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I think it is funny that the YC crowd points to "naughty" when it benefits them and says things like "Am I supposed to feel sorry for someone that got caught ex

by johnnyg 12y ago

I think it is funny that the YC crowd points to "naughty" when it benefits them and says things like "Am I supposed to feel sorry for someone that got caught exploiting online games?" when it doesn't. When someone will take apart a game for fun, for better or for worse and often both, it is intrinsic. We praise capncrunch and damn this guy? I'm sorry you lost your parents Scott. Congratulations on your child and marriage. YC is a mixed bag but I feel home here too. There are a lot of ways to hack the world. I'm not sure if you've picked inconsistent/risky ones because of personality type/thrill or because it is where you landed. If its where you landed, move toward the center. Sounds like you've got the basic small business skills to sell many things and you don't require permission or motivation to do so. Consider hacking on your life instead of the games. What do you know that's inefficient where you are and could be interesting? I hear heavy equipment auctions are big and profitable in rural areas and I know from experience it is a space software hasn't touched. Pick a product or set of products (wave energy harvesting equipment?) and niche it via PPC. See what the market is like for them on eBay. Go with the black hat and get picked up by a security consulting firm. I've rarely seen them be degree choosy with people who have the chops. Don't make the mistake of thinking the only interesting things are on the fringes. Lastly, ignore the rest of the noise of this thread. Keep your head up. Stay interested. Stay playful.

diminoten 12y ago
> Go with the black hat and get picked up by a security consulting firm. Go with the black hat and end up in jail. Don't do this, guy. It's not worth it. Please do good. :-/
- johnnyg 12y ago
  I did not say that clearly. I mean if you like breaking things for fun, work for a digital security company and get paid to do it. Be the guy who is paid to do penetration tests and the like. That's "Black Hat" work turned to the good.
  - diminoten 12y ago
    Ah, no worries. To be fair, he's more or less already a "black hat" insofar that he's profited off of the arguably illegal use of computer systems. I wouldn't be so hasty to dismiss HN's attitude towards his previous company -- I think if he tries to get a job and cites his "dupe" work, he's going to be surprised how few folks will be willing to work with him. I work for a security firm (FireEye, woo we're hiring!) and while I'm not specifically on the consulting side, I get the sense that it's a very straight-laced bunch of folks who take their jobs incredibly seriously. You don't want to walk into an interview with a guy who works with the FBI on the regular and confess to constantly, repeatedly, and profitably committing a computer crime. It's just not going to work well for you, all moralization aside.
  - cortesoft 12y ago
    I think you mean "White Hat"
dang 12y ago
Thanks for this comment. It's filled with warmth and insight. "We praise capncrunch and damn this guy" is a great point. I don't think the responses here are a single "YC crowd" being hypocritical. The thread is more interesting than that. It's at least two different groups having polarized responses to the article. One group is rule-oriented and binary, quickly seizes on any violation of the (personal or social) code they believe in, and extends that into a personal judgment of the violator. Such people often express their judgments harshly. It's worth remembering that the same harshness inevitably applies to themselves; one doesn't get to handle that acid with gloves. The other group, of course, identifies with the author's pluck and self-motivation and doesn't hold his dodgy beginnings against him. They don't necessarily support the cheating but admire the ingenuity more, and are generally more indulgent. They probably read the story as what PG called being "relentlessly resourceful". This dichotomy plays out on HN all the time, though rarely so vividly. Both groups are well-represented both on HN and among programmers in general.
- calibraxis 12y ago
  Re "They don't support the cheating": this person struggles with debt and death. Great if they made desperately needed money from some gaming corporation's bugs. By playing a metagame which is probably more fun than the intended game. Unless there's some awful crime I missed, I commend the author's hacking (if they want such a commendation).
  - dang 12y ago
    Ok, I'll add "necessarily" to accommodate you.
- sanderjd 12y ago
  I think there's a great point inside your comment, but that the way you have expressed it is unkindly biased against those on what I surmise to be the opposite of your side of the debate. When describing the first group, you use lots of seemingly negative descriptions: "rule-oriented and binary", "quickly seizes on any violation", "extends that into a personal judgment", "express their judgments harshly", and "that acid". When describing the other group you use lots of positive language: "pluck and self-motivation", "admire the ingenuity", "generally more indulgent", and "relentlessly resourceful". Plus there is an appeal to PG's authority on this site. There are positive and negative aspects of both sides here, and I think you're being pretty harsh toward one of the factions.
benihana 12y ago
>When someone will take apart a game for fun, for better or for worse and often both, it is intrinsic. OP was taking apart a game for profit, not fun. Taking apart a game to because you have an intrinsic drive to understand how things work is one thing. Taking apart a game to exploit glitches to make real life money is completely different - that's why people get irritated at this and I don't think you understand that. In games with markets and limited drops, it's understandable that it pisses people off - introducing duped items lowers the value of every instance of that item in the market, which affects people who legitimately play the game. Hacking a single player game to make yourself a demigod in it is awesome because it doesn't affect other people. I don't know who capncrunch is and I can't speak to what you perceive as some kind of HN bias, but I'm reading this thread and seeing many different responses posted by individual people. The most hostile comment I've read is yours. Lastly, ignore the rest of the noise of this thread. This is really obnoxious. You're essentially dismissing everyone else's opinion in this thread, whether you've read it and understood it or not. You have no idea about what OP is doing, who they are, or what they're capable of and or what their context is and you're saying "ignore all advice but mine." Incredibly arrogant and dismissive towards the rest of the community.
- scobar 12y ago
  I understand how painful economy-ruining exploits can be as a player who has been through that multiple times when exploiters acted in carelessness or disregard. I didn't express it well enough in the article, but one of the most difficult parts of the business was finding the balance where I could please the maximum number of item-buying players without even putting a dent in the value of those items in the economy. It was just as important to me that the items retain their maximum value. Due to everyone's obliviousness and doubt about the exploit, I think I was successful in maintaining that balance. I believe I was watching the economies at least as close as the game developer. It wasn't until after foreign gold-selling companies got their hands on a different dupe method years later and acted with complete disregard for the game's economy that anyone had even noticed.
  - atomical 12y ago
    I think you are too wrapped up in the morality of something that doesn't even come close to a real business. It seems a lot of people on here play these games so they find it easy to feed some anger into this topic. I can tell you that most people are probably indifferent to fairness in online games and won't be calling their senator any time soon.
scobar 12y ago
Thank you very much for your kind and helpful response. I expected this post to get very little attention, but in the overwhelming response it's been amazing to read comments like yours. Thankfully my mother is still alive, and is enjoying checking off what she still can from her bucket list. We're very grateful she's done well with the chemo so far. Hacking my life is exactly what I've been up to recently. I'm learning, as fast as I can, everything I'll need to know to be the full stack developer for the project I'm working on. I'm so thankful for the free resources available to learn from.
atomical 12y ago
My Dad has been selling heavy equipment. There are plenty of online auction sites but an in person auction is incredibly effective. Also, industry magazines and local publications often advertise heavy equipment. Most rural folks I know don't have reliable internet and a good portion of the demographic doesn't use the internet. I really don't see a good market here.

by johnnyg 12y ago

diminoten 12y ago

> Go with the black hat and get picked up by a security consulting firm. Go with the black hat and end up in jail. Don't do this, guy. It's not worth it. Please do good. :-/

johnnyg 12y ago
I did not say that clearly. I mean if you like breaking things for fun, work for a digital security company and get paid to do it. Be the guy who is paid to do penetration tests and the like. That's "Black Hat" work turned to the good.
- diminoten 12y ago
  Ah, no worries. To be fair, he's more or less already a "black hat" insofar that he's profited off of the arguably illegal use of computer systems. I wouldn't be so hasty to dismiss HN's attitude towards his previous company -- I think if he tries to get a job and cites his "dupe" work, he's going to be surprised how few folks will be willing to work with him. I work for a security firm (FireEye, woo we're hiring!) and while I'm not specifically on the consulting side, I get the sense that it's a very straight-laced bunch of folks who take their jobs incredibly seriously. You don't want to walk into an interview with a guy who works with the FBI on the regular and confess to constantly, repeatedly, and profitably committing a computer crime. It's just not going to work well for you, all moralization aside.
- cortesoft 12y ago
  I think you mean "White Hat"

dang 12y ago

Thanks for this comment. It's filled with warmth and insight. "We praise capncrunch and damn this guy" is a great point. I don't think the responses here are a single "YC crowd" being hypocritical. The thread is more interesting than that. It's at least two different groups having polarized responses to the article. One group is rule-oriented and binary, quickly seizes on any violation of the (personal or social) code they believe in, and extends that into a personal judgment of the violator. Such people often express their judgments harshly. It's worth remembering that the same harshness inevitably applies to themselves; one doesn't get to handle that acid with gloves. The other group, of course, identifies with the author's pluck and self-motivation and doesn't hold his dodgy beginnings against him. They don't necessarily support the cheating but admire the ingenuity more, and are generally more indulgent. They probably read the story as what PG called being "relentlessly resourceful". This dichotomy plays out on HN all the time, though rarely so vividly. Both groups are well-represented both on HN and among programmers in general.

calibraxis 12y ago
Re "They don't support the cheating": this person struggles with debt and death. Great if they made desperately needed money from some gaming corporation's bugs. By playing a metagame which is probably more fun than the intended game. Unless there's some awful crime I missed, I commend the author's hacking (if they want such a commendation).
- dang 12y ago
  Ok, I'll add "necessarily" to accommodate you.
sanderjd 12y ago
I think there's a great point inside your comment, but that the way you have expressed it is unkindly biased against those on what I surmise to be the opposite of your side of the debate. When describing the first group, you use lots of seemingly negative descriptions: "rule-oriented and binary", "quickly seizes on any violation", "extends that into a personal judgment", "express their judgments harshly", and "that acid". When describing the other group you use lots of positive language: "pluck and self-motivation", "admire the ingenuity", "generally more indulgent", and "relentlessly resourceful". Plus there is an appeal to PG's authority on this site. There are positive and negative aspects of both sides here, and I think you're being pretty harsh toward one of the factions.

benihana 12y ago

>When someone will take apart a game for fun, for better or for worse and often both, it is intrinsic. OP was taking apart a game for profit, not fun. Taking apart a game to because you have an intrinsic drive to understand how things work is one thing. Taking apart a game to exploit glitches to make real life money is completely different - that's why people get irritated at this and I don't think you understand that. In games with markets and limited drops, it's understandable that it pisses people off - introducing duped items lowers the value of every instance of that item in the market, which affects people who legitimately play the game. Hacking a single player game to make yourself a demigod in it is awesome because it doesn't affect other people. I don't know who capncrunch is and I can't speak to what you perceive as some kind of HN bias, but I'm reading this thread and seeing many different responses posted by individual people. The most hostile comment I've read is yours. Lastly, ignore the rest of the noise of this thread. This is really obnoxious. You're essentially dismissing everyone else's opinion in this thread, whether you've read it and understood it or not. You have no idea about what OP is doing, who they are, or what they're capable of and or what their context is and you're saying "ignore all advice but mine." Incredibly arrogant and dismissive towards the rest of the community.

scobar 12y ago
I understand how painful economy-ruining exploits can be as a player who has been through that multiple times when exploiters acted in carelessness or disregard. I didn't express it well enough in the article, but one of the most difficult parts of the business was finding the balance where I could please the maximum number of item-buying players without even putting a dent in the value of those items in the economy. It was just as important to me that the items retain their maximum value. Due to everyone's obliviousness and doubt about the exploit, I think I was successful in maintaining that balance. I believe I was watching the economies at least as close as the game developer. It wasn't until after foreign gold-selling companies got their hands on a different dupe method years later and acted with complete disregard for the game's economy that anyone had even noticed.
- atomical 12y ago
  I think you are too wrapped up in the morality of something that doesn't even come close to a real business. It seems a lot of people on here play these games so they find it easy to feed some anger into this topic. I can tell you that most people are probably indifferent to fairness in online games and won't be calling their senator any time soon.

scobar 12y ago

Thank you very much for your kind and helpful response. I expected this post to get very little attention, but in the overwhelming response it's been amazing to read comments like yours. Thankfully my mother is still alive, and is enjoying checking off what she still can from her bucket list. We're very grateful she's done well with the chemo so far. Hacking my life is exactly what I've been up to recently. I'm learning, as fast as I can, everything I'll need to know to be the full stack developer for the project I'm working on. I'm so thankful for the free resources available to learn from.

atomical 12y ago

My Dad has been selling heavy equipment. There are plenty of online auction sites but an in person auction is incredibly effective. Also, industry magazines and local publications often advertise heavy equipment. Most rural folks I know don't have reliable internet and a good portion of the demographic doesn't use the internet. I really don't see a good market here.