ITWorld has a story which reports:
A group of attackers with links to the Chinese hacking [sic] underground has been targeting companies from the entertainment and video game industries for years with the goal of stealing source code. The stolen intellectual property is used to "crack" games so they can be used for free, to create game cheating tools or to develop competing products, security researchers from Dell SecureWorks said in an analysis of the group's activities.
Dell SecureWorks tracks the hacker group as Threat Group-3279 (TG-3279) and believes it has been active since at least 2009. Information gathered by the company's researchers while investigating compromises at affected firms suggests that the attack group uses a variety of tools for reconnaissance and persistent access on systems, some of which were developed by members of the group. These tools include an extensible remote access Trojan (RAT) program called Conpee and a rootkit called Etso for hiding network and file activity.
Other custom tools and scripts that can indicate a TG-3279 compromise, according to Dell SecureWorks, include: a system profiling tool called gsi.exe; a tool for loading PE (portable executable) files called Runxx; a SYN port scanner called "s;" a PHP SQL injection script called sqlin.php; a script for enumerating DNS entries called dnsenum.py; a RDP (remote desktop protocol) brute-force tool called rdp_crk; and a reverse shell for Windows systems called icmp_shell.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Lagg on Friday August 01 2014, @10:42AM
The tone in Dell's report was a little uncomfortable to read. For some reason these types never seem to consider that people don't always crack stuff to get out of paying money or for cheating or creating "competing products" (which is hilarious since most of these people's code isn't exactly anything great, rather arrogant if you ask me) and other such stupid stuff. Most of the time it's simply because legit owners are getting harassed by the DRM and want some peace or to strip buggy crap like uplay, which is one reason I respect skidrow. Best method of stripping uplay ever. They merely provide you a DLL implementing the uplay lib's ABI that creates local files instead of connecting to a server that you can simply drop into the game's directory. Anyway, I'm not saying that this group isn't malicious nor am I trying to defend them but places like Dell need to start understanding that there are legit applications for cracks and assuming malice unconditionally is just going to piss these very same groups off which will then result in them doing it out of spite instead of practicality. Sony is pretty much the poster child of this at the moment.
Love the [sic] by the way.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 3, Informative) by WizardFusion on Friday August 01 2014, @11:13AM
I bought FarCry 3 from Steam (the only DRM I'll accept). I couldn't run my legitimate copy because of all the other DRM crap that was installed with it.
I ended up downloading a copy from a popular torrent site and cracked it that way.
It was a crap game, 1 and 2 were much better.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Lagg on Friday August 01 2014, @12:50PM
Well thanks for letting me know, now I know for sure not to bother with it even with a crack. If someone thinks Far Cry 2 of all things was the superior one in the series 3 must be pretty damn bad. Am pretty much with you on Steam being the only tolerable DRM. I try to avoid games that pile more of it on.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 1) by Freeman on Friday August 01 2014, @04:33PM
FarCry 3 is fun when played co-op with a buddy. That being said, I had to jump through hoops to get UPlay setup and working. It was a Huge PITA. What's more is that I seem to have stability issues, because of UPlay. I wish Steam would reject outright any company trying to shove their own brand of DRM down our throats.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @10:53AM
.. a crack PHP unit was sent to prison by security researchers from Dell SecureWorks. These men promptly escaped from a maximum-security stockade to the Chinese Hacking underground. Today, still wanted by Dell, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem... if no one else can help... and if you can find them... maybe you can hire... Threat Group 3279.
(Score: 3) by janrinok on Friday August 01 2014, @11:33AM
I found this funny - I'm sorry that the mods didn't appreciate the parody.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 02 2014, @04:21AM
Posting anonymously since I added a +1 funny to that exact post...
I sometimes wonder if someone has peed in the moderator's Cheerios or something. I laughed too, and was glad that I hadn't posted here so that I could add my +1.
mrider
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @11:34AM
I normally think of "[sic]" as being used when one is quoting someone or something and there is a mis-spelling. I would think putting Hacker in quotes would be proper here.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jimshatt on Friday August 01 2014, @11:50AM
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday August 01 2014, @02:32PM
Originally, ice cream was simply cream that was churned in an ice bath, or even with crushed ice. Therefore, to add cream to cream still only makes ice cream. See my comment elsewhere as to why I believe that [sic] is the correct markup to use in the quoted text - i.e. surprising assertion and faulty reasoning again.
(Score: 2) by hubie on Friday August 01 2014, @06:06PM
This use of sic is certainly non-standard, and I would go as far as to say it is unique for I don't know if I have ever seen it used in this manner (surprising assertion and faulty reasoning). It isn't like I keep a log of these things, but I can only ever recall seeing it used when quoting things that contain misspellings or omitted text, and the author was making sure that the reader wouldn't think the author made a typo. I have never seen, for example, some nutjob or conspiracy theorist quoted were the author inserted "sic" after each crazy or illogical assertion.
Even if I grant you the point in how you are interpreting the Wiki definition, I don't think it is appropriate in your ice cream example. The comment about cream is simply making the statement of fact that higher proportions of cream results in different rates of melting. There is no definition of cream proportion in ice cream, so it isn't faulty reasoning or a surprising assertion to talk about adding more or less cream to a recipe (however, in the US there are certainly legal minima and maxima criteria for the amount of milk fat allowed in something and still be called ice cream, which is why when you get too much or too little traditional ice cream ingredients in something, it is called something like "frozen dairy dessert" or something).
There are many facts and ideas that one person would find surprising, or they might consider it using faulty logic, and I'd hate to see text suddenly littered with "sic" everywhere because a particular author learned something new.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @07:21PM
No you put in quotes. Known as "scare quotes". Stop using [sic].
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday August 01 2014, @07:48PM
I'm sorry AC, but you will have to do better than 'Stop using [sic].'
(Score: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Friday August 01 2014, @01:11PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic [wikipedia.org] - The Latin adverb sic ("thus"; in full: sic erat scriptum, "thus was it written") inserted immediately after a quoted word or passage, indicates that the quoted matter has been transcribed exactly as found in the source text, complete with any erroneous or archaic spelling, surprising assertion, faulty reasoning, or other matter that might otherwise be taken as an error of transcription..
We can probably argue over whether this is a 'surprising assertion [or] faulty reasoning' for just as long as we could over whether the world ought to stop using the word 'hacker' in a way that we do not approve. However, rather than enter into such a sterile debate, I have simply included my reasoning here.
Have a good one!
(Score: 1) by aiwarrior on Friday August 01 2014, @02:20PM
Thank you for the enlightenment, I really learned through your comment.
I think if you want to argue words there is almost always a good solid argument to invoke, which is the word's etymology. With define:hack the verb hack originally meant to "cut with rough or heavy blows.", e.g, "I watched them hack the branches".
Thus, I guess the public's conception is more correct than the more general interpretation of the geek community. Malicious intent generally does not regard the means as much as the end, whether it is rough or philosophic(knowledge loving).
(Score: 2) by karmawhore on Friday August 01 2014, @06:25PM
=kw= lurkin' to please
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday August 01 2014, @05:02PM
Snowden was a contractor for Dell while under clearance. Now the traditionally benign Dell is meddling in security and blaming the Chinese for hacking America.
Makes you wonder how many other benign plain-vanilla American corporations have an intelligence presence and are acting as proxy arms of the American intelligence community.
(Score: 4, Funny) by MrGuy on Friday August 01 2014, @05:38PM
Let's take this for what it is. It's an ad.
Dell tried (successfully) to get a profile that they've built of certain members of one of THOUSANDS of groups like these published as if it were "news." These people aren't hacking Dell (Dell doesn't make games). They have a large scary 4-digit number assigned as a "threat group." There's no terribly surprising information in here, nor is there any particularly novel investigative technique. This is a small amount of investigation of one of the many thousands of such attempted attacks that take place daily.
It's not like they outed some brand new underground group that's a unprecedented new threat. Nor a novel technique. Nor something shocking like a government backing of such a group, or attempting such attacks itself. It's run of the mill stuff.
The real story here? HEY EVERYONE!!! WE AT DELL HAVE A SECURITY DIVISION!! WE CAN INVESTIGATE STUFF!! LOOK AT US!! GIVE US MONEY!! SCARE PEOPLE!! THOUSANDS OF THEM!! MONEY!! US!! SECURITY!!