monolith Posted November 7, 2011 Posted November 7, 2011 There's no money in dragging a large percentage of the population into court' date=' it just costs them more money. [/quote'] And if election day is nearing? And your political agenda is to come down hard on all this depravity in the net? As was said already, the cost/effort to collect incriminating material is practically nonexistent if some steam or steam-like service does it for you. The cost in money and time for constructing individual cases will be high afterwards, but the headline will be: 17000 perverts caught in massive internet purge! and not: Internettrawling leads to massive overtime and overwhelmed courts. As soon as something can be done, someone, somewhere will do it. You sure that some politician in the executive branch, lagging a bit behind in votes, would pass up such an opportunity for some presstime? I am not, and i work dayly with those buggers.
Symon Posted November 7, 2011 Posted November 7, 2011 Only because they're losing tax money from music/video piracy. So they claim. That's because sales-droids think that if they can stop a 'stolen download', it will translate into a sale. What they fail to grasp is that 90% of the time, it won't. Internet-clueless politicians and Lawyers also fail to grasp that such a block is pretty useless as the site just pops up on a new url and/or with a new ip! But they so want to be seen to be 'doing something' and receive the 'thanks' of sponsors and lobbyists. The headlines they can get don't hurt either.
dewguru Posted November 8, 2011 Posted November 8, 2011 Wow. Interesting thread full of fear, misinformation and general paranoia. First - a simple thing that was wrong in the OP - you can set your steam games to not automatically update - thus avoiding an inconvenient breaking of your game/mods/customizations. Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I've had the joy of being involved in several investigations (from the investigating end). One - IP addresses are bogus. The IP address that this forum sees is not the one used by my computer. Plus - with Dynamic IP Addressing being the norm, knowing who had what IP Address even a couple weeks previously isn't always clear. Add to that private networks that share a public IP and you remove the computer another step from being able to locate it. Two - Legally there is a difference between art and pornography. You don't hear of people getting busted for pedophilia or bestiality from having textual stories or some hentai or cartoon illustrations. It is from having images/videos/etc of living people involved in those acts. I'm not going to say I understand it, but then again I'm not certain why people would be interested in some of that stuff anyway. Three - online terms of service - if you read enough, you'll find all kinds of interesting statements. Artists sites may say something that says the artist posting their work on the website grants the website the ability to distribute the artwork. This tends to freak people out until they find out that a webpage shown across the world equates to a form of distribution. So if the website's terms of use didn't include that, they could in theory be sued by the artist. Odds are that the reason why Steam includes that is for any checking it does to ensure that an update hasn't already been applied - to verify the installation location (since you can alter this for some Steam installed software), etc.
XJ347 Posted November 8, 2011 Posted November 8, 2011 There's no money in dragging a large percentage of the population into court' date=' it just costs them more money. [/quote'] And if election day is nearing? And your political agenda is to come down hard on all this depravity in the net? As was said already, the cost/effort to collect incriminating material is practically nonexistent if some steam or steam-like service does it for you. The cost in money and time for constructing individual cases will be high afterwards, but the headline will be: 17000 perverts caught in massive internet purge! and not: Internettrawling leads to massive overtime and overwhelmed courts. As soon as something can be done, someone, somewhere will do it. You sure that some politician in the executive branch, lagging a bit behind in votes, would pass up such an opportunity for some presstime? I am not, and i work dayly with those buggers. wait wait wait... Even if their was political will, it still costs the government money to arrest you, and their is going to be a cost benefit analysis done for ANY action the government does. The IRS catches way more people cheating on their taxes than they prosecute, and they don't bother because of a cost benefit analysis. Arresting a person for a crime gives them virtual money. When DA's win cases they don't get money but the win brings value. The office looks effective and using it's resources well. Even a loss brings value, it makes the office look like it's doing something though significantly less. So that value is then quantified into dollars and fluctuates depending on the atmosphere. Point being, any action costs money. Researching uses man hours, arresting people uses man hours, going to trial uses man hours... If the estimated cost isn't worth the normalized virtual value then it isn't done. Trying to force a company into giving up personal data costs money. Someone has to research, filing the warrant uses up time, the resulting lawsuit costs a TON of money and the company themselves might resist. Google might have backed down but they didn't back down at first and they resist when they can. Also note, the government has to have probable cause to look through personal data. They can't just get a warrant for a fishing expedition, they have to have a reason to look AND when they look the scope is limited to the target when they are looking at. So if they are looking at Bob, they can't then look up Jay. Their is always an exception with things like national security but they can't use this data against you unless the charges are for things related to national security. Do you think they get enough value from arresting Joe Smo for using mods that have nudity with smaller sized people, who could arguably be hobbits/gnomes or petite 18 year olds? If you say yes then we disagree. I don't even think a X.117 race can be proven to be a child in court with reasonable doubt. So this whole thing seems like an overreaction to me.
Symon Posted November 8, 2011 Posted November 8, 2011 You don't hear of people getting busted for pedophilia or bestiality from having textual stories or some hentai or cartoon illustrations. It is from having images/videos/etc of living people involved in those acts. If only this were true! The UK has specifically enacted laws that cover CARTOONS and, IIRC, is urging partner countries to follow suite! Naturally, video games also fall under this. FO3 players fond of the 'Shojo race' should take note! Please people, this is a constantly evolving field and 'common sense' is not being applied by our lords and masters!
leddis3 Posted November 8, 2011 Posted November 8, 2011 Enough with the fearmongering. I'm running some mods that fall under this idiotic rule in New Vegas, and Interpol haven't busted down my door yet.
Presto Posted November 8, 2011 Posted November 8, 2011 Enough with the fearmongering. I'm running some mods that fall under this idiotic rule in New Vegas' date=' and Interpol haven't busted down my door yet. [/quote'] I'm half with you on what you're saying but the idea here is that people should be proactive and still cautious about what potential risks there may be. Just because someone doesn't go after you now for something doesn't mean they never will. Its all well and good until you're the first set of people to get called out on some new law/rule/lawyer scam. I don't feel we need to fear these levels of intrusion yet with Steam but someday there may come a time when we do. All it takes is one individual somewhere being caught doing something heinous in real life and then having something found on his computer which is used to blame for the act. Not suggesting people are doing anything so diabolical with their modded games, just that all it takes is one politician on a soap box or one lawyer with a get rich quick scheme to come along and things could get dicey. We also need to realize that a number of us come from different countries with different laws and different social norms so one persons opinion on this subject can differ greatly from another who's country is more lax on the subject of sex and data monitoring.
Halstrom Posted November 8, 2011 Posted November 8, 2011 Well might as well surrender now to the local police station, admit my fetishes to the cops and see if the courts can arrange me some therapy to "fix me" as the only options in the future painted here is to not have any abnormal fetishes, because it's sure that steam or some behaviour profiling trap system, brainwave scanner, kitchen appliance or sperm sampling toilet is gunna catch you & report you, then the cops & a judge will hang you out to dry in the local current affair program for cartoon tentacle porn video games sooner or later.
Presto Posted November 8, 2011 Posted November 8, 2011 Well might as well surrender now to the local police station' date=' admit my fetishes to the cops and see if the courts can arrange me some therapy to "fix me" as the only options in the future painted here is to not have any abnormal fetishes, because it's sure that steam or some behaviour profiling trap system, brainwave scanner, kitchen appliance or sperm sampling toilet is gunna catch you & report you, then the cops & a judge will hang you out to dry in the local current affair program for cartoon tentacle porn video games sooner or later. [/quote'] Ok I get it, it sounds like some of us are overreacting but I'm sure none of us are sweating at our keyboards while peeking through the blinds every few minutes to see if the cops are coming while we type this. We're just raising the idea that your data and what you want to be kept private may not be as private as you'd like forever. I don't live in fear of it and I'm not ashamed of what I have on my computer. I just feel that there are people out there that will someday or another, try to get that information and use it against you. What if game developers start banning users that mod their games to have sex acts? Not even involving cops or any legal issues, they just don't want their game to be associated with nude mods and tentacle monsters raping women so they use a platform to check to see if you are using any of those mods and they ban you and lock your game if they find that you are. Free speech, blah blah blah, its your property, blah blah blah, why should they care, blah blah blah. I get it, really I do and I agree that we should be able to do what we want once its our game. The developers may not want that though and they or Steam may write into their user agreement that you can't mod games to involve nudity/sex. You click "accept" not reading that part of the agreement and then a month later you're game is locked because you modded it to high heaven with sex mods. I don't think that is so unreasonable to consider that may happen one day in at least one country. GTA San Andreas had its major stink because of the Hot Coffee issue, so what if Skyrim catches media attention for a rape mod made for the game? Even though its a user created mod it will be the game developer that takes the heat for it and gets the bad press. I could see them wanting to help prevent something like happening again if that situation ever arouse. Obviously since I'm on this site I use Lovers and mod the game for more adult themes so I have no issue with them. I do however understand that my views aren't shared by everyone and that can't expect someone to have a problem with what you're doing and trying everything they can to make you stop doing it. I'm not paranoid, afraid, or even expecting it to be an issue anytime soon but I'm rational enough to understand that someday it might be. This country (USA) is getting more and more afraid of mothers and people with religious concerns. America is being dumb-downed and we are becoming increasingly scared of our own shadows. Whenever someone makes a stink the precedent is to appease the minority whenever it comes to the matter of morality. So all it will take is one mother walking in on her son playing a modded game with nudity to start a crusade against adult content in games, modded or not. If she puts enough pressure on politicians or game developers then they can crumble to the fear of losing money/support and they will try to prevent it happening in the future. Again this is a hypothetical situation but its not one that is so far out of the realm of possibility that it can't even be discussed or considered in a rational conversation. I don't expect there to be police showing up to your door in unmarked cars and taking you away to a hidden facility, I just am mindful that a platform like steam may be used in the future to stop you from playing the game how you want to play it.
Symon Posted November 8, 2011 Posted November 8, 2011 For those who'd like to know how they are tracked at present and what they can do about, these recent articles are germane. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/01/how_to_stay_anonymous/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/08/how_to_stay_anonymous_part_ii/ (warning: quite a bit of reading required).
gregathit Posted November 8, 2011 Posted November 8, 2011 Great info Symon!!! Thanks. I knew there was some reason behind my gut instinct to remove java!!!!
ErrorMessage Posted November 8, 2011 Posted November 8, 2011 *rubs face* So, I understand not everyone on the forum is from the same country here, but this doesn't really prove much of an issue to US citizens (right now, at least). Some people have pointed out reasons why this is a load, and I refuse to read through the squabbling posts of 'It's totally true' and 'it's totally false!' just to point out a simple little fact: What you do on the internet is considered Freedom of Speech in America. Unless you're threatening someone, you're not going to be hauled in. I promise. Really, I do; go to google and type in 'Beastiality' in the search engine. You won't be taken to jail; and trust me, if you want to be all conspiracy theorist, Google is much more evil than Steam. Even if you have Steam running on your computer, and they do scan your HDD, they can be sued for millions if ever brought up in court. You're agreeing to let them scan your running processes, not your HDD. Don't get me wrong; I hate Steam has to run in the background for any new Bethesda Software game to work. It's a resource hog on a machine that doesn't have a lot of resources to spare. But this thread? You're taking a huge leap of logic too. Going from 'They're scanning your processes' to 'OMG THEY'RE SCANNING EVERYTHING ON MY HARD DRIVE!?' is far fetched to begin with (in fact, it reminds me of this xkcd comic: http://xkcd.com/932/ ). But, now that we know this is rubbish, let's talk about Skyrim. Who's excited to see what the dragons can do, or what kinds of Roars you can use? :3
Symon Posted November 8, 2011 Posted November 8, 2011 I thought it would interest some people here. Note the comments are also worth reading.
gregathit Posted November 8, 2011 Posted November 8, 2011 I thought it would interest some people here. Note the comments are also worth reading. Yea, they had almost as much info as the original post themselves. Plus following the links and reading them. Quite a chunk of info to process! I bookmarked them to re-read a little more closely later to make sure I am not OVERLY exposed. If they want my info they'll just have to work a tad bit harder in the future. Thanks again!
dewguru Posted November 9, 2011 Posted November 9, 2011 If only this were true! The UK has specifically enacted laws that cover CARTOONS and' date=' IIRC, is urging partner countries to follow suite! Naturally, video games also fall under this. FO3 players fond of the 'Shojo race' should take note! Please people, this is a constantly evolving field and 'common sense' is not being applied by our lords and masters! [/quote'] I know I can't speak for how things are in the UK, but in the US, the difference still stands.
LordJerle Posted November 9, 2011 Posted November 9, 2011 The US has made laws against underage toons. They're considered the same as child porn.
gregathit Posted November 9, 2011 Posted November 9, 2011 Well legal ramifications of steam be damned!!! Why you ask.....because its pre-loading skyrim of course!!!!! Hurray!!!! 5.85GB worth...... EDIT: Pre-load for skyrim complete!!!!! 32 hours to unlock.....
Presto Posted November 9, 2011 Posted November 9, 2011 Well legal ramifications of steam be damned!!! Why you ask.....because its pre-loading skyrim of course!!!!! Hurray!!!! 5.85GB worth...... EDIT: Pre-load for skyrim complete!!!!! 32 hours to unlock..... Isn't that the worst feeling? It's like you have the game all ready to go but you can't play it!!!
gregathit Posted November 9, 2011 Posted November 9, 2011 Yea, like being allowed to look but not touch..........
Presto Posted November 9, 2011 Posted November 9, 2011 Like one of those peep shows behind the glass... such a tease
LordJerle Posted November 9, 2011 Posted November 9, 2011 Grr... I've had steam on for 3 days straight, nothing in the download directory as far as pre-loads go. OH SHIT! *restarted Steam and a Pre-load button appeared* *cums in pants*
leddis3 Posted November 9, 2011 Posted November 9, 2011 Hey at least it's a worldwide release, unlike the crap they usually pull like with Mass Effect 2 which I had downloaded, and the Americans are playing it but because of arbitrary release dates it would only unlock a couple of days later.
Critical Posted November 9, 2011 Posted November 9, 2011 Dammit. Steam says Skyrim isn't available in my country. This is such a pile of horse *. I also read somewhere that the EULA that we are supposed to "sign" by activating Steam is not valid in the EU. Can someone who knows a thing or two about the EU laws comment on that?
Mashi Posted November 9, 2011 Posted November 9, 2011 Dammit. Steam says Skyrim isn't available in my country. This is such a pile of horse *. I also read somewhere that the EULA that we are supposed to "sign" by activating Steam is not valid in the EU. Can someone who knows a thing or two about the EU laws comment on that? Not sure I'm not in the EU. But the steam agreement isn't legal in Canada either. I'm bound under different consumer protection laws.
Symon Posted November 9, 2011 Posted November 9, 2011 I've not seen the EULA, but I doubt it's enforceable anywhere. (grin). They usually aren't but rely on people not knowing that they have statutory rights that 'trump' any EULA. In the UK it's an assortment of consumer protection legislation. Most developed country jurisdictions have something similar.
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.