From: Reason (reason@exratio.com)
Date: Tue Apr 02 2002 - 06:28:33 MST
It is an april fools, check the "cnet" URL. But a plausible one.
Now that it's been suggested, I give it six months or less until someone's
on this -- it's an obvious source of revenue with little extra work on any
one of five or six existing p2p platforms. This could be the way in which
those failed processing farm business models actually work. Piggyback off
entertainment software, which harks back to my discussion last month on
virtual nations rising out of MMORPGs.
Did I mention that someone wants to make use of some of my (game) AI stuff
in a porn-focused MMOG? That'll be interesting...and I take back some of the
dubiousness I voiced to whoever it was trumpeted sex as the way forward.
Heh.
Reason
http://www.exratio.com/
---> Robert J. Bradbury
>
> [April Fool's not???]
>
> Slashdot has an interesting discussion about the trojan horse
> in the Kaaza music downloading software here:
>
> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/02/0417208&mode=thread&tid=158;Q
>
> Related CNET story:
> http://news.com.com/2100-1023-873181.html
> (Also dated April 1st...)
>
> Of interest (if accurate) is their EULA:
>
> > 4(b) You hereby grant BDE the right to access and use the
> unused computing
> > power and storage space on your computer/s and/or internet
> > access or bandwidth for the aggregation of content and use in
> > distributed computing. The user acknowledges and authorizes this use
> > without the right of compensation. Notwithstanding the above, in the
> > event usage of your computer is initiated by a party other than you, BDE
> > will grant you the ability to deny access.
>
> This would have caught someone like me who generally doesn't
> read the EULA's very closely.
>
> Apparently its also a pain to remove the program once installed.
>
> More importantly its a strong case in point about how private
> companies acting in their own self-interest could disseminate
> the vehicle for the development of rogue AIs. All it would
> take is hacking BDE's communication protocols and you have
> millions of computers at your disposal.
>
> Not good. *Really* not good. I'd like to have Harvey confirm
> whether or not this is "real". (Even if it isn't, its worth
> considering that it could be.)
>
> Robert
>
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