Originally Posted by Petrah
 Only 15 years? |
I'm only 27, and I grew up in a rural area where dial-up was still considered state-of-the-art when I left in 2002.
Originally Posted by Petrah
At any rate, you're looking at it from an end user point of view.
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Well, since in this situation I
am an end user, and my post was addressing
other end users, I think it's pretty reasonable for me to speak from the perspective of an end user.
Originally Posted by Petrah
If I did have the time for something like this, I would probably call the university and speak to them directly about your program.
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I just can't wrap my head around this level of paranoia about a simple link on the internet. Let's say the guy is a scam. Let's say he has managed to hack into the web servers of Colorado State University, and has spent hours crafting all of these web pages he's linked to to make himself look legitimate.
Let's say there's some kind of virus on one of the pages. If your computer is reasonably up to date, and reasonably protected, the chances of that virus being able to infect you are pretty low. Even if it
does get through, the chances of it having an immediate and catastrophic effect on your computer are probably pretty low (I'm basing this on the fact that I've cleaned up dozens of computers for friends and relatives that had dozens or even hundreds of viruses on them, yet had continued to function without data loss for months or years).
Let's say there is no virus, but there's some other kind of scam. Let's say, for example, that the addon he wants you to install has some sneaky code in it that sends his character some gold the next time you open a mailbox. The addon is published on Curse, he's posted the link publicly here on WoWInterface, and people in this very thread have already reviewed the addon's code and commented on it. Do you really think that nobody would have noticed something like that?
Finally, let's say his whole point is just to get you to "waste" 90 minutes of your day playing WoW with some strangers. Even if that's the case, and the promise of a 30-day game card is a lie, who cares? Does it really ruin your life, or have any effect on anything, if you spend 90 minutes of your day playing WoW with some strangers for "nothing"? All of the time you spend playing WoW is for "nothing".
I just don't understand why there's so much fear and paranoia going on in this thread. The guy sounds legit, and I can't see much potential of any kind of payoff even if it is an elaborate scam. If you don't trust him, or don't trust the links he posted, don't click on the links, and don't volunteer for his reasearch. It's that simple.
I'm generally a pretty big pessimist, so the fact that I'm apparently on the optimistic side of this conversation concerns me.
