Creepy and Cute torrent messed everything up.

[kanibuns]

When I got it from TPB the creature creator started encountering errors and closing every time.  I tried a variety of solutions including replacing the data files (because reinstalling requires uninstalling spore, which I have a paid copy of, and fuck if I want to use one of my THREE INSTALLS EVER on this), c+a+ding everything else remotely ea related or possibly messing with it (that one worked--once), exiting daemontools, running it with daemontools up, and I just don't know what I'm doing.

Anyone else have these issues?

[J. M. Pescado]

Nope. But if you had the Arrficial version of Splotch, too, you wouldn't be worried about reinstalls.

[kanibuns]

It was a present, in my defense, I'm a habitual pirate otherwise.   

[MrMugg]

I have an arrrtificial version of Spore and a legal of Spore as well (got it for $10 in a package deal with other games).  I'm able to reinstall my legal version of Spore as many times as I want to.  I just don't download the EA Manager or register; nor do I care to.  I can always download content manually if I so desire.

I'd like to get an arrrtificial version of Creepy and Cute, but I'm not sure how to safely acquire it.  I've already been "slapped" once for getting Sims Castaway from TPB.  Oddly enough, I didn't think they gave a crap about that game compared to games like Spore and Mass Effect which I never got slapped for.

I could use some "arrring" 101 tips that perhaps I missed.  I half wonder if using Peer Guardian 2 attracted unwanted attention.  Any advice out there?

[seelindarun]

How did you get slapped?

I'm a complete noob to arr'ing and managed to acquire all EP/SPs for TS2, Spore and a few others.  No slapping.  I don't think I've been doing anything special, except maybe trying to choose reputable files. 

[jsalemi]

How did you get slapped?

Some scanning company sees you seeding a game and sends a form message to your ISP about illegal activity.  Most ISPs just forward it on and say "don't do that".

PeerGuardian will protect you against that somewhat, but you do have to update its block list often, since the scanners change their IP addresses frequently.  One way to avoid the problem, especially if you're not a heavy torrent user, is to just not seed anything.  You do help the torrent while you're downloading, and you can set your client to exit when the download is complete so it doesn't go into full seeding mode.  Move the files somewhere else, and then delete the torrent from your client next time you fire it up.

[J. M. Pescado]

This is why you use backscattered Internet. Transmit as a bogus IP from a different source, and then catch the backscatter by sniffing. Then send your reply out by dropping the packet onto the network elsewhere. It works like so (simplified version):

Code:

       REMOTE HOST ---------------MESSAGE-------------> (UNUSED IP)
            ^                                       |
            |                                       |
       SPOOF REPLY                                  |
            |                                       V 
         PROXY<---ENCRYPTED--(YOU)<---ENCRYPTED----YOUR SPY NODE

By running my Internets like this, no eavesdropper at any point sees an actual coherent conversation. Your ISP sees only a one-way communication with no response to an invalid IP.

[MrMugg]

How did you get slapped?

Some scanning company sees you seeding a game and sends a form message to your ISP about illegal activity.  Most ISPs just forward it on and say "don't do that".

That's exactly what happened.  As soon as I was done, I completely shut Bittorrent down.  I think they noticed me since it was seeding while downloading also.  I suppose I can set it for downloading and not uploading at all.  I figure they have their eye on my IP address waiting for me to do something else, so I haven't tried to get anything.  I was going to wait for the infamous Sims 3 just to see how crappy.... err, revolutionary it really is.

How do you backscatter?

[J. M. Pescado]

You have to rewrite a lot of code to enable this.

[kanibuns]

I figured it out via reinstalling, but for anyone who has this same issue, do not install the newest spore patch before Creepy and Cute.  It'll update anyway in installation and I'm guessing something just went nuts when trying to.  The patch after it works fine though, and thank god because I need me some bug arms.