<story><title>Use a Software Bug to Win Video Poker? That’s a Federal Hacking Case</title><url>http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/game-king/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lifeformed</author><text>This is like watching game speedrunners exploit glitches in the game to get a better time, and then hearing laypeople complain about it not being a &quot;real&quot; run.  If it&apos;s all done within the context of the system, then it&apos;s fair.&lt;p&gt;In game speedruns, the context is: &quot;Beat this game as fast as possible with the following restrictions (no cheats, 100% completion not necessary, etc) using the provided input system.&quot;&lt;p&gt;If I go to a casino, the context of playing a slot machine is: &quot;Put real money into this machine and press buttons on it until you run out of money or leave.&quot;  There aren&apos;t any implicit rules like, &quot;some combination of button presses are not allowed&quot;.&lt;p&gt;Let the player have his money, patch the bug and move on.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tolmasky</author><text>In complete agreement. This is no different than me just coming up with a crummy game to begin with. Let&apos;s say I run a casino and accidentally set up a modified game of blackjack where the odds favor the customers instead of the house. Customers merely playing this game is &quot;exploiting&quot; a bug. Should I be able to sue them? (BTW a couple of months ago this happened with mis-shuffled decks) The premise of this game is to get people to risk their money, I can&apos;t whine when it backfires on me and I lose instead of them! I certainly don&apos;t get to sue the casino for exploiting my gambling addiction or the fact that I had a little too much to drink before my last bet.&lt;p&gt;Look, let&apos;s be honest here: casinos are nothing more than legal (and sure, transparent) scams, plain and simple (at least when its house vs. customer and not customer vs. customer). The rules are systematically designed to drain you of your money while tricking you into thinking you might win. And I have absolutely &lt;i&gt;no problem&lt;/i&gt; with that. I am a free market guy, and as far as I&apos;m concerned gambling is voluntary. HOWEVER, if you are going to dedicate your business to literally ruining people&apos;s lives and profiting from their losses, then suck it up when you are too stupid and your con backfires on you. Don&apos;t get the law involved, and thus &lt;i&gt;my taxpayer dollars&lt;/i&gt;, to save you from your unsuccessful grift. This is as absurd as an idiot running a faulty ponzi scheme and then suing his marks because they made money and he didn&apos;t.</text></comment>
<story><title>Use a Software Bug to Win Video Poker? That’s a Federal Hacking Case</title><url>http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/game-king/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lifeformed</author><text>This is like watching game speedrunners exploit glitches in the game to get a better time, and then hearing laypeople complain about it not being a &quot;real&quot; run.  If it&apos;s all done within the context of the system, then it&apos;s fair.&lt;p&gt;In game speedruns, the context is: &quot;Beat this game as fast as possible with the following restrictions (no cheats, 100% completion not necessary, etc) using the provided input system.&quot;&lt;p&gt;If I go to a casino, the context of playing a slot machine is: &quot;Put real money into this machine and press buttons on it until you run out of money or leave.&quot;  There aren&apos;t any implicit rules like, &quot;some combination of button presses are not allowed&quot;.&lt;p&gt;Let the player have his money, patch the bug and move on.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sneak</author><text>By the same argument, the context of using the internet is &quot;send packets, receive replies&quot;. There aren&apos;t any implicit rules like &quot;sending a specific field that is larger than expected (as to overrun a fixed-size buffer) is not allowed&quot;.&lt;p&gt;(FWIW, I agree with you. It is impossible to forcibly break into a computer over the network.)</text></comment>