Posted by zEro on March 15th, 2009
Lately I fired up and installed my untouched copy of World of Warcraft bought from USA. It had been sitting in the closet due to some initial failures I incurred 
But finally it installed, I created an account and logged on.
Lo and Behold, I had to download some 3 to 5 gibs of updates just to play the game. I knew that would happen… without regrets I started downloading via the patch downloaded bundled with the game.
It uses a dynamic hash table (DHT) mechanism to keep a track of IPs sharing the same content. Much akin to the bittorrent protocol. Anyways, given to the fact that I am in Pakistan and I couldn’t really find people downloading the same patch to leech from, I was getting no where near completion of the 500+ meg download.
I knew Blizzard wouldn’t leave their fans in a lurch and searched up where I could download patches via HTTP. Thankfully there was a huge repository of reliable hosts that was serving them. It was Blizzard support themselves that listed various mirrors to these patches. Without wasting a second, I started downloading them one by one.
If you are having trouble download patches, or sit behind a firewall, I suggest you try the following link: World of Warcraft Patch Mirrors.
Good luck, have fun!
Posted by zEro on February 28th, 2008
Just like Blizzard Entertainment of the World of WarCraft fame, I too have no comments on this.
Over the last few years, “virtual worlds” such as Second Life and other role-playing games have become home to millions of computer-generated personas known as avatars. By directing their avatars, people can take on alternate personalities, socialize, explore and earn and spend money across uncharted online landscapes.
Nascent economies have sprung to life in these 3-D worlds, complete with currency, banks and shopping malls. Corporations and government agencies have opened animated virtual offices, and a growing number of organizations hold meetings where avatars gather and converse in newly minted conference centers.
Intelligence officials who have examined these systems say they’re convinced that the qualities that many computer users find so attractive about virtual worlds — including anonymity, global access and the expanded ability to make financial transfers outside normal channels — have turned them into seedbeds for transnational threats. (WaPo)
What they intend to do,
The project will involve sifting through vast amounts of data, looking for suspicious behavior and actions. The Intelligence Community wants to target MMOs because they typically fall outside the purview of study. The spying project would only use publicly available data. The findings of the endeavor would not be classified.
Data mining is the process of going through large amounts of information for specific relevant information. This is a process that has long been used in the business industry for product and market research. The government plans to use these same techniques to root out terrorist messages in online content. (WoWInsider)
Read related articles:
- World of WarCraft Forum Post and Discussion.
- Middle-East Expert Scoffs at MMO Terror Cell Notion.
- U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft.
Image courtesy Wired Blog.
