Disqus - Friends of ennorehling

Re: Built here? No, thanks

Joe Hegarty — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 12:13:50 -0000

The problem I have seen, is that sometimes a company developing a middleware/engine will get bought out.
I worked on a project that used DemonWare, after Activision bought them out they refused to license it for any further titles, so all the work we put into integrating that was wasted.
Quazal have also now been bought by Ubisoft, so a lot of the people I know who use that are now very concerned that in the future they will stop making their libraries available.

These are networking examples, but I believe the same thing happened with RenderWare after the buyout of Criterion.

I agree with your point in principal, but there are some solid business reasons why you don't want to have to rely on third-party tech, especially if it's commercially licensed.

Re: Reverse Engineering: Evil or Enlightening?

Joe Hegarty — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:13:55 -0000

I agree, I'm not sure it can be evil if you don't share your discoveries or make money from them. However, the case of cracking a game because you don't want the DRM is the interesting grey area here, I believe that's actually illegal but if you own the game is it morally wrong as well?

Re: Reverse Engineering: Evil or Enlightening?

Joe Hegarty — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:46:31 -0000

Yes, it's going very well thanks. How are you doing?

Re: Reverse Engineering: Evil or Enlightening?

Joe Hegarty — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:57:25 -0000

Thanks for all the comments folks. I thought this would make for an interesting discussion and I haven't been let down. Also thanks to Gamasutra for picking this up :)

Re: Reverse Engineering: Evil or Enlightening?

Joe Hegarty — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:57:58 -0000

Thanks for all the comments folks. I thought this would make for an interesting discussion and I haven't been let down. Also thanks to Gamasutra for picking this up :)

Re: Buffer Overflows - More than Annoying Crashes

Joe Hegarty — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 01:50:44 -0000

Well, it works in a very similar way to say, a javascript jitter, you generate the code in memory and then jump to it.

Windows actually makes it quite difficult to do this these days (as does Linux and possibly Mac), with DEP (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wik... and ASLR (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wik... but it's not impossible. That's quite an advanced topic though, all of these exploits can be avoided with good input validation though. If there is any interest I could continue this as a series of posts, we'll see how it goes down :)

Re: Buffer Overflows - More than Annoying Crashes

Joe Hegarty — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 08:48:54 -0000

Not only that, people have a habit of using strncpy(buffer, password, strlen(password)); as conceptually that's what you want to do, Microsoft's strncpy_s method has an explicit argument for the target length as well, so you can't just absently do that accidently.

Re: Buffer Overflows - More than Annoying Crashes

Joe Hegarty — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 23:32:52 -0000

Indeed. I've read that before and it's very well written. There are tons of great resources out there should people want to learn more. You can even start getting into very interesting territory such as heap spraying.

For this post I just wanted to achieve a very simple "this is a problem, people don't just say buffer overflows cause security issues, they do - you should be worried about it" effect, which I hope I did.
Executing shell code is starting to get complicated and that article is way longer than my example for that reason.

I've been amazed at the ingenuity shown in some of the recent exploits. Chains of 3 or 4 unique exploits all totally different in terms of their exploitation method in order to do what you want.

Re: Page 07

Freya — Mon, 25 May 2015 05:47:32 -0000

Yes, it's based on that! :D
I have a replica that I bought in Argentina (not Mexico sadly, although I would like to visit one day).
I love that calendar stone. It fascinates me that it's so similar to the Egyptian calendar as well...

Re: Page 14

Freya — Mon, 08 Jun 2015 17:01:00 -0000

100% bona fide :)

Re: ch02p23

Freya — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 22:21:50 -0000

Just discovered and binge read this comic from the beginning, it's fantastic. The art and story are perfect, Kazu is adorable <3 Hope he doesn't get his brain dug out now...

Re: Stand Still. Stay Silent - webcomic, page 360

Freya — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 00:08:22 -0000

Beautiful work. I usually wait and then binge read webcomics in one go because I'm bad at waiting, but this one updates so often I can barely keep up XD Minna, you're amazing and I don't know how you do it. Mega kudos.

Re: Chapter 2: Brokers Vale: Page 105

Freya — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 01:50:02 -0000

Hi, just wanted to add my 2 cents...pennies...currency of choice...
First of all, congratulations on this stunning comic. It's mind bogglingly detailed and beautiful, and must take A LOT of hard work on your part to do. Believe me, as a webcomics creator myself, I can really appreciate that.
This comic is too beautiful and engaging for people to give up on easily, even if you can't update it for a while. You've given very valid reasons for this and some people might grumble now, but they will be back :) just do what you gotta' do.
I'm glad you can be with your friends and family again soon (I relate to this very much, I'm hoping to return to my home country soon too).
Best of luck with the move and settling in!

Re: Page 19

Freya — Fri, 17 Jul 2015 20:26:07 -0000

Hi Ort, thank you! Wise words there.
I guess weekly updates are quite slow compared to some webcomics. I'd love to update more often, but don't want to commit to something I'm not sure I'd pull off consistently at present, with other work commitments and stuff. Early days yet though :)

Re: Page 20

Freya — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 15:25:06 -0000

Thank you! I'm glad it's piqued your interest so far :)

Re: Chapter 2: Brokers Vale: Page 77

Freya — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 15:34:06 -0000

This page is gorgeous. The colour palette, the camera angles and focal points- all spot on.

Re: Page 21

Freya — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 22:49:15 -0000

Could be! ;)

Re: Page 22

Freya — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 13:30:29 -0000

Thanks Jim. I think it depends on the type of time travel rules applied and their effects in said universe/multiverse. There're pre-ordained, where you have to time travel to ensure your history remains intact in the first place (bit of a chicken and egg conundrum though). And there's the many-timelines variety. And good old Novikov's self consistency principle (which might not let you change anything at all).
I won't say any more yet, but I find them all fun :) Thanks for reading!

Re: Page 24

Freya — Sat, 15 Aug 2015 10:18:41 -0000

Thank you! I won't say any more for fear of minor spoilers...

Re: The Best Webcomics

Freya — Sat, 15 Aug 2015 14:57:19 -0000

This list could do with some more long-form stuff. Also, time travel. Here: http://retrobladecomic.com/...

Re: Page 25

Freya — Sun, 23 Aug 2015 16:41:06 -0000

Tulip farmer, love it :D you might be onto something there...

Re: Page 24

Freya — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:54:18 -0000

haha, apt :)

Re: Page 26

Freya — Sat, 29 Aug 2015 02:20:33 -0000

:D what were you expecting?

Re: Chapter 2: Brokers Vale: Page 105

Freya — Sat, 29 Aug 2015 03:09:00 -0000

wow, the detail in that last panel is amazing!

Re: Devil's Candy - ch02p35

Freya — Sat, 29 Aug 2015 03:31:44 -0000

so dynamic, love it (yay Kazu is saved!)