+1

The patent claims to address the following: "[0010] What is lacking in the HTML5 canvas 2D drawing API is a method for performing binary composition based on the color value the pixels, such as the red, green, and blue values, independently of the alpha value." The patent appears to be an attempt to kill HTML5. I sincerely doubt it's validity.

... and another. http://www.menuetos.net/[^]

Here's a prime example ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Computer[^]

Why did you wait 14 months to tell them? :)

If you are in the US, file a copyright on the work you've done so far. If you wrote it, you own it. Since you're doing this on you own time without compensation, it's your code. Cost to file is $35. That will protect you if this guy fails to compensate you down the road (whether it is in money or bragging rights).

Gerbil - I wholeheartedly agree with you on this one.

Money came from your two examples. For your new examples: cheating at chess or checkers (or first person shooter) does not equal sexual assault or bodily injury. Gerbil - clearly you want this type of legislation. How would you formulate it? How would it work?

a cheat program is no different to the two analogues which, as you agree, are actually illegal.

They are different. A cheat program changes game play. It may violate a civil contract but it does not steal money or a service. It changes the experience of game play, that's it. No free petrol. No transfer of funds out of a victim's account. Some cheat programs have legitimate uses in testing and QA. A game engine company sells you a 3D game engine with tools to expedite testing. Those same tools could be used to cheat. Should the game engine designers be arrested for providing these extra tools? Law makers would have a tough time drafting language to distinguish between the two. I agree that playing with cheats is no fun. Someone ruined your afternoon of game play. It sucks. I'm sorry. Bottom line - for me - is this is a civil matter. The game industry should handle this issue on it's own. Gerbil is correct to say I don't want new laws. I'd like to see some old, obsolete US laws removed (but that's another story). That's my position. If you think a law is needed, how would that work? How would you structure the language so that the people creating the games aren't themselves criminalized thereby stifling game quality, innovation, and competition.

I'm talking about something beyond the actual players.
I'm talking about going after the people who create, market, and sell cheat programs.

That's a tough call. Software to jailbreak your phone might fall under this category (Apple would certainly think so). An app that allows you to tether other devices to your phone (which AT&T prohibits) is another example. For your two examples ...

Would I be able to freely create, market, and sell programs that are specifically designed to hack bank accounts, ATMS, or other financial services? I'm not talking about a general program that could be used for that - I'm talking something designed/marketed specifically for the task.

That's already illegal. In the USA, it likely falls under Title 18 Section 2511.

Would I be able to freely create, market, and sell programs that cause gas station pumps to sell me gas for thirty cents a gallon instead of the normal $3.50? I could tell the gas station attendant that it's his job to run a secure system.

That's already illegal too; probably under the same set of laws. I don't see a new law needed here.

I don't care for parasites.

I hear you. Following the gist of what you're saying, the challenge is to distinguish a third-party or after-market product from a tool for fraud. The specific examples in the OP related to cheating in a game. The cheating relates to violating a TOS, not committing a crime. There's good behavior, bad behavior, and criminal behavior. The cheaters (and cheat peddlers) are annoying to be sure. But, I don't see law enforcement as an appropriate replacement for customer service.

So in your world if someone breaks into a bank you punish the bank and don't bother with the robbers?

Gerbil - we live in the same world. If the cheats paid to play, they have a right to be there. If they've violated their TOS, it is up to the game host to enforce the TOS. Boot them off the server with no refund. Lots of people deal with this problem by hosting their own game servers so they can screen players and maintain a quality game experience.

I just don't support the idea that people who maliciously work to destory the efforts of responsible citizens should be given a free pass. I don't see where we give a pass with it comes to the malicious destruction of other people's property/business/etc in other sectors.

Fair enough but I don't want to see government resources spent enforcing one company's business model. The game company has the ability to design and maintain a reliable system with sufficient checks and balances to ensure quality of game play. That may mean hiring full time referees to police players for inappropriate behavior. If you sell a movie ticket to someone and they start talking one their cellphone while the movie is playing, you toss them out without a refund - or risk losing business when the other movie goers choose another cinema. This is the realm of business and civil law - not criminal law. I'm tired of the idea that "there ought to be a law" for every little irritation or inconvenience in life. It's life. We deal with it and move on.

If the hackers used their skills to play the game without paying for it, they've stolen something. Send them to jail. For your example, no. The company providing the game is responsible for enforcing player behavior - whether it's profane language or clever hacks / cheats. Complain to the company that took your money. You've paid them for the game experience. We don't need law enforcement and the court system wasting time and expense to do what the game company is too lazy or inept to do themselves.

Under the "Rate this article" section, no radio buttons appear. Clicking on the "Vote" button says, "There was an error while trying to rate this item. Please try again later." My account uses a confirmed email address. Edit: this works fine in Firefox.

Marc Clifton wrote:

I'd like Word to read my mind, what does that say about Word that I have to write my own mind reading software?

In the case of Word (and any other Microsoft product), I'd consider that a feature. M$ is already far too ingrained into my business as it stands. There's a joke in here somewhere about the new unannounced Microsoft Mind Reading Server. Okay ... enough kidding.

Marc Clifton wrote:

'm not talking screen scraper.

I'm interested in seeing "deltas" for both code and article text so that means scraping the article text from the HTML. I'm guessing you'd have to also scrape the source code download URL from the article text too.

Marc Clifton wrote:

Out of curiosity, why the interest in past revisions?

Here's an extreme example: someone publishes an article and then revokes the entire article. I might get lucky and find an older draft in the Google cache. A more common example: I download the code for an article, play with it a bit and then delete it because I don't have an immediate need. Months or years later - I see the article updated. What changed? Sometimes I can get a clue from the article comments but nothing exact. For sf.net, access to past revisions is more obvious in the context of regression. Latest version "x" exhibits some bug but older revision "y" doesn't.

modified on Monday, January 14, 2008 10:06:42 PM

Marc Clifton wrote:

Honestly, this isn't that difficult to do yourself.

Marc; You're right. This is easy to do manually for one or two articles.

Marc Clifton wrote:

In fact, you could probably write an app to automate a lot of the process.

If I have to write an application to supplement the website's own interface, what does that say about the usability of this site? Writing a "screen scraper" application is perilous work. One small theme change can break your code. Talk about brittle. Automated or not - would this be practical for a hundred or more articles? Is it desirable for 100 or more folks like my self to incur this extra work (maintaining our own private repository of select past articles) when the website *might* more easily be able to provide this as a feature? Judging from the mild response - this isn't a big deal for most folks. I humbly suggest you missed the point. I'll take the blame for that. Allow me to set it up this way ... 1. Article appears in the top 10 new/updated list today. 2. Article was updated so at least one prior revision exists - somewhere. 3. Article was originally submitted in 2002. The article isn't new - but is new to me. I either didn't see or have an interest in the article at the time it was written. Now I do have an interest in the article - including past revisions of both article text and source files. Your suggestion requires archiving all articles of potential interest a priori. That doesn't work for the above example. I appreciate your input. I infer from the small number of replies that this isn't a "must have" feature for this site. Someone might write a Firefox plug-in to do exactly that - or not. I've enjoyed this site all these years without such a feature so I'm sure I'll survive.

Marc Clifton wrote:

If you want to check for code differences, download it and pop the new and old versions into your favorite diff app and check them out yourself. It's pretty much the same thing you'd have to do if you were using source control.

AFAIK, CP does not provide prior revisions. That's the problem. Perhaps a wiki-like revision mechanism is the answer. You can only see the current revision. I'd have to make a copy of the article every time it is updated - in anticipation of *possibly* needing to see the deltas. Most articles I read because they are interesting ... not because I have a specific need. My needs change. Weeks or months later I see an update on a past article whose content may be relevant to a new work assignment. I'd like to know whether the update is new significant content or corrections to a handful of typos.

[ I originally posted this in the Soapbox where it went nowhere. Two folks suggested I post to the Lounge so here goes ... again. ] I'm seeing some articles that over a period of months and years have evolved into ongoing projects. First, let me try to distinguish an article from a project. The purpose of an article is to describe a specific technique, approach or solution to a problem. Except for corrections and minor revisions - it is fairly static in content and will eventually become obsolete over (a possibly long) time. Most CP articles fall into this generic category. A project is a complete working program or library. A CP article posted in this manner is more or less a "how-to" of how to use the program or library. As the code improves, the article text must be revised to correctly reflect new behavior. The article becomes a living document where any draft is a snapshot in time of where the project stood in its evolution. The big question: Is posting a project style article on CP a good thing? The trouble with projects hosted on CP is it is hard to see what was changed with each update. I seeing some of the same updated articles pop up over and over again. I can't tell if they are minor typo fixes, minor bug fixes, or contain significant new content (ie. is the article worth re-reading?). Might some of the project-articles fair better somewhere like SourceForge? One main benefit of SF is visibility of source revisions - including the article text - via the CVS or SVN repository feature of that site. I can easily see the value of a CP hosted "how to" article that links to an SF hosted project. Ideas?

I'm seeing some articles that over a period of months and years have evolved into ongoing projects. The purpose of an article is to describe a specific technique, approach or solution to a problem. Except for corrections and minor revisions - it is fairly static in content and will eventually become obsolete over (a possibly long) time. A project is a complete working program or library. The article text is more or less a "how-to" of how to use the program or library. As the code improves, the article text must be revised to correctly reflect new behavior. The article becomes a living document where any draft is a snapshot in time of where the project stood in its evolution. My question - is posting a project style article on CodeProject a good thing? Might some of the project-articles fair better somewhere like SourceForge? One main benefit of SF is visibility of source revisions - including the article text - via the CVS or SVN repository feature of that site. I seeing some of the same articles pop up over and over again. I can't tell if they are minor typo fixes, minor bug fixes, or contain significant new content (ie. is the article worth re-reading?). I can easily see the value of a "how to" article that links to an SF hosted project. :rose: Ideas?

Let me guess; a Seagate ST4096 with Western Digital MFM controller? They ran hot enough to re-heat cold pizza and noisy enough to keep you awake at night. I'm wondering just what is the big disk drive in the picture. Are those 14 inch disk platters?

Unless your past projects were academic, I suggest politely explaining to the interviewing company that your past projects were all works for hire owned exclusively by the past employer or contract holder. Disclosing code not owned by you would be unethical and possibly illegal. Further, if they decide to hire you, they would also benefit from your zeal in guarding their source code and related proprietary information from unauthorized disclosure or plagiarism. If you do offer any code snippets, make sure they are (1) your own original work, (2) not used in any for-hire project, and (3) contain a clear copyright notice in the source code text. (Yes, a CP article would be an excellent way to do this). ;^) -rick