Joe

I find it pretty useful to help get me over mental hurdle of starting something. So it’s faster than me procrastinating for another day. ;-)

Hmm. You are right, but they might not need it for every region. Steam is probably big enough that existing regional companies would come to it and be eager to form partnerships. They could become more of a payment processor aggregator, focused on a low risk market segment. And of course they can do CCs directly too - that’s the easy part.

The challenge will be to get consumers on board. I know that I groan every time I need to enter my CC details online these days.

They would face anti-competitive behaviour from Peepal though. So it’s a risk.

Internally, they are probably already working on ways to appropriately segment their catalog based on payment provider. “Sorry User, you cannot purchase title X using Paypal. We recommend $Competitor instead.”

It sounds like some payment processors are treating mastercard’s contractual requirements as a hard risk in this case - maybe it’s justified, maybe not. Try getting corporate lawyers to be risk averse in the finance world. Mastercard doesn’t seem to want to soften their wording but talks platitudes in public statements. Shrug.

They could do it with significantly fewer people, for themselves and even for GOG, Itch and potentially others. Their use-case is digital payments for games, which is limited in scope and risk. PCI and compliance is a PITA, but manageable.

Do you get billed every 4 months, or why frame it that way? Or is this a weird danish thing, like your numbers? :-)

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hacker

“The media’s definition of the real term malicious cracker. A hacker used to be a well respected individual who loved to tinker with gadgets.”, plus a few other definitions.

It’s time for Steam to launch their own payment processing company, and apply pressure directly on the card networks and the future competition.

It won’t be nearly as profitable as their current business model, but sometimes industries need a shakeup.

Judges usually don’t know this stuff, but they primarily work with systems and software supplied by the state…whose experts should know what they are doing.

My bet is that this guy decided to work on personal equipment, probably in violation of the rules. Being a judge, he’s unlikely to be sanctioned for it, and will certainly learn from the experience. If anything, there may be some internal discussions which we’ll never hear about.

Law is an area where AI can add value, though… searching through past rulings and legal opinions is tedious, and anything that can assist to find needles in haystacks would be welcome. It shouldn’t be used to write legal judgements or arguments though…

They have a fetishist concept that anyone with a business empire is someone to be admired. They probably think they have a chance, the fools.

I don’t think you need separate laptops, but a separate router may be useful.

If you use Linux, you can have apps isolated to their own lightweight network namespaces (like containers), using different VPNs. Otherwise VMs can serve a similar purpose on Windows and Macs.

Iptables can also be used to block traffic, and force it through proxies (which can be whitelisted by uid/gid) or VPNs.

If you want a more secure VPN setup, I’d even recommend having the VPN(s) running on the router (eg. portable OpenWRT setup) so your laptop never gets offered a public IP / connects directly to network. Put a proxy on it for special (eg. DNS based) routing exceptions, like banking from real IP, reddit via the US, etc.

Disable IPv6 on your router or primary interface, and enable it on your VPN. If anything can discover an Internet IP on your PC, the link can be formed. Worst case, you are not using the VPN for IPv6 at all.

In the EU, there are typically three levels of VAT, with members having some leeway to choose which applies to what.

Health services, public transport, rentals/housing and education are often exempt, while most groceries and medications are at a reduced rate. eg. Germany has 7% and 19% as the reduced and normal rates.

Income taxes are additional and (in most EU countries progressive). Social insurances are often separate, and similarly progressive.

This works alongside the basic welfare nets, which ensures that people have just enough to survive if they fell through the cracks. Without this net, even the reduced rates on groceries would seem punitive.

Not every EU country is equal, but there is a goal to provide these societal safety nets alongside fair taxation, which is invested back in society.

They could. The protocol also supports IP spoofing, so doxing could also be a thing.

For individuals, it is a time consuming and costly legal process, whether justified or not. For the law firm, it costs a few cents per letter, but they get a few hundred (or more) euros when some sucker pays.

In Germany and no doubt some other countries, private law firms can (on behalf of the copyright holders) request people’s identity based on residential IP addresses and then send extortionist legal threats. Apparently an IP appearing on a public tracker can be enough to trigger it, without any confirmed data transfer.

VPNs are common and usually sufficient.

The cops won’t actually do anything, but you will have a case #. Theft is a crime, and crime should be reported.

She is just on someone else’s payroll.

It’s a trait of sociopathy (psychopathy?), I think. One tends to align oneself with the views of the other person (aka lying). And to survive a demanding role that requires one to form and hold and justify one’s own opinions, he probably takes the lazy route and keeps the last persona until his next mental reset.

He is an imposter in his own mind, and we know it.

Heh. Tax returns and music should have been the giveaways, although I know someone who takes great satisfaction in taking every tax deduction they legally can, down to the last cent. :-P

TV and games sure, but embrace music - (try to) learn to play an instrument, and you will appreciate listening so much more!

“Cringe!” seems appropriate.