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SecuROM
SecuROM was a CD/DVD copy protection and digital rights management (DRM) product developed by Sony DADC. It aims to prevent unauthorised copying and reverse engineering of software, primarily commercial computer games running on Microsoft Windows. The method of disc protection in later versions is data position measurement, which may be used in conjunction with online activation DRM. SecuROM gained prominence in the late 2000s but generated controversy because of its requirement for frequent online authentication and strict key activation limits. A 2008 class-action lawsuit was filed against Electronic Arts for its use of SecuROM in the video game ''Spore''. Opponents, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, believe that fair-use rights are restricted by DRM applications such as SecuROM. Software SecuROM limits the number of PCs activated at the same time from the same key and is not uninstalled upon removal of the game. SecuROM 7.x was the first version to include t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spore (2008 Video Game)
''Spore'' is a 2008 life simulation real-time strategy God game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Designed by Will Wright, it covers many genres including action, real-time strategy, and role-playing games. ''Spore'' allows a player to control the development of a species from its beginnings as a microscopic organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture. It has drawn wide attention for its massive scope, and its use of open-ended gameplay and procedural generation. Throughout each stage, players are able to use various creators to produce content for their games. These are then automatically uploaded to the online Sporepedia and are accessible by other players for download. ''Spore'' was released after several delays to generally favorable reviews. Praise was given for the fact that the game allowed players to create customized creatures, vehicle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BioShock
''BioShock'' is a 2007 first-person shooter game developed by 2K Boston (later Irrational Games) and 2K Australia, and published by 2K Games. The first game in the ''BioShock'' series, it was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 platforms in August 2007; a PlayStation 3 port by Irrational, 2K Marin, 2K Australia and Digital Extremes was released in October 2008. The game is set in 1960, and follows Jack who discovers the underwater city of Rapture. Built by business magnate Andrew Ryan to be an isolated utopia, the discovery of ADAM, a genetic material which grants superhuman powers, initiated the city's turbulent decline. Jack attempts to escape, fighting ADAM-obsessed enemies and Big Daddies, while engaging with the few sane humans that remain and learning of Rapture's past. The player, as Jack, can defeat foes in several ways by using weapons, utilizing plasmids that give unique powers, and by turning Rapture's defenses against them. ''Bioshock''s concept was de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digital Rights Management
Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. DRM technologies govern the use, modification, and distribution of copyrighted works (such as software and multimedia content), as well as systems that enforce these policies within devices. Laws in many countries criminalize the circumvention of DRM, communication about such circumvention, and the creation and distribution of tools used for such circumvention. Such laws are part of the United States' Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the European Union's Information Society Directive (the French DADVSI is an example of a member state of the European Union implementing the directive). DRM techniques include licensing agreements and encryption. The industry has expanded the usage of DRM to various hardware products, such as K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compact Disc And DVD Copy Protection
CD/DVD copy protection is a blanket term for various methods of copy protection for compact disc, CDs and DVDs. Such methods include Digital rights management, DRM, CD-checks, Dummy Files, illegal tables of contents, over-sizing or over-burning the CD, physical errors and bad sectors. Many protection schemes rely on breaking compliance with CD and DVD standards, leading to playback problems on some devices. Protection schemes rely on ''distinctive features'' that: *can be applied to a medium during the manufacturing process, so that a protected medium is distinguishable from an unprotected one. *cannot be faked, copied, or retroactively applied to an unprotected medium using typical hardware and software. Technology Filesystems / Dummy files Most CD-ROMs use the ISO9660 file system to organize the available storage space for use by a computer or player. This has the effect of establishing directories (i.e., folders) and files within those directories. Usually, the filesystem is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shacknews
''Shacknews'' (originally Quakeholio, then ShugaShack) is a website that hosts news, features, editorial content and forums relating to computer games and Video game console, console games. It is currently owned by a company called Gamerhub Content Network. Gamerhub Content Network purchased the site in January 2014. History ''Shacknews'' was founded in 1996 by Steve "Scary" Gibson, 20 years old at the time, as a website dedicated to following news about the then-upcoming game ''Quake (video game), Quake'' from id Software. The original name of the website was "''Quakeholio''". Through the years the website evolved to cover more than just Quake and the name was changed. "''Shugashack''" was chosen after a discussion with friends about the general direction of the page and content. After a few years of frequent spelling confusion and interpreting the name as that of a Pornography, pornographic website, the site was renamed "''Shacknews''". ''FileShack'', a site for game demos, pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SysInternals
Windows Sysinternals is a website that offers technical resources and utilities to manage, diagnose, troubleshoot, and monitor a Microsoft Windows environment. Originally, the Sysinternals website (formerly known as ntinternals) was created in 1996 and was operated by the company Winternals Software LP, which was located in Austin, Texas. It was started by software developers Bryce Cogswell and Mark Russinovich. Microsoft acquired Winternals and its assets on July 18, 2006. The website featured several freeware tools to administer and monitor computers running Microsoft Windows. The software can now be found at Microsoft. The company also sold data recovery utilities and professional editions of their freeware tools. Winternals Software LP Winternals Software LP was founded by Bryce Cogswell and Mark Russinovich, who sparked the 2005 Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal in an October 2005 posting to the Sysinternals blog. On July 18, 2006, Microsoft Corporation acquired the comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Process Explorer
Process Explorer is a freeware task manager and system monitor for Microsoft Windows created by SysInternals, which has been acquired by Microsoft and re-branded as Windows Sysinternals. It provides the functionality of Windows Task Manager along with a rich set of features for collecting information about processes running on the user's system. It can be used as the first step in debugging software or system problems. Process Explorer can be used to track down problems. For example, it provides a means to list or search for named resources that are held by a process or all processes. This can be used to track down what is holding a file open and preventing its use by another program. As another example, it can show the command lines used to start a program, allowing otherwise identical processes to be distinguished. Like Task Manager, it can show a process that is maxing out the CPU, but unlike Task Manager it can show which thread (with the callstack) is using the CPU – informa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2K Games
2K is an American video game publisher based in Novato, California. 2K was founded under Take-Two Interactive in January 2005 through the 2K Games and 2K Sports labels, following Take-Two Interactive's acquisition of Visual Concepts that same month. Originally based in New York City, it moved to Novato in 2007. A third label, 2K Play, was added in September 2007. 2K is governed by David Ismailer as president and Phil Dixon as COO. A motion capture studio for 2K is based in Petaluma, California. History On January 24, 2005, Take-Two Interactive announced that it had acquired Visual Concepts, including its Kush Games subsidiary and the intellectual property of the ''2K'' sports-game series, from Sega for million. The following day Take-Two Interactive established the 2K publishing label, consisting of the sub-labels 2K Games and 2K Sports, with the latter focusing on sports games. Several of Take-Two Interactive's development studios—Visual Concepts, Kush Games, Indie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sony Digital Audio Disc Corporation
Sony Digital Audio Disc Corporation (Sony DADC) is a manufacturer of CDs, DVDs, UMDs, and Blu-ray Discs. The company has many plants worldwide. Although it primarily services Sony Music Entertainment-owned record labels, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and Sony Interactive Entertainment, it also manufactures discs for other labels, home entertainment distributors, and video game publishers. Sony DADC's first plant, in Terre Haute, Indiana, opened May 2, 1983, and produced its first CD, Bruce Springsteen's ''Born in the U.S.A.'', in September 1984. It was the first CD manufacturer in the United States, is the company's principal CD manufacturing facility, and is the company's research and development center. The plant was initially a subsidiary of CBS/Sony Group, but Sony bought out CBS's stake in October 1985. When Sony bought CBS Records in 1988, it acquired that company's manufacturing facilities, some of which later became part of Sony DADC. Among these are the plants in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mass Effect
''Mass Effect'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Casey Hudson, Drew Karpyshyn and Preston Watamaniuk. The franchise depicts a distant future where humanity and several alien civilizations have colonized the known universe using technology left behind by advanced precursor civilizations. The franchise originated in a series of video games developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. Each installment is a third-person shooter with role-playing elements. The first three games form a trilogy in which the player character, Commander Shepard, attempts to save the Milky Way galaxy from a race of ancient, hibernating machines known as the Reapers. The inaugural video game in the series, ''Mass Effect'' (2007), follows Shepard's investigation of Saren Arterius, one of the Reapers' agents. ''Mass Effect 2'' (2010) begins two years later and sees Shepard's forces battling the Collectors, an alien race abducting human colonies to facilitate the Reapers' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Explicit Congestion Notification Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) is an extension to the Internet Protocol and to the Transmission Control Protocol and is defined in RFC 3168 (2001). ECN allows end-to-end notification of network congestion without dropping packets. ECN is an optional feature that may be used between two ECN-enabled endpoints when the underlying network infrastructure also supports it. Conventionally, TCP/IP networks signal congestion by dropping packets. When ECN is successfully negotiated, an ECN-aware router may set a mark in the IP header instead of dropping a packet in order to signal impending congestion. The receiver of the packet echoes the congestion indication to the sender, which reduces its transmission rate as if it detected a dropped packet. Rather than responding properly or ignoring the bits, some outdated or faulty network equipment has historically dropped or mangled packets that have ECN bits set. , measurements suggested that the fraction of web servers on the public I ... [...More Info...] |
