timmy010: i was just wondering, is it ok to upload my games to a file upload site, for reason that will become apparent:-
there's a new cloud gaming site - liquidsky. i dont have an invite yet, but the gist of it is that you log into, say for example your steam account, and then you instantly download your game to a cloud pc and get playing. i don't trust this method very much since you log into your account through the cloud. so as a security precaution, i would rather use drm free games and upload to file upload accounts that i don't care about should they get hacked.
Curious. However other than being a storage medium i don't see the point. Unless you have an insanely high internet access add that they are running games on the cound to do streaming, it won't be useful otherwise.
Although it would be great for testing software you aren't sure about and viruses or the like are limited to a sandbox rather than your local system.
It is going to come down to the service. Unless they don't have a copy of the game already, just verifying you have the game will be enough since they will have it locally. So uploading games is iffy on that part. Seriously i wish this idea of Cloud gaming and streaming games goes away. I'd say we're a good 10 years away from it at least. Until internet improves in the US it isn't an option.
timmy010: my second issue is that music purchased through itunes, has a, let's call it a digital fingerprint, in that it uniquely identifies it to the account for the purposes of tracking you in the event of piracy. so should my account that i do not care about get hacked, they don't automatically assume that it's my fault instead of poor security/untruthfullness of the cloud gaming service.
The digital fingerprint is probably going to be identified in one of the following ways
1) DRM.
More specifically the entire file is encrypted, which gives it a unique hash when calculated. You then need certificates. However iTunes and other services have more or less dropped DRM for the most part.
2) Meta Data.
Meta data (
or any extra data) generates a unique ID. Usually this data includes the band, year, name of the song, ICBM or other data, rating or other information. This is probably a hidden field inside the mp3 or other file which just specifies a numeric account ID.
If you wanted to remove it, you could probably use a copy client like ffmpeg which you could then copy the stream data or simply strip meta data out.
3) Encoding with noise.
I don't see this happening. This would require adding some level of randomness to the data and re-encoding it so it generates a unique stream, but honestly i don't see the point in doing it. It takes a lot of effort, and you'd have to either save the unique hash or random data of how to generate the differences and how it's encoded, which means upgrading the algorithm is pointless. Not to mention it just doesn't make sense to do it, much like they don't encrypt CD's using tons of different keys when making in bulk, easier to encrypt once and then use some other form to verify so it can decrypt.
Still, if you re-encode it using different settings, it will scramble the fingerprint and make it useless. Adding in more tiny noise, lowering the resolution or raising it slightly, or something similar.
4) Stenography
Much like encoding with noise, except it's encoding with actual data that can be decoded after compression/decompression; A short sequence repeated throughout the entire file, much like they do for video. Although for video it's more along the lines of making it easy to identify copyrighted material so they can claim it or shut it down quickly. (
Although if it can be identified, adding that Stenography code to an unrelated video and then trapping a company with a lawsuit for unlawful DMCA claims would certainly be something i hope to see in the near future... Nintendo... :P)
Certainly there are other ways, but just including an account ID meta data seems the easiest and most likely scenario, with Stenography a close second.
