PC Fun on Bad Company 2

Defffik was good enough to record some of our games last night. First time for David playing the PC version of Bad Company 2, Gavin is fairly new to that version too and I leveled up to 10 so we’re all a little rusty playing with mouse and keyboard.

It was my first time playing with the my new mouse, the Logitech G500, and it made a huge difference! I bound buttons on the mouse to knifing, use, and grenades as well as using the higher DPI for the tanks which is like pumping gallons of WD-40 into the turret. That thing flies around when the sensitivity is pumped up!

‘Course, when we came up against a team of level 50s David, Gavin and I suffered badly but we still had a great time.

IRC chatlog of PSN hackers

PSN is still down (as it was this morning when I wrote the exact same words in this post) because hackers broke in and Sony discovered the breach a few weeks ago.

How long ago? This boards.ie thread links to this pastebin log which is apparently an IRC conversation between a few guys discussing the security problems Sony had.

The hostname updptl.de.np.community.playstation.net is mentioned and a week or two ago I fired off a “lynx -head -dump” request to find out what it’s running and it was definitely running an old version of Apache at that time. I tried this morning and the request was forbidden so thankfully Sony are tightening up things.

The forum thread also links here, a post written back in February. Unfortunately that site is down but I found the meat of that post here.

A well known hacker i don’t want to reveal here had all the Sony PlayStation Network functions 100% decrypted as well as providing some nice info about how Sony dealing with PSN members privacy in their online servers.

Apparently, Sony server gathered everything they can from the PSN connected PS3 console. When i said everything, i meant it. Here, i make all the list of what they squeezed from the IRC chat logs conversation between the hackers.

Sony monitors all messages over PSN.
All connected devices return values sent to Sony server returns TV, Firmware version, Firmware type, Console model
They also collects data in your USB attached device.
Credit card sent as plain text, example:
Code:
creditCard.paymentMethodId=VISA&creditCard.holderName=Max&creditCard.cardNumber=4558254723658741&creditCard.expireYear=2012&creditCard.expireMonth=2&creditCard.securityCode=214&creditCard.address.address1=example street%2024%20&creditCard.address.city=city1%20&creditCard.address.province=abc%20&creditCard.address.postalCode=12345
The best part of all, the list is stored online and updated when u login PSN and random.
But, that’s not all, with the PSN functions fully decrypted, this hacker can use the function to get all games, DLC, you name it, from PSN store without paying anything.

Wow, i am just speechless! We can really sue Sony for monitoring ALL data including our credit card info providing that we are connected to PSN, of course. Man, that is really big fail, as well as the PSN fail oh and the PS3 fail. Everything just FAIL, Sony!

You can read the IRC chat logs at the link below. We censored the names just to be safe.

This IRC log seems to be the source for this ARS article from back then in February. Despite what the report above says, the data was sent over SSL however. The main problem then was for people using custom firmware because the credit card details were stored on the machine too.

As a final note to finish, the replies on this thread on playstation.com are I think unfortunate.

Heh, I am happy that the article has eased any fears that you may of had surrounding your card details.

I would still ‘watch this space’ in case all of this goes horribly wrong and it turns out that we are in danger, but judging from the information and the articles, I think we our security is very much safe. Some sites generally like to jump on the band-wagon too early and cause a racket even if their information has not even been sourced.

Here’s hoping PSN comes back soon.

PSN is still down some of my gaming…

PSN is still down, some of my gaming friends have both a PS3 and Xbox 360, and a few more have a PC fast enough to play modern games so what platform do I buy Brink on? The first review I read is a glowing account saying, ‘Brink deserves to be ranked among the finest co-op games available.’

As David said on Twitter when he linked to this post explaining the game, it’s very like Team Fortress 2. Coincidentally, another game I would really like to play with a few buddies (on PC).

So, are you buying Brink and more importantly if we play together online, what platform are you buying it on?

PS. Brink isn’t out here for another 2 days, but saying that, I’m not rushing to buy this. I can wait! (Really!)

DrunkinDunkin’s first few moments on Minecraft

Gavin bought himself Minecraft and joined my server this evening. I teleported to him and he was unresponsive so I, err, dug a little hole around him. Then let in the water to welcome him to the world.

Everything was going fine until he attacked the wolves I spawned. After the finished him off they came after me but luckily I had a diamond sword to take care of them! Those red eyes. *shudder*

What did you think of Angry Birds?

Angry Birds to me is like golf in that it’s more frustrating than fun. However, it’s incredibly rewarding when things go your way in it. I can play something like Cut the Rope – and I did for hours – and get three stars on every level. With Angry Birds, the scoring is a bit to arbitrary for my tastes. I like it, but I feel it would be a better game if it wasn’t so opaque – but that’s me.

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Amen! Angry Birds is very frustrating. It’s really a game of chance where you hope that you have the angle of trajectory right. Even if you know how to finish a level there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to.

Give me Cut the Rope or World of Goo any day!

Hello Ubuntu 11.04

Today is the big day. A new release of Ubuntu Linux is out. Version 11.04 or “Natty Narwhal” is the first to ship with the Unity desktop and I’m very impressed! If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the Ubuntu website or this handy guide.

I like:

  • The auto hiding sidebar of icons. When a window is maximised it hides. Long click on an icon to move it around, and right click for a context dialog to remove it.
  • Control Center is 2 clicks away in the top right where there appears to be a light switch. That menu also has a lock screen item and various session controls.
  • Apps with multiple windows show a corresponding number of dots next to their icon on the sidebar. Click on the icon and you see all the windows of that application.
  • Application menus are in the top toolbar ala Mac OS. Some, like Chrome, aren’t however.
  • Long press Windows key and the sidebar icons are highlighted with numbers 0-9 to quick choose them.
  • Click the Ubuntu logo in the top left and you get a nice applications dispay.
  • Speedy alt-tab previews of each Window.
  • Left and right maximising of windows like in Windows 7. I think you need to drag it a bit further than in Windows 7 however, no bad thing. Full screen maximise on dragging a window to the top of the screen.
  • Painless upgrade from 10.10.

And what I didn’t like:

  • The window display for multi window apps requires you select a window. It’d be great if I could click the app icon again to return to the same window. ESC does the job though.
  • GIMP tear away menus are still broken, but this is likely an issue with GIMP. It was present in the last release of Ubuntu too and I just found a work around this evening.

    The menus you are looking for are no longer part of the drop-down menus, but rather part of a right-click menu visible when clicking on the canvas.

    I found using the space bar after clicking the menu option worked on torn off menus. This may be a bug.

  • The lack of formal application menus is off putting initially but it’s actually easy enough to find things with the new launcher.
  • I doubt I’ll ever like the thin scrollbar. There is a way to change that, must find out how.
  • Why does Ubuntu keep installing Evolution every time I upgrade? I’m fairly sure I uninstall that each and every time ..

In previous versions of Ubuntu I always felt the eye candy was there just to make things look pretty. With Unity they’re actually putting that graphical horsepower to good use. If you haven’t tried Ubuntu yet, give it a spin! You can even try it without installing anything simply by booting from the install disk (or usb drive) and opting for that. Check out the download page for further details.

Not got Portal 2 yet

I guess last week was a good time to go on holiday. Portal 2 was released early in the week but it didn’t come out in Europe until Friday (and retailers broke that embargo by a day or two). My copy from Amazon.co.uk should hopefully arrive today. Woohoo!

I ordered the PS3 version like a few of my gaming friends who also have gaming PCs. Unfortunately PSN has been down for the last 5 days and there’s no indication it’s coming back any time soon. This post on Joystiq (and this reddit post has more details) suggests it’s because a custom firmware allowed users to add money to their PSN wallet using fake credit cards. Odd that since they boasted that the latest firmware update was supposed to stop all firmware hacking …

Well, it also turns out that some people over at NGU found out that you could provide fake CC# info and the authenticity of the information was never checked as you were on Sony’s private developer PSN network (essentially a network that Sony trusted). What happened next was extreme piracy of PSN content. Sony realizing the issue here shut down the network.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to playing Portal 2. I know several of you have already finished the game so no spoilers please! I’ve avoided every single review of the game so far except for the glowing tweets from friends. Hopefully when PSN comes back up I can connect my Steam account to my PSN account.

While away from my consoles I’ve been digging into Half Life 2 and I think I’m near the end of the game. What a ride! Such a good game. If you haven’t got it yet, grab the Orange Box on console or login to your Steam account on PC and go buy this beautiful game!
I have to admit I’m playing it on easy setting. I just want to enjoy the experience in the small chunks of time I have available to play games.

In other news the Minecraft server has been updated with the latest version of Bukkit so the Bukkit plugins are back and working!

Update: Late this evening Sony announced that personal information, possibly including credit card details, may have been stolen. If that’s true, Sony will be in a world of hurt with the authorities for their lax security.

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