Blizzard Suing Starcraft II Cheat Makers

http://kotaku.com/5665407/blizzard-s...i-cheat-makers

This is why Blizzard rocks. It's actions like this which give me so much respect for the company. Way to stick true to your guns Blizzard and fight for this community.

Much <3

I saw this coming the moment they changed their "report hacks" page to include "websites or individuals who also host or create hacks" when they did the b.net revamp. :)

Since when is Canada overseas?

Overseas can just mean in a foreign country. Not literally "over the seas".:P

What can the Los Angeles court possibly do against someone overseas?

Seriously, instead of wasting money on a legal process that won't accomplish anything, they should had made the game more secure. Iccup had an anti-hack launcher, remember?

Just take a look at the news from gamespot:

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The three defendants named in the suit go by the handles "Permaphrost," "Cranix," and "Linuxawesome," with the former two residing in Canada and the latter in Peru. It's unclear what jurisdiction the court has over the accused, although Starcraft II's end-user license agreement specifically states that disputes would be decided by a court within Los Angeles County. Additionally, among the relief demanded by the developer is a requirement that the defendants pull their programs hosted anywhere within the court's jurisdiction. There are other allged hackers named in the suit--including "Wiggley," "Zynastor," and "Dark Mage," but Blizzard has not included their real identities in the suit.

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http://au.gamespot.com/news/6282171.html

What they're asking is literally impossible to accomplish for the defendants. Once something is in the internet, you can demand the sites hosting it to remove the hacks, but that's all, and it won't accomplish anything for any site hosted overseas.

I agree that the hacks damage the game, but this kind of action won't solve anything, and they knew it was going to happend. Lawyers cannot fix what programmers didn't.

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Seriously, instead of wasting money on a legal process that won't accomplish anything, they should had made the game more secure. Iccup had an anti-hack launcher, remember?

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I don't know much about it. But I think I read somewhere that they can't use the iCCup method because having antihack on makes sure YOU can't use hacks or something.

Also, someone should really report Zynaster from BWhacks (I don't know what he does now but he's probably still hacking). This guy was the most popular hacker for BW and he even made hacks to bypass iCCups antihack.

Edit: Oh hah, I see that he IS the one getting sued. That's great news. Fucking hate that guy.

It's funny how alot of the people that commented on the news in Kotaku seem to actually defend the hackers.

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I don't like how they think their EULA is meaningful, that they think they can control every aspect of your PC, and the extremely strained basis of copyright infringement made in this case

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Seriously, do this kids read before posting?

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Originally Posted by Gifted

I saw this coming the moment they changed their "report hacks" page to include "websites or individuals who also host or create hacks" when they did the b.net revamp. :)

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Yea I noticed this as well. Didn't think they would go all the way it. That's good.

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Also, someone should really report Zynaster from BWhacks (I don't know what he does now but he's probably still hacking). This guy was the most popular hacker for BW and he even made hacks to bypass iCCups antihack.

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lol you think he wasn't reported? StarCraft hacking was a much different matter same with WarCraft III hacking.

I wrote a nice post regarding hacking here:
http://finalascension.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=362

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Originally Posted by Pandonetho

I don't know much about it. But I think I read somewhere that they can't use the iCCup method because having antihack on makes sure YOU can't use hacks or something.

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Yes, that's how it works, and is all that is needed if you force everyone to use it. It could be part of the game, and the server could check if it's active. Of course, 100% security doesn't exists, but at least is better than nothing.

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

Yes, that's how it works, and is all that is needed if you force everyone to use it. It could be part of the game, and the server could check if it's active. Of course, 100% security doesn't exists, but at least is better than nothing.

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One of the people being sued here made a hack that worked even with the use of iCCuPs anti-hack. The reason it worked for so long is the same reason mac's have fewer viruses... they just arent targetted as much.

No matter how many people are sued or charge there always will be hackers...Just I think this will help lower that amount of people by alot because no one wants to be sued! btw anyone know whats the charges(what they gotta pay n stuff)[/

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

What can the Los Angeles court possibly do against someone overseas?

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Joke?

As long as its not China (who actively supports stealing of technology, particularlt hardware), there's a lot that can be done.

@Andrew: They are suing the creators of the hacks that are selling them. They aren't going to sue little Tim who logs on to Battle.net with that cool new program he found on Google.

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Originally Posted by TychusFindlay

Joke?

As long as its not China (who actively supports stealing of technology, particularlt hardware), there's a lot that can be done.

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Uhmm... but they're overseas, they have no jurisdiction there, so what can they possibly do? You would need the cooperation of the other country's law system. You can count with that for things like mass killers, but guys that made a hack for a game? Come on...

You would be surprised at how willing friendly countries will be with law suits. By agreeing to the EULA they are required to abide by it. Regardless of where they are.

I'm in a place atm, where... I have seen this. Some guy gets a random american cell phone number and calls the girl. She freaks out and tells the security office. They give the number to local police. Guy is tracked down and gos to a fingernail factory. (i've seen multiple version of this)

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

Uhmm... but they're overseas, they have no jurisdiction there, so what can they possibly do? You would need the cooperation of the other country's law system. You can count with that for things like mass killers, but guys that made a hack for a game? Come on...

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There is an international cooperation effort for things like this. America has a lot of pull in this way. That's why America is one of the few countries that can actually defend against piracy in overseas despite unwillingness of a lot of countries to perform their duty. If overseas governments chose when not to cooperate, that would be against several agreements that have been made and America would have quite a few avenues to pressure them until they concede. Really, Canada (that's where this is right?) has no choice but to cooperate.

I'm surprised this is new to you as there's piracy news articles regarding multinational lawsuits almost daily.

Never seen any news about it. International news here are about other stuff, like the miners in Chile, some terrorist act, something about politics, etc.

You gotta look into it to find them. Certain sites will display the news feeds more. Local news for us tends to be about only the bad. Then CNN is filled with random and the war.

Then yahoo news feed is usually about celebrities, relationship advice and conflicting articles saying coffee is good and coffee is bad.

Brilliant! Dont care if it works or not, this heralds a new age in the anti-hack war.

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Originally Posted by Arkalis

It's funny how alot of the people that commented on the news in Kotaku seem to actually defend the hackers.



Seriously, do this kids read before posting?

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We put limits on what cops can do to in order to catch people for real crimes. Hackers piss me off, too, but I won't give up civil liberties to catch terrorists and I sure as hell won't give them up to catch hackers. EULAs and other forms of DRM are bad for our personal freedoms. I should have just as much control over digital objects as I do over physical ones.
I hope they nail these guys for copyright infringement based on the derivative works clause. It's a clever loophole to use for now, though I would love to see game hacks treated the same way as steroids and other physical performance enhancers. But the EULA is in no way a valid legal document and it will be a gross miscarriage of justice if the judge in this case holds it up as one.

I am with the cheaters here, if a person modify's the source code which enables cheating and doesn't use it he is clean, if he uploads it, he has the right to do it as he made those changes in the code which makes him the owner of such mods, nowhere Blizzard is able to win such court case, it is Blizzard which illegaly sues people

People commenting in that Kotaku thread don't seem to realize that they aren't laying legal hands on people who have downloaded hacks for their games.

The hacks that are downloaded contain large amounts of code from the game itself, i.e. code written by Blizzard. Modifying that code is one thing. Selling that code is what gets you sued.

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Originally Posted by spychi

I am with the cheaters here, if a person modify's the source code which enables cheating and doesn't use it he is clean, if he uploads it, he has the right to do it as he made those changes in the code which makes him the owner of such mods, nowhere Blizzard is able to win such court case, it is Blizzard which illegaly sues people

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*blinks*

There are 4 cases where Blizzard has won these cases, so that alone sets your argument of "nowhere Blizzard is able to win such court cases" to a sour start.

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Analogy for everyone else:

let's say you are a trucking company. You own 10 large trucks which you use to truck products across the country. You loan out these 10 trucks to 10 different individuals so they can enjoy the use of them while earning you profit, in this case it's a win/win as you're proud of your trucks.

Let's say that someone came up and stole one of your trucks. Suddenly the system doesn't work as well, 10% of the total satisfaction you provide is removed as you don't have all the routes covered. You find a way of changing the other 9 routes a bit, but suddenly the system is slightly less enjoyable with the detours. You start to lose profits over too, due to the nature of the issue.

Suddenly the person who took the truck says "I rode in this truck all the time, it's mine! I put the gas in it, I give it a driver! I even made modifications and I let other people ride in the truck with me." People like the illegal modifications, and some even pay money to try out the illegal modifications. The reality is, the person modified a stolen truck illegally and is making money on it. You, as a truck company, don't want that modification and even made rules to say "no modifications". So you call the cops and get the people out of the stolen truck. Suddenly you have your own truck again, everything is up to 100%... or so it would seem.

But now, while some of your customers understand why you don't put in illegal modifications, because they're illegal, others want those modifications back without regarding to how legal it is. Suddenly what people were 100% happy with before are slightly unhappy. Some of those people get mad at you, the owner of the truck company, for taking away the illegal modifications which you know harm your trucks. They even say "we don't care if your truck was stolen, we LIKED the modifications!" without acknowledging how illegal they were. Others start saying "I know we signed a contract saying we are merely riding along in trucks you created, but because I ride in it all the time, and everyone else owns cars and ride in their cars all the time.. this means I own this truck when I ride it!" Because it worked for the guy who stole the truck in some small way.

Ultimately, what was a solid business before suddenly has a population that doesn't appreciate the fact that they can still ride in trucks, which is something they quite enjoy, but instead are caring about the simple modification that may make the ride the way they want it. The honest reality is, if they wanted the modification that much, they could look for another truck company that offered it and found a way to make it legal or didn't care if it was implemented, but instead they'll stay there and complain about YOUR truck company because they like your trucks.

At the end of the day, this all started with a person who stole one of your trucks, started to make a profit on it, and started a chain of events which, through means not legal in this analogy, made people dissatisfied with a product that still stands by many views as the best truck riding company in the world. In reality, a large chunk of people can't ride your trucks anymore.. which sucks, and a large chunk of people are unhappy with your trucks.

So you decide that you can take this individual to court because not only did he steal your truck, but he performed changes on the truck that are different than originally allowed and then made money on the truck. You want that money back, cause he stole your truck to make it, and you want to ask for reimbursement to damages performed to your truck company.

Analogy quirks:
Trucking Company: Blizzard
10 individuals: Users of the B.net system who paid for their ride.
Paying for the ability to Ride the truck = Getting a license to use the software
Trucks = Generally represent Bandwidth/System Stability/Quality of Product/Codebase
Stealing Truck = Unauthorized use of IP Code to make personal gains.
Illegal Modifications = Hacks
Illegality of said modifications / Law = EULA/Intellectual Property

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Now don't get me wrong, I know this analogy has flaws, but I think that it's a good angle on it.

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Originally Posted by spychi

I am with the cheaters here, if a person modify's the source code which enables cheating and doesn't use it he is clean, if he uploads it, he has the right to do it as he made those changes in the code which makes him the owner of such mods, nowhere Blizzard is able to win such court case, it is Blizzard which illegaly sues people

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You supporting people making money off of ruining others experience and illegal code manipulation? Inconceiveable.

Don't think about if Blizzard's gonna win or not. Fact of the matter is, Blizzard is a multi-billion company, they can afford to sue people. The hackers most likely can't afford to defend themselves (bunch of college kids with no real source of income I assume). It's gonna hurt them a lot more than it's gonna hurt Blizzard and that's the point of it all.

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Originally Posted by SinsWage

You supporting people making money off of ruining others experience and illegal code manipulation? Inconceiveable.

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I don't support hacks themselfs, I support people who modify source codes for their own gain, they paid for the game, they have the right to change it and don't get me started with EULA rights as those are illegal at least from my POV, if you buy something, you should have the right to modify it in anyway for your own use and then sell your modifications to others if people are willing to pay for them, while the main owner of the source code shouldn't get a fucking penny for that
so I don't care for the anti-cheat crusade from Blizzard if they are breaking the law in the first place
I support modders and hackers are them, they don't take responsibility for others who use their cheats, just like drug dealers don't take responsibility for crackheads

The understanding of what you own is the problem here. You own a license, nothing more. You didn't buy the code, you payed the price of admission to blizzards amusement park. You can't change the experience and have it affect others in the park.

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Originally Posted by SinsWage

The understanding of what you own is the problem here. You own a license, nothing more. You didn't buy the code, you payed the price of admission to blizzards amusement park. You can't change the experience and have it affect others in the park.

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this is why I don't accept the EULA rights, this is why I think those are illegal rights and against constitution

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Originally Posted by spychi

this is why I don't accept the EULA rights, this is why I think those are illegal rights and against constitution

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:S so ur problem here isnt with blizzard or anything but with wat you think our rights are when buying products in the first place. well in that case ur not only fighting blizzard ppl now but most of the world who sells products this way...

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Originally Posted by spychi

I don't support hacks themselfs, I support people who modify source codes for their own gain

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Welcome to simple logic class 101 by professor gradius.

You claim that people modifying source code and distributing it is ok. This includes hacks, since you are defending the hack creator in this thread. Therefore you think hacks should be ok to distribute. Therefore you support hacks.

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Originally Posted by spychi

they have the right to change it and don't get me started with EULA rights as those are illegal at least from my POV, if you buy something, you should have the right to modify it in anyway for your own use and then sell your modifications to others if people are willing to pay for them, while the main owner of the source code shouldn't get a fucking penny for that

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You are not buying a car. You are buying software. There are different rules for the sale of software because of how easily it can be replicated. The only people that could have as absurd a position on this topic as you do are people who never made software.

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Originally Posted by spychi

this is why I don't accept the EULA rights, this is why I think those are illegal rights and against constitution

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Luckily it's not up for debate and nobody cares what you think about the EULA. The hack creators will legally go to jail as they should.

If you don't like the EULA don't buy their games. Simple as that. But don't agree to them in order to play the game and then say: they are ridiculous and I'm not going to abide to them. If you do, you deserve any legal action taken against you. That's my view on it anyway and I think Blizzard is in the right here.

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Originally Posted by MajinX

:S so ur problem here isnt with blizzard or anything but with wat you think our rights are when buying products in the first place. well in that case ur not only fighting blizzard ppl now but most of the world who sells products this way...

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yes, I do
on a side note: r u srs wid ur wraiting? cuz mai eyez hurtz wen i c such taiping

@Gradius
this is how you understand such situation but not me
just because I support people who make modifications to games doesn't mean I support people who use them to cheat

or I support marihuana to be legal, but I don't use it and I don't support people who use it

I am a person which approves free living, I always fight for the right to choose, I hate censorship, prohibition and freedom right restrictions

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this is how you understand such situation but not me
just because I support people who make modifications to games doesn't mean I support people who use them to cheat

or I support marihuana to be legal, but I don't use it and I don't support people who use it

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You want marijuana to be legal, yet you don't support the people to use it. How does that even make sense? There's no point in making it legal if you weren't going to support its use in the first place.

Secondly, you said you support people who buy games, modify the game, and sell their modifications for money.

AKA you fucking support hacks that ruin the game. Sorry but Gradius' logic 101 class made more sense to me than your "that's how you look at it but not me" logic.

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Originally Posted by Pandonetho

You want marijuana to be legal, yet you don't support the people to use it. How does that even make sense? There's no point in making it legal if you weren't going to support its use in the first place.

Secondly, you said you support people who buy games, modify the game, and sell their modifications for money.

AKA you fucking support hacks that ruin the game. Sorry but Gradius' logic 101 class made more sense to me than your "that's how you look at it but not me" logic.

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if you would read with a little bit of brain usage you would know that this is about the right to choose which in this case is restricted... so it doesn't surprise me that you don't understand my logic
I don't support people who use marihuana as I don't find it useful for myself, yet I can't prohibit it as I support free will and the right to choose, whenever they want to do drugs or they don't
simple as that

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Originally Posted by Pandonetho

You want marijuana to be legal, yet you don't support the people to use it. How does that even make sense? There's no point in making it legal if you weren't going to support its use in the first place.

Secondly, you said you support people who buy games, modify the game, and sell their modifications for money.

AKA you fucking support hacks that ruin the game. Sorry but Gradius' logic 101 class made more sense to me than your "that's how you look at it but not me" logic.

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Your quote had no original poster yet somehow I already knew that was a Spychi comment. Anytime there's a hypocritical statement that blows my mind, Spychi's always behind it.

*sigh*

Under his interpretation of the EULA, the game industry would be hit hard. Imagine not having to buy an engine. All you have to do is buy a copy of a game with that engine and go from there. That would discourage engine makers which would hinder gaming. Imagine not having to ask for permission for using a game's assets or taking code from it to be used elsewhere. The gaming industry would be set back 20 years or more ... if not entirely collapsed. That's just the beginning for other industries.

Spychi, think about you're saying please.

Protip: It's marijuana. The fact that you can't spell it makes me think you don't know enough about it to have an opinion on whether or not someone should use it :D

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Originally Posted by Norfindel

Never seen any news about it. International news here are about other stuff, like the miners in Chile, some terrorist act, something about politics, etc.

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I'm talking about teh webz.

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Originally Posted by spychi

I am a person which approves free living, I always fight for the right to choose, I hate censorship, prohibition and freedom right restrictions

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So you support theft as a choice because it promotes free living...yet you condone the people committing such acts?

Got it.

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Originally Posted by Blazur

So you support theft as a choice because it promotes free living...yet you condone the people committing such acts?

Got it.

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if I had to choose to live in a world without rights and a world with human right restricted completly, I would choose the first option
@Tychus
"oh Spychi think about what you are saying please" oh man I think I am going to cry
it's my opinion and I will stick to it as always
hypocritical? yeah right, there is not even a fucking grain of...
bla bla bla no point in what you writed so yeah, ignore
protip: put your protips in your ass, marihuana is how we call it here in eastern europe

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Originally Posted by spychi

if I had to choose to live in a world without rights and a world with human right restrictions, I would choose the first option
@Tychus bla bla bla no point in what you writed so yeah, ignore

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Cool...so then you wouldn't mind if I kicked you in the nuts for having such a fatuous outlook on life? K.

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Originally Posted by Blazur

Cool...so then you wouldn't mind if I kicked you in the nuts for having such a fatuous outlook on life? K.

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is what you choose, but I always would have the option to likely kill you

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Originally Posted by spychi

is what you choose, but I always would have the option to likely kill you

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Touché.

Sorry, humankind is largely disgusting. I'd rather live in a world with consequences for those who choose to harm their fellow man rather than a lawless wasteland.