Spedwell

As the article points out, TSA is using this tech to improve efficiency. Every request for manual verification breaks their flow, requires an agent to come address you, and eats more time. At the very least, you ought not to scan in the hopes that TSA metrics look poor enough they decide this tech isn't practical to use.

Again, I am really wanting to see this EU case you reference, because this is an issue I have been reading up on. Do you have a reference for me?

The points linked above allege Valve will delist a game from their platform if the price is lower off-platform (even for non-key sales), correct?

This is called a "Platform Most Favored Nation" clause, and it has anti-competitive effects. It is controlling the price off-platform using the leverage of market share to coerce behaviors out of publishers.

Please also link me this European court case, I have been unable to locate it myself.

It's an ongoing case, so I don't know what you expect of me here. My reply was to correct your misunderstanding about the focus of the case, which is not limited to the use of steam keys as you originally claimed.

I am not aware of the european case you reference, would you mind pointing me to where I can learn more?

If that is demonstrably true, I'd like to see the demonstration. In fact, the case alleges the policy extends to non-key sales (see pts 204, 205, 207, 208).

I haven't read it either. There is however a If Books Could Kill episode about it that is very worth listening to.

I like Wolfire. Their head (David Rosen) had a really good procedural animation talk at GDC about a decade ago, their games are pretty good, and they started up Humble before it spun off on its own.

Before tarnishing their reputation, I'd suggest reading up on the actual complaints put forth in the lawsuit. I've done so extensively, I think they have very solid grounds to go after Valve (Valve's behaviour is comparable to Amazon's in terms of anticompetitive practices).

I'm curious what issue you see with that? It seems like the project is only accepting unrestricted donations, but is there something suspicious about shopify that makes it's involvement concerning (I don't know much about them)?

404media is doing excellent work on tracking the non-consentual porn market and technology. Unfortunately, you don't really see the larger, more mainstream outlets giving it the same attention beyond its effect on Taylor Swift.

I first heard a full breakdown of the environmental regulatory aspects of SpaceX's operations in Tech Wont Save Us ep. 186 from September of last year. Definitely worth the listen (every episode of that show is worth the listen, in fact).

Wow, what a dishearteningly predictable attack.

I have studied computer architecture and hardware security at the graduate level—though I am far from an expert. That said, any student in the classroom could have laid out the theoretical weaknesses in a "data memory-dependent prefetcher".

My gut says (based on my own experience having a conversation like this) the engineers knew there was a "information leak" but management did not take it seriously. It's hard to convince someone without a cryptographic background why you need to {redesign/add a workaround/use a lower performance design} because of "leaks". If you can't demonstrate an attack they will assume the issue isn't exploitable.

Fanatical and humble bundle (the good old days) are good examples.

Incidentally Wolfire Games—the studio that founded Humble (but no longer operates it)—is currently in class-action litigation against Valve for this very issue.

I don’t know what you say “non-discounted”, cheaper is cheaper no matter what.

The Steam Distribution Agreement AFAIK allows temporary sales on other platforms to undercut Steam, but requires the "resting" price matches that on Steam. By specifying "non-discounted" I meant to indicate that although sales do exist on other platforms, the normal price of an item always matches on Steam. A quick few spot checks show the non-sale price of games on Humble, Steam, and Fanatical are equal.

"Cheaper is cheaper" kind of overlooks the core issue. Ultimately a publisher on Epic Games Store—which has a fee of 12% instead of Steam's 30%—can have a lower price for a game as part of a promotion, but can't just sell every game 18% cheaper always without violating Steam's terms and being risk being de-listed.

Steam doesn’t get a cut from keys sold in perfectly legal thirth party stores like fanatical, humble or gmg. Epic does not sell steam keys so obviously no.

Okay, gotcha. Yeah, I misunderstood. For Steam Keys it's pretty clear that Valve should be able to control the price since they provide the services after that key is purchased.

But the PMFN applies to all copies, even those distributed outside of Steam (e.g. the direct-from-publisher option I mentioned). Last time I was in a thread on this, another user found the following in the complaint (page 55) from the Wolfire v. Valve case mentioned above:

204. TomG also explained to another game publisher that the publisher should “[t]hink critically about how your decisions might affect Steam customers, and Valve. If the offer you’re making fundamentally disadvantages someone who bought your game on Steam, it’s probably not a great thing for us or our customers (even if you don’t find a specific rule describing precisely that scenario).” In that same thread, TomG responded to a question by stating: “we usually choose not to sell games if they’re being sold on our store at a price notably higher than other stores. That is, we’d want to get that lower base price as well, or not sell the game at all."
205. In response to one inquiry from a game publisher, in another example, Valve explained: “We basically see any selling of the game on PC, Steam key or not, as a part of the same shared PC market- so even if you weren’t using Steam keys, we’d just choose to stop selling a game if it was always running discounts of 75% off on one store but 50% off on ours. . . .”