never look back. That's just how I am. If they had the resources to go after the farming cheaters, they'd best do it through behavioral tracking. Look for IP addresses with multiple logins that are online 24x7 (and not parked in pok/GL), but offline after a patch until after certain publicly available programs have released a patch. Create heuristics that look for repetitive behavior that looks like a script versus a person. I'm sure there are other things they could look for server side as well. In all cases, they'd need to dispatch a GM to investigate as false positives are likely. Ideally they would harden the client app to make it harder to snoop on/manipulate, but with the age of the code base, the scope of regression, the current staff levels and the decreasing revenue, I highly doubt they'd have any interest in attacking that beast of a project. This approach would still require regular tweaking as well though.
The sad thing is every MMO I have checked so far reserves the right to scan your pc in some manner or another... all Trion games all Perfect World games... WoW.
------------------------- If I didn't already share the most outstanding love affair on the planet, I'd think you a candidate for my soul mate. (*Shh don't tell.) Haven't laughed, then almost cried over any post related to an MMO like this is a longgggg time. And I want you to create my Ragefire forums siggie; are you an artist as well as a humorist?!! Signed, Fallfyres Ragefire Cleric and Rogue, Prepped and ready for the chaos!
The 4th Amendment of the United States of America is: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Please take detailed look at the bolded a part. Companies have even less legitimacy then governments when it comes searching. Given my understanding of the law, if a company desires to search my house, papers (which today are digital), effects (which today can include a computer), they would need to obtain a warrant (from a court), for probably cause, supported by an oath or affirmation. This is doable, but it is a very high legal bar. We as players have a responsibility of "keeping our nose clean" so as we do not encourage such corporate behavior. This "keeping our nose clean" is a win-win situation for both the players and for DBG providing the environment for us to play in. Less hassle for players with a much more pleasant gaming environment, while enabling DBG to allocate more resources to improve the gaming experience. Better gaming environment is more social informal advertising done by players, which cascades to more players, more and better content, and more profits for DBG. Just as it is important for most players to feel secure and protect their information, it is equally important for a corporation to protect its assets. I support DBG's server side efforts , to detect, analyze, catalog calls from the EQ client to server to detect exploiters. I know that software used to test other software has specific fingerprint when it is used. That pattern can easily be architected and programmed server side, without violating the 4th Amendment of the United States of America.
"Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one" - Benjamin Franklin The aforementioned quote seems to parallel with the subject matter of privacy in my humble opinion, which is why I posted it. Ultimately, the general purpose of a EULA is to protect the company of any civil liabilities from any individual who uses the companies software. They have to legally convey that they "may" monitor your system - because if they don't, and a user happens to detect DBC monitoring... lawsuit. Does this give them a green light to flip the switch on any user to see what is going on? Sure it does. Does it mean they do it often? Probably not. I agree with the masses that it is unnerving with the idea DBC can collect information at their leisure at anytime given they have been hit numerous times by hackers with millions of dollars worth of data compromised; and that was during a period when they were fully staffed. In my personal opinion, it seems the way most people get caught cheating is through the act of reporting & petitioning with video evidence included. The GM then logs in, confirms it, and then takes appropriate action. That is why monitoring (or at least the threat of) for whatever DBC is looking for is a bit excessive. It is like trying to use a bomb to kill a fly.
I believe you have a misunderstanding of the 4th Amendment. The 4th Amendment applies to government entities such as law enforcement, not private companies. For example, a security officer from Walmart can legally check your bag to make certain you are not shop lifting if an alarm goes off because he or she represents a private enterprise; however - if it were a law enforcement officer, you can decline the search until a warrant is issued. Edit: Taking this a step further. The only way a private enterprise can obtain records from your household is through a subpoena in lieu of civil action. If a subpoena is not honored, you could then be found in criminal contempt to which a warrant for such items could be issued.
So this is new? hasnt hacks and macro bots be around for nearly as long as the game? now just adding it to the rules. lol Would be interesting if they actually figured out how to stop these illegal programs. I recently found a video of them talking about cheating back a few years ago. Is it time for them to re-address this?
Unfortunately, I do not think there is any true effective way to create a deterrent against cheaters without affecting the masses. For every program created to deter cheaters & hackers, another program is created to counter that. Its a endless vicious cycle and I think DBC knows this.
You don't have to stop the cheaters. DBG could just view it as a cost of doing business and subsidize the 3rd party authors to not update the software/bots or disable it on specific servers. Write it off as a maintenance expense. Most authors don't even play eq. It is purely for fun or money at this point. So the authors stop updating and no players have access to 3rd party software even if they wanted to use it. DBG could figure out how much money they plan to invest to counter 3rd party software and see if they can have the authors stop updating by paying less than whatever that amount is. The resulting difference is net profit. It would cost DBG a fraction of a fraction of a percent of EQ monthly income and would save a lot of man hours and all this scanning panic. Who knows, the authors might even be amenable to the idea! Maybe the authors are just coding to save up for a Star Citizen Completionist's pack. SC is expensive, yo!
This is most likely won't change anything in the long term. Most likely, DBG will now monitor for detours.dll Then will upgrade Detours to 3.0. and the endless chase begins... tbh, they should just force a 64b client.
I am no expert in this particular field, but what you are suggesting may be walking the wire of the US Anti-Trust laws.
People misunderstanding the constitution make me smh over and over. They protect you against the Gov not private companies. With that said the EULA does not give them the right to search. If you play EQ on your school computer for example you do not have the authority to give that consent same deal if you play on a company owned laptop/pc etc. With all of that said if they wanted to scan your PC they would there is no threat of a lawsuit because to win a lawsuit you have to prove them scanning your PC caused damages which none of you can prove. Just violating your rights does not mean you win some magical million dollar lawsuit you have to prove damages otherwise your lawsuit is thrown out.
Whoa~ you know... stuff... got real when people start bringing the Constitution up in hurr! I do always love the people who say 'zOMG you don't want your privacy compromised - that means you're cheating!!!'. Simple version is that until clicking the EULA allows DBG to 'grudge style' have some girl come out of your monitor and pickup notes off your actual desk, you're still gonna click "Yes" and you're not going to cancel your 999 subs. If you're posting on these forums complaining about the EULA, it is equivalent to a person saying they are boycotting H2O.
What happens if someone clicks the EULA to the cheating software and now the cheating software does the clicking on the EULAs?
