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Pokemon Go, Security, and Obsolescence

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Re: Pokemon Go, Security, and Obsolescence

#101

Post by jsmeaton »

fphhotchips wrote: post #63
jsmeaton wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe my comment was unnecessarily rude, but demanding a refund and calling a company a piece of shit because you got banned for cheating is absolutely entitlement. Just because you spend money on a service does not entitle you to have unlimited access against TOS.

When you pay for a product or service, you're entitled to the receipt of the product or service that you paid for. If you think I'm breaking your Terms of Service, you have every right to refuse service to me, like any other establishment. However, you also have to refuse my money. If I've already paid, you give it back. That's my moral standpoint, anyway. Arguments against it exist (should people who start fights in…

I guess I'm splitting hairs here, but they didn't really pay for the service they were banned from. Using your bar analogy, it's like they were let into the bar for free, bought a drink (maybe finished it, we don't know?) then got kicked out for fighting. Would they be entitled to their money back for the drink?

Cheating has a small impact on the player base and probably on how much money Niantic is able to extract from the store. Holding onto gyms for a period of time nets the trainer "free" coins they didn't have to purchase. GPS spoofing opens up some of the more remote gyms to more attacks, and allows certain people to level up faster. It also has the effect of driving legitimate players away because they feel they can't compete.

I don't agree with many of the decisions Niantic have made, and I no longer play the game. But I don't agree with people demanding refunds from game companies that they have been banned from. I like that cheating players are punished. Cheaters in Counter Strike have left a very sour impression on me.

Re: Pokemon Go, Security, and Obsolescence

#102

Post by lewisl9029 »

vardump wrote: post #62
lewisl9029 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly would be very happy with a ROM that copies stock Android entirely , without any added features or customizations, rather focusing solely on stability, security, supporting a wide range of devices, and tracking the official Android release schedule as closely as possible. Can someone point me to a ROM like this if one already exists?

> any added features or customizations That's not only about UI. Most people want customizations / features that enable things like 4G radio, wifi and graphics. What would be the point otherwise?

Maybe I should have been a bit more specific, but I was mostly just talking about UI features and customizations. I have no problems with a ROM modifying stock Android under the hood if it's necessary to enable basic hardware functionality. The point is to keep modifications to a bare minimum, to limit the overhead required to support each new Android release, and to maximize the number of devices the ROM is able to support given limited resources.

Re: Pokemon Go, Security, and Obsolescence

#103

Post by FilterSweep »

nradov wrote: post #85

I find it both hilarious and disappointing how much effort is going into an escalating arms race between video game cheaters and cheat detection. Considering that the players can't even win anything of real value. I think future archaeologists will see this whole thing as a bizarre ritual and struggle to understand what was really going on. "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game…

It is a relevant quote, but both the cheaters and the developers tasked to combating the cheaters both learn a great deal in the process. That, I feel is the true value-added.

The real value is knowledge gained. And I've seen some pretty crafty solutions created.

Re: Pokemon Go, Security, and Obsolescence

#104

Post by nradov »

FilterSweep wrote: post #103
nradov wrote: post #85

I find it both hilarious and disappointing how much effort is going into an escalating arms race between video game cheaters and cheat detection. Considering that the players can't even win anything of real value. I think future archaeologists will see this whole thing as a bizarre ritual and struggle to understand what was really going on. "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game…

It is a relevant quote, but both the cheaters and the developers tasked to combating the cheaters both learn a great deal in the process. That, I feel is the true value-added. The real value is knowledge gained. And I've seen some pretty crafty solutions created.

To what end? This is ultimately nothing more than a bunch of little kids playing cops and robbers. There's nothing wrong with playing the game, but let's not pretend that it actually counts for anything.

Re: Pokemon Go, Security, and Obsolescence

#105

Post by voltagex_ »

cheiVia0 wrote: post #9
djsumdog wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote this about Android a while back: http://penguindreams.org/blog/android-fragmentation/ The TLDR is that it'd be nice if Android was more like Windows/Intel: install the OS (i.e. AOSP), drivers (or binary driver package format and an SDK to auto-build it) and boom you're done. Clean, stock, standard. Same with many Linux distros on x86/64. I need to write an update to the article though. Lately I've been strugg…

Debian is shipping one Linux kernel build that runs on a bunch of different ARM devices that are supported by the mainline version of Linux: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianKernel/ARMMP Unfortunately most mobile devices are not supported by mainline Linux (N900 is best supported, but not fully), usually only server/desktop/laptop vendors have any incentive to mainline their drivers.

The 2013 Nexus 7 was, at some point, 50 patches away from running mainline [1]. I know, single datapoint, but it gives me hope that there's some way out of the tabletification of computing.

1: https://wiki.linaro.org/LMG/Kernel/FormFactorEnablement

Re: Pokemon Go, Security, and Obsolescence

#106

Post by evilDagmar »

pwnna wrote: post #89
evilDagmar wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally didn't need to do any of this (and I'm astonished someone would wait through a CM build rather than do ten minutes of research). Also, I'd like to remind you that SEAndroid (i.e., SELinux) doesn't give a fig about "root" so your statements about that are quite wrong. You can simply rename your su binaries through the recovery environment to disable them, which neatly disables "root access" and makes the…

> You literally didn't need to do any of this. For me personally, this is not the reason for me to build CyanogenMod. I will occasionally modify certain things inside android to suit my needs and there are enough of these things that are not merged upstream that it's more convenient for me to just build my own version every month/week/whenever. > Also, I'd like to remind you that SEAndroid (i.e., SELinux) doesn't giv…

It's two mv invocations. That falls quite a bit short of "a bunch of mv's". It doesn't exactly qualify as going out of one's way when most of us are already going through recovery (like TWRP) to install the updates.

SEAndroid/SELinux is a mandatory labeling system, which simply doesn't believe in special UIDs at all. It gives us pretty incredible granularity of control over things as well. Deny/grant access any number of users to each and every object and facility of the system, in any combination you like. Just understand that there's a steep and somewhat unforgiving learning curve and the documentation on what labels have been put into play on any given deployment has a strong and nearly universal tendency to suck until you're looking directly at the source code that sets up those rules.

Re: Pokemon Go, Security, and Obsolescence

#107

Post by evilDagmar »

nradov wrote: post #104
FilterSweep wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a relevant quote, but both the cheaters and the developers tasked to combating the cheaters both learn a great deal in the process. That, I feel is the true value-added. The real value is knowledge gained. And I've seen some pretty crafty solutions created.

To what end? This is ultimately nothing more than a bunch of little kids playing cops and robbers. There's nothing wrong with playing the game, but let's not pretend that it actually counts for anything.

This is literally how the chaos of EFNet in the 90's gave rise to a whole slew of new security methods and techniques, not to mention bug fixes.

Just be glad this fight isn't happening over human organs or oil rights or something.

Re: Pokemon Go, Security, and Obsolescence

#108

Post by evilDagmar »

Kirth wrote: post #28
jsmeaton wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were you "cheating" according to their definition? Why should they reply or give you your money back? Classic entitlement.

In one of their past banwaves, getting off a high speed train or airplane and then killing some time at the airport playing Pokemon Go often got you banned because of "teleporting". (Not always a temporary shadowban) Getting support to even respond to your mails (even when they're related to other issues) seems to be a matter of waiting for the right stars to align.

Millions of users, seventy employees. Stars can't help that.

Re: Pokemon Go, Security, and Obsolescence

#109

Post by puddintane »

dylz wrote: post #94
puddintane wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This did not work for every user - for example my buddy bought an Asus Zenfone 2 (ZE551ML) specifically to play this game. I warned him not to buy from a China seller but he proceeded because he was finding guides that told him it was a great phone for the game - he literally bought this phone to play this game. I attempted to remove root however this has now forced the phone to be stuck on Edge network (he can play…

isn't zenfone a non-ARM device too?

Yes Intel based chip I believe
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