These games are so old i can almost hear the clack-clack of the CRT monitor changing resolution as the game launches.

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The thing about anonymity that a lot of people don’t get is that there is no such thing as 100% anonymous. Vpn makes it more expensive to track you. Tor makes it more expensive to track you. Good opsec makes it more expensive to track you but ultimately, if you’ve got a target on your back, there is no way to be 100% anonymous.

The thing you gotta ask yourself is, what is your threat model ? Are you hiding from LEO on account of torrents or just want some privacy from corporations? VPN is fine. Are you buying drugs on the darkweb ? TOR is fine. Are you selling drugs on the darkweb ? You probably need a more sophisticated masking network mesh. Are you involved in CSAM or run a darkweb market ? Nothing you do will help you, you are going to get caught, that is a certainty.

Don’t go wasting your precious brain matter on developing a leak free network. There is no such thing. If someone wants badly to track you down, with enough money, they will. Best you can do is be a little bit more trouble than it’s worth to spend on you. For some things, like i mentioned before, there is a cutoff point where you’re as anonymous as you’ll ever be. For others, there is basically unlimited resources to track you. Even using TOR, they can get you at your entry node, like it has happened before, if no one else in your neighborhood is connected to TOR.

Well Ubisoft did say gamers should start getting used to not owning Ubisoft games.

So far, so good.

Who would’ve thought that an industry that disregarded and actively attacked and insulted their viewer/reader base, who gained a fame for 10/10ing all games under the sun and folding to the most miniscule of complaints from pressure groups would end up not having viewers/readers at all ? Not to mention hiring people who hate video games, can’t play them and/or plagiarize footage from youtube to showcase the game as journalists.

Let me play the tiniest violin concerto for you guys. Now roll over and let youtubers take your industry.

Even if such a thing existed, which given the analysis parameters makes it far too complex for automation (like for instance, how would such a software distinguish between old deleted data still residing in empty space and a vault file hidden in empty space without a follow up analysis of the data itself. It would probably alert the user for something, but the amount of false positives would probably lead an untrained user to ignore the alerts eventually) i would guess it doesn’t, but if it did, it would have to process petabytes every day, from all over the country and the system would have to be maintained, which going by government record of informatics systems, doesn’t seem likely that it would be readily available for everyone that gets stopped at a border stop consistently. It’s like an anti virus search, with all the false positives it comes up with, but 100 times slower, plus the transmission of the entire disk clone file, plus the cloning process itself.

Moreover the cost of maintaining such a system when 95%+ of the population doesn’t have the know how to use complex data obfuscation measures and LEO rarely obtains information out of these cursory searches for arrests. On published news articles LEO always ends up using snitches, google searches or usage of the TOR network in a given area to catch criminals. Data forensics only come into play later on. Presumably, dollar for dollar, they would probably invest in what works best instead of casting such a wide net.

In sum, I’m not cleared to know such information, but i am guessing such a thing, while technologically possible, seems economically unfeasible and liable to be used only in specific cases. If i had a border security budget, i would certainly not invest in a mega server to swift through every bit of empty and occupied space of all the randomly selected people for a search that come in through the ports of entry. However i could be wrong.

I think you overvalue the skillset of border security. This may seem trivial to you but it’s uncommon to hire people trained to this level of competence and put them at every point of entry. A decent cybersecurity investigator needs a big salary.

That would probably happen if you were already a suspect of something or a high profile person and they moved in resources for you. No way border security is randomly sweeping for headers and entropy, they basically just look at it with the explorer and clone it, possibly using some software to scan for known security vulnerabilities to access encrypted parts. That would be a court ordered search or a high profile crime investigation, or maybe a really really unlucky day where the expert was already there for another reason, but the rest i agree.

If your threat model makes you a high profile person, then smuggling data in hidden containers is definitely not the best solution. A non associated personal cloud server is best.

Well most recently this year i crossed US borders at the Texas point of entry. I was told expressly to always provide them with my devices, as if i said no thank you i would be denied entry to the US and it would go on the record for future visa applications, which could be denied on grounds of that, thus affecting future assignments. When you get a work visa, you have a time limit to enter the US and if you miss it, you need another. I was told i was completely responsible for any data that third parties could obtain and i would be fired and legally prosecuted if sensitive data was seen by people who did not have security clearance and NDA clearance for the data i was carrying, which border security does not have, even though some US government personnel do have those clearances.

Fortunately my company provided cloud space for any personal or company data i would be carrying and i wasn’t asked for anything because i came from Europe and i guess they weren’t too suspicious about me, so in the end it wasn’t an issue. Nevertheless, i had to take mandatory corporate training to prepare for any immigration interviews and had to sign specific liability agreements for the data i carry since it is highly sensitive.

I don’t just work as a liason in the US, but this was the most recent. For the industry i work in, this is pretty standard.

You can say no, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences, in my case I’d lose my job or lose assignments, which would probably mean I’d be put only on European assignments or demoted to a domestic only position, which would be paid substantially less. So in essence, i can’t really say no nor slack on opsec. Being able to feed my family is more important than protesting on grounds of principle for me. Also i could have issues getting to the US in the future, for any reason that may be, since getting a work visa requires grueling consulate interviews and they check literally everything. It’s one of the most annoying places to get work visas to, even coming from Europe. It took me one year of scheduling and attending interviews to be cleared for it. I was even asked to provide all my personal social media account handles.

I guess your company trains to different standards than my company then. A multi national globe operating company can never afford to fire employees for refusing to cooperate with authorities during border checks. At most it can train them to secure data during border crossing.

If the company i work for did what you suggest, they would fire all their employees in the space of a week or have them all detained or refused entry to countries. They’d lose billions in business. Only a domestic or low volume company can afford having their employees routinely detained at borders in such a manner.

It just doesn’t make any sense what you’re saying, but you do you bud. All the best.

You’re free to do that, but seems like a good way to be put on a list to be harassed more in the future. You make a cop/border agent feel stupid and he/she will make sure to make your life harder.

The records will show you’re trying different ports of entry and if a border guard doesn’t like you, you will be selected for investigation and getting off that list may take years. Worse, you can be banned from entry for no reason and good luck appealing that.

Personally i like to treat the customs agents real nice. I call them sir or ma’am, i follow their instructions and i show them a squeaky clean phone and they let me off with a smile at the first port of entry. Being combative with an agent will not change the laws. Moreover if you have obligations to a company, they will not look kindly to this sort of attrition causing delays and will pass you over next time they need someone. This of course means you won’t get paid as much (or, depending on circumstances, at all).

I agree with the other poster, picking battles is the way to go.

They will detain you. I know the US procedure because i was instructed as i worked there as a representative for an overseas company in Europe.

If you’re a national of the US they will detain you and hold you in detention to ask you questions. During this time your phone will either be cloned or confiscated to be decrypted at a later date. You will be released after a few hours. They will likely not bruteforce it, but rather attempt to use security flaws present in your device/firmware. They will do the same to your laptop.

If you’re not a national of the US, you will be denied entry and flown back to where you came from. This is common practice in a lot of western countries.

What you should do is not carry sensitive information across borders, by using a cloud service to sync at your destination or use hidden encrypted containers in your device. Unless you’re involved in terrorism, white collar crime, CSAM or drugs, they will never have people smart enough to find out hidden containers on you.

What’s most frustrating is 5+ year old games whose biggest discount is 15%, clogging up my wishlist. Some devs are really hurting themselves by being so stingy.

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It’s very likely if this passes people who used to be tech illiterate will start using pre encryption, such as the darknet’s favorite PGP, before sending anything over, as all channels that are compliant will become insecure channels.

Much like it happened with vpns, chat encryption and ad blocking, people will be quick to catch on with a simple youtube video. Then we’ll have sold our privacy for pretty much nothing.

I wonder how long it will take for these very technologically inept politicians to realise you can’t legislate the internet to protect children, nor it is their job. Parents are the ones who are responsible for monitoring their children’s internet usage. Make child monitoring software more accessible to parents.

I’m glad to see those taxes being put into pointless endeavours while our world is festering with inequality, recessions and climate annihilation. Pretty sure soon enough children won’t need protection, because there won’t be any children left as no one can afford them in order to sustain our billionaire population.

Can’t live your life sitting on the fence being friends with everyone. You gotta embrace your values and accept the consequences that some people will disdain you for it. If you can live with both the disdain and your consciousness, then you’ve picked the right place, i believe.

Fences are for birds.

"Guys please, can you just ignore the dead children for one minute? They’re already dead, it’s not like they care anyway.

We’re trying to make money here and your empathy for your fellow human beings is just mucking it all up. Please, please try to follow the apolitical rules we laid out and for the duration of the show and just stfu and give us money ok ? That’s all we want. Bring the money and leave your messy politics at home. Your complaining makes other people not want to give us more money.

Remember why we’re doing this. For culture and money. But mostly money. Thanks!"

That is true, if all the history you’ve ever learned was the history that came in your highschool books. It’s a very simplistic take of a complex situation meant to be easily digestible by teenagers. I mean no offense.

Which is fine i suppose. If you think it’s fine for you, then it is and i am happy that you are satisfied. I understand not everyone shares my curiosity for ww2 political history, however, I am very much not a nazi. I’m not even right wing. It would be nonsensical to defend right wing extremist ideology.

Criticism of the treaty of Versailles has been thoroughly written by many non nazi historians from allied countries. It just doesn’t add much to the conversation to just write “nazi propaganda”. It’s not really an argument at all. No premises whatsoever. You could have just dropped your dislike because you feel you disagree and moved on.

Although i am very willing to read your thoughts if you could develop them a little more than that. I’m always willing to listen to a strong argument in favor of the treaty of Versailles and if you have a take i find insightful, perhaps even change my mind.

To be fair to Germany, Hitler was the clash of two trains of thought. Should you punish a country for the crimes of its ruling class through fines and territory claims?

In medieval eras the country was property of the kings and the peasants were their rightful “tools”, so punishing them was seen as fair, which is where the Versailles peace agreement came from.

In modern eras, the country belongs to no one and the ruling class is just that, the ruling class. Punishing people or taking land is seen poorly in international courts, regardless of what the country did in the war.

Hitler came to power because of how the allies treated the Germans after WW1. Had the allies implemented a restructuring plan, like it happened with Japan and Germany post WW2, instead of implementing border gore and impossible to pay fines, Hitler would have never been able to do anything, seeing as he was significantly unpopular. But if you trap a population between an impossible choice, this is what you get.

So you see, Germany couldn’t have produced anything. The right wing might see a substantial representation increase in the parliament because current parties have been incompetent in handling migration over the last 10 years and refuse to listen, but the conditions that caused Hitler’s rise to power are not currently met. Not even close.

Which is why i think you are not right in this matter.

Banning AfD would be incredibly stupid. Votes are a representation of concerns in a population. Ignoring the issues causing the votes and banning a party does not remove the concerns, just our visibility of them.

Europe in general needs to either drastically improve the integration mechanisms for migrants or reduce migrant throughput to levels which the current existing mechanisms are capable of handling. The current methods of just ignoring the problem and not giving a crap is clearly not being effective and thinking this is just a problem of ideology is exactly what’s wrong here.

Banning parties is irrelevant, banning nazi symbolism is irrelevsnt, cordon sanitaire is irrelevant, declaring fascism illegal is irrelevant. Those are symptoms and if we only treat symptoms the problem just changes faces.

Seize the means of unproductivity.

From what i read about it, Apple has a walled garden but charges a flat fee for everyone and has no special deals. Everyone pays the same and they make a little money off of the store but also the hardware sold.

Whereas Google has been caught treating certain parties differently, such as Spotify, something called Project Hug, where they gave extra benefits to parties at risk of leaving the play store, among other unequal dealings.

So the crux of the question is not about the monopoly itself, but the fact that Google is treating market players differently and throwing its weight around to influence the market to its advantage.