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Note: Based on observing question-taker's profile, he is still taking answers, so two parts may or may not completely summarize the AMA.

Questions	Answers
Space Cadet Pinball, how does it feel to be the most played "bring your child to work day" game? I remember it fondly.	The best part is that I used to "teach" computer lab when my kids were in K through 6th grades, back when Pinball was still included and well known. The kids could care less about anything technically hard or interesting that I'd worked on, of course, but Pinball gave me instant street cred with them.
	Especially cool was being able to walk over and enter a secret code that only I knew that would turn on all the cheats, like infinite lives. They thought I was a wizard at that age!
	The code, by the way, is "hidden test" without the quotes! Then various keys do different things, you can click and drag the ball around, and so on. Google it for the gory details!
	I always like to point out that I was working with a full set of original IP from Maxis, so I had nothing to do with the design of the game, or it's art, etc... that was all done! My contribution was volunteering to port it, including a partial rewrite from asm to C, to work on MIPS, Alpha, PowerPC, IA64, ARM, and so on, which was actually a lot of work. But I got it into the Windows box, which is how and why everyone knows it today. But all credit for the gameplay and so on goes to Maxis, all I did was not screw it up in that case!
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To add a bit of detail re Space Cadet Pinball: we built Space Cadet originally at my company Cinematronics and did a deal with Microsoft to ship it with the Plus Pack that accompanied Win 95 and Win 98. While it technically didn't ship w/ Windows, the Plus Pack had something like a 25% attach rate and pinball wound up on most systems anyway. Microsoft actually had an option in our original contract from 1994 to ship it with the OS itself or the Plus Pack. Maxis was our publisher for the subsequent retail version, and later bought my company. More germane to this thread: I believe Dave's port entered the picture a few years later, after Win 98, and was likely critical to pinball continuing to ship on later iterations of the Windows OS (i.e. 32-bit). I definitely appreciate the time he put in to give the game extra years of life on the Windows platform. Kevin Gliner, game designer and producer for 3D Pinball, and co-founder of Cinematronics.	Pleased to FINALLY put a name to the game design! You should update the Wikipedia article for the game, as I think it lists Matt Ridgway, who might have been sound? I've been crediting Maxis for years, not knowing the role of Cinematronics who was who. One thing that confused me: wasn't there a company that did video games in the 80s called Cinematronics? Any relation? Star Castle, Armor Attack, etc...
	As for timing, this likely between the Win95 and Win98 Plus! packs. It was very early on at least, and shipped at least in NT4, and perhaps earlier in "SUR" release that ran atop NT 3.51, but I don't have access to any source files to check dates!
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I keep meaning to fix that wikipedia article, there's a significant number of people that worked on the game and for some reason only Matt (an independent sound guy who did some excellent part-time contract work for us) is listed. There's also a lot of confusion about the timing of various releases and the companies involved, and who owns it now (EA). I actually have all the original source, although no rights to any of it anymore. Hard to say on the timing of the port. I was working in Redmond in '99 when I got word someone had done an NT4 and Win2000 port (I'm assuming that was you), so that was the first time the port showed up on my radar. I have a more confident memory (and contracts, email, etc) of all the events related to how pinball came about and the first couple years after it was released. I like to think pinball was the very first Win95 game (it was fun to watch Gates and Leno pretend to play it on stage at the Win95 launch event), but of course there were other games that shipped with the launch too. You're correct, there was an 80s arcade game company called Cinematronics that went out of business long before we started in 1994, and someone had let the trademark lapse. How we came to be called Cinematronics is a long story for another time...	NT shipped in 96, so the version I did for it would have been done in 95. I remember working on it about the time Win9X was shipping or in late beta. I could be wrong on that part, but Nov 95 would be my guess.
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Damn dude, porting assembly? You are a legend!	Thanks - we actually did all of our debugging in assembler. We didn't have any source-level or line-level debugging at all (except as noted below). So you'd connect to a machine through an ssh-like tool and then, if the symbols were right, you could get a callstack and inspect memory, disassemble functions, and so on. But since we spent much of our day staring at assembly, I became reasonably adept at it.
	I say "reasonably" as I was lazy enough that I would compile the components of interest to me with Visual Studio PDB symbols so that, if I could repro on my own machine, I could then source-level debug it. That made me fast at some stuff that others were slow at, but I likely never got as proficient at asm debugging as someone who never had an alternative. I had a developer friend named Bob whom was an ntsd (our debugger) superstar, and he'd write expressions inside of breakpoints to fire conditionally, that kind of thing. So I did learn that trick, but I'm sure there were dozens I just never knew.
	That all said, we rarely if ever coded in assembly. All coding was in C/C++.
	In the Pinball case, parts of the original were written in hand-coded in asm by Maxis, like the sound engine, and wouldn't have had a hope of working on anything but an x86. Rather than be lame and not have sound on the RISC platforms, I opted to rewrite that stuff in C so that it was portable.
	The RISC platforms also bring their own set of problems like 32-bit alignment for data. And being on Windows NT (now just "Windows") meant being Unicode, but fortunately there isn't a TON of text in a pinball game!
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boytekka: damn, the only time that I did assembly language is when we tried moving a small machine through the printer port.. I miss those days LordApocalyptica: Only time I did assembly was when I wanted to make a game on my TI-84, and decided that I didn't want to. I miss those days too.	First game I wrote in assembly I did in a machine language monitor on my C64. You can't (easily) relocate 6502 so to add code you'd have to jump out, do stuff, and jump back... Crazy!
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If I can ask a question, how does it feels to go from coding with basically zero help to working with modern IDE and code editors that give you a lot of infos, tips, error notifications and so on? I've started programming like a year ago from zero, and I don't think I could be able to program like y'all did 20 years ago or more. Thanks for doing this AMA anyways!	You're very welcome! The progression in tools has been amazing, really. I remember HESMON and my first machine language monitors for the PET and C64, then really nice ROM dev environments, and CygnusEd for the Amiga... all the way up to PlatformIO and Visual Studio Code.
	My most recent "WOW" moment was adding a line to my lib_deps line in platformio, which magically included the library being developed at the URL on github. So you can link to online projects... cool.
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Just wanted to say thanks for the Alpha port!	Alpha AXP was by far the hardest to debug! "Branch later, maybe"
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I just want to thank you for my first experience with pinball. I am now a top 100 competitive pinball player and own 16 pinball machines.	That's cool, which do you collect primarily? I was always a fan of Williams, and am FB friends with a couple of their older devs like Steve Ritchie, Larry DeMar, and Eugene Jarvis (but I should be careful, Bill Gates warned me never to name drop :-) )
	I have a Black Knight 2000 as my own machine right now!
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I have a wide range. Some modern Sterns like Metallica, Jurassic Park, Tron and Iron Maiden. Older Bally’s like Frontier and Fathom. 2 classic Bally/Williams Dr Who and Attack From Mars. Plus a few EMs. I like them all! Attack From Mars was the game that got me into the physical world of pinball. Collecting has been more of a recent pandemic thing since I can’t go out and play. I miss traveling around the country playing in big tournaments. Oh yeah and Steve Ritchie is quite the character. You must meet him some day. I’ve met him a few times and each time has earned a place in my pinball stories I talk about with friends.	Congrats on the collection, that's a nice set! I've never met Steve - I did meet Larry DeMar in vegas. I was playing at a slot machine and he was next to me, and had a name tag, and I was like... "Excuse me sir, but does the word Robotron mean anything?" and it turned out to be him!
Asking as someone pretty new in software development, did you experience impostor syndrome? If so, how did you deal with it?	My first couple of years were very productive, so I wasn't insecure about my output, but even so I definitely experienced imposter syndrome. I think most people who achieve aspirational roles do... I have a friend who was in the NFL who describes the same feeling.
	Being as productive as your peers is sort of the pre-requisite, and if that's true, then remind yourself that when you were in fifth grade, the eighth graders on the playground seemed so old and mature! It's odd in that I started in 1993, but to me anyone who started in the 80s was a "true" Old Timer and remains so in my head to this day. And similarly I'm no doubt the grizzled veteran to people I hired a few years later.
	I know when I started I felt like the dumbest guy in the room, and by the end I felt like the smartest guy in the room, and I don't think I'd gotten any smarter along the way. So it's all relative and perception. Well, that and the stock caused some serious attrition of the "really smart"!
	I remember visiting Google a couple of years ago in the bathrooms they had posters that read "YOU ARE NOT AN IMPOSTER", and info about seminars and so on about it, so it's very common! I wish I had a concrete strategy for you, but I don't other than "It's commonplace, and I bet there are a ton of resources on the Web. Don't be surprised you're experiencing it!"
What would you encourage someone to start learning today related to your field?	I'm learning React at the moment. Let's face it, the web development experience is utter nonsense. So I kept hoping for something that would make it clean, and easy to make components, and to work with REST apis. So I went looking for a solution. Then I read about Angular, and it seemed like "too much" to learn for the sake of making a SPA.
	But React seems understandable enough and solves a ton of problems with web development, not the least of which is being able to intermingle HTML and Javascript (via JSX).
	As for languages, I'd probably start with Python. I prototyped a complicated LED system a couple of years ago and it was admirable what it could accomplish for an interpreted language. And you probably have to know modern Javascript as well.
Now, would you be rather interested in working for windows, macos or linux ?	I work in all three. For my own projects I write to the ASP.NET Core 3.1, and that's available on Windows, Mac, and Linux. I originally wrote my LED server to it under MacOS, then moved it to Windows with about 5 minutes of changes (related to the consoles being somewhat different). Then I moved it to Linux, where I made it work and then containerized it with Docker. I got it up and running on my Raspberry Pi and in a Windows HyperV and under WSL using Ubuntu. To me that kind of stuff is super cool.
	Once I had it working in a Docker container I deployed it to my Synology NAS, which is some variant of Linux. So my NAS runs my Christmas lights!
	I love stuff like that when it works!
	My main workstation is a Dell monitor that has an internal KVM. I have a 2013 Mac Pro connected to it, which is maxed out and then has an eGPU and eRAID setup via Thunderbolt. And then I have a 3970X Windows PC connected as well, and I can jump back and forth with a button.
	I spend most of my day in Windows now, unless it's video related, in which case I use Final Cut Pro.
Hi Dave, thanks for the AmA! In regards to task manager - often times I have to click the 'end task' button more than once to get the frozen program to actually close. Why is this? Thanks again.	Remember that, at least in my day, End Task is different than End Process. The former sends a "Please close yourself" message to the app, and if it's hung, it should then detect it and so on, but doesn't always. Imagine the app is in a weird state where it's still pumping messages, it's not hung, but it's broken. End Task likely won't work.
	That's when you need End Process, which tears everything down for you. The substantive difference is that the program gets no choice in the matter and no notification. End Task can be graceful. End Process is brutal.
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What about when the task manager stops responding? We need a task manager manager to manage the task manager. Lol	I've never seen that happen, ever, unless the system itself or the window manager is bunged in some way. Your puny Task Manager cannot save you now.
	Then again, nothing can, save a reboot.
What cool new tech are you excited about?	Right now I'm actually trying to productize something of my own, a system for doing hidden, permanently-installed LED holiday lighting. It receives the effect entirely over WiFi, or it can fall back to built-in effects and so on. Quick demo from 4th of July here:
	https://youtu.be/7QNtj2hZtaQ
	I'm done the software on the ESP32 and on the desktop, and working on the phone app now. So the next step is to find someone to manufacture the actual addressable LED strip fixtures. They'd be like under-counter LED strips that snap together end to end, but weatherproof, and with WS2813 LEDs internally.
	In terms of stuff that I'm just benefitting from, the latest CPUs from AMD are amazing. I have the 32-core 3970X and the raw computing power is hard to comprehend. That you can buy a 32-core chip for $2K (or 64-core for $4K) amazes me! Now I need to learn AI or something to make use of all of that hardware...
After the rise of WinRAR, did you continue to use the trial or did you pay?	From: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
	Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2006 3:14 PM
	To: Dave
	Subject: Your BuyRAR.com Order #: 122229610 License Key

	Attachments: rarkey.rar
	My WinRAR order number, from about 15 years ago, is above. And my WinZip license is much older than that. As someone who (a) made their real living in shareware and (b) worked on Product Activation, I'm the kind of guy who always licenses everything! You'll notice in my PlatformIO/"Arduino" video I even walk people through how to contribute to show how easy it is. I love good, cheap software.
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Would you download a car?	My wife's Tesla downloads update all the time. I'm sure they're just as complex as the mechanical components of the car, so in a sense, we already do!
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But... why did you keep the email?	I have a folder on my OneDrive called Registrations where I keep copies of license keys and registrations. So it was handy. Looks like Telix is my oldest registration from 1989 or so.
Also what was Microsoft really like back in the 90s? As a user of MS-Dos 3.30 forward till now. I’m assuming there has just been a whole tide of changes. Was double space really as funny on the dev side as it was on the user side with the slowness and the pufferfish as a logo :)	I worked on Doublespace in that I wrote a thunking layer that could live in low memory and then moved the rest of the code into the HMA. I didn't work on the compression, but odds are the guy who did is reading along right now, I bet!
	I don't really know if it was faster or slower than its contemporaries like Stacker. I wrote one for the Amiga, though didn't get it quite finished before starting at MS, and it's an interesting and hard problem to do well. At least on the AmigaDOS it was, FAT would be a tad easier.
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I mean for its time it was great. But back then floppy disks and 10M RLL-MFM drives were more the norm. It was actually awesome to have it included IN the OS instead of having to buy stacker. I think this is why I get so much of a kick out of every phishing AD that says download this to double your RAM. It just takes me back.	RAM Doublers are a whole 'nother ball of wax. Raymond Chen, in his blog "The Old New Thing", covers them well. If I understand it correctly, in the most famous case the code to do the actual memory compression was disabled, so it literally did nothing, but did it with overhead.
	On the other hand, I note that current Windows, the HyperV, and even my Synology NAS offer "Memory Compression" now so perhaps there's a time and a place on modern cpus and systems.
I'm an Engineer and regularly use MS Office to produce reports and calculations. Subscript and Superscript are something I use all the time. For at least the last 15 years, in MS Word I can hit "Ctrl +" & "Ctrl Shift +" to make the highlighted text Subscript or Superscript. But MS Word sucks for calculations, so I use MS Excel. But MS Excel it's about 8 clicks to make something super or subscript, and the hotkey technology hasn't made it in. So my question is, why was MS Office 2003 the best version of office that was ever produced?	I retired in 2003. Coincidence? I'll leave that one up to the scholars.
If you could go back and change anything about Windows without consequences or worrying about backwards compatibility, what would it be?	Format! I wrote that and since I was used to using the Visual Studio Resource Editor for dialogs, but couldn't in this case, I just laid out a stack of buttons and labels, content in the knowledge that a Program Manager or Designer would come up with a proper design for it that I would then code up. But somehow, no one did, and no one has for 25 years! So it's a big tall stack of buttons like a prairie grain elevator.
Ever met Bill Gates or have an interesting personal experience with him or another higher up you can share?	Yes, even when I was a new college hire he had the 30 of us or so over for beer and a burger in his back yard. It was a nice touch and quite informal. Obviously, at some scale, it wasn't 30 people anymore and they couldn't continue it!
	Ever play the video game Star Castle? It was like that. Concentric circles of people standing around BillG each armed with what they hope is a question or comment so clever they'll stand out in some way!
If every software you need would be available for both systems. Would you use a Linux distribution or Windows 10?	Right now I'd use Windows 10 because, if the same client software is available, I'd do it on Windows simply because I have a new 3970X w/ 128G of RAM and triple RAID0 SSDs plus an Optane stick. All for about 1/10th the price of a Mac Pro. Since the hardware is so cheap and powerful, it's really hard to resist.
	Even if all the client software were magically available, or Parallels for Linux were a thing, I'd stick with Windows because I haven't seen a Linux UI that I really like. I know everyone has a favorite... if there's an actually good and attractive one that works out of the box, let me know what distro, and maybe link a screenshot!
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Give Mint 20 with Cinnamon a fair shot! I have struggled for years trying to like a Linux distro but never found one that felt and looked right which I think had been the reason Linux hasn't been adopted mainstream but Mint20 with Cinnamon is possibly it..if not its very very close.. Has awesome multi-desltop winodws feature and you can make it basically just like Win10.. Would love to know what you think of it! 20.1 BETA just dropped and has a super interesting feature called Web Apps that needs to be checked out asap! Heres a link to the 20 long term support version.. some people do not like the Minto Logos/Backgrounds out of the box..keep in mind there are a ton of nice ones included and many more you can get quickly if that's something you don't like..what is really neat is that you can make Mint20 look like any OS.. there are themes that make it exactly like MacOS I just have not personally tried those out yet. https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3928	Thanks, I'll check out Mint!
I am looking at my copy of Douglas Coupland's "microserfs". Although it's fiction, do you think it resembles the Microsoft Culture of the time?	Lord no, that book bugged me. On the one hand, they're a bunch of pretentious and precocious, annoying kids. I worked on a team (NT) where the tone was set by Dave Cutler and the guys he brought over from Digital, so it was rather different. On the other hand, it's such a big company that odds are those four main people DID exist somewhere in the company. Just not around me!
Why was (is) a monolithic registry preferred over distributing the settings in a number of files like Unix? Why did windows remain single-user focused for so long when Unix was multi-user since the 70s? In my understanding, if there is just one user, that user has to be admin which opened Windows up to security issues. (I don't even recall any sudo-like privilege escalation in pre-XP Windows.)	Windows NT was multiluser from birth. And there's nothing about the Windows architecture that requires users to be admin; the reality, I think, is that most apps started out in Win95 land and just didn't work if they were run as non-admin, so people ran as admin because the apps required it.
	We couldn't just break all those apps and say "Oh well, get better apps" so what you got was a convention of people running as admin. But again, there's no need to. Same as Unix.
	The one exception is that under Unix it's easy to sudo and so admin work briefly. I wish Windows had (or exposed) a simpler mechanism for letting me run as a non-admin credential and escalate when needed. I know UAC does the same thing, more or less, if used cautiously.
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Yeah NT did eventually get around to fixing it. My question was really about the earlier systems, because I think you said you worked on MS-DOS? Since there were existing systems with multi-user and privilege escalation even before the first Windows, somebody must have made a conscious decision to not include that functionality.	MS-DOS was only the second or third OS I can think of for a Microprocessor (CPM, SCP, then MS-DOS). What existed for mainframes and minis didn't matter much in the memory limits available on the desktop.
What was the inspiration for Space Cadet Pinball and what is your high score?	I don't know, I wasn't the designer, the inspiration part happened separate, I provided the perspiration part! I was actually pretty good at the game, since I was literally paid to play and test it... but I don't know the score, sorry! I do have the world high score on Tempest, though! But not Pinball :-)
1. What's something super useful within Task Manager you think even seasoned Windows users don't know they can do? 2. What do you think a future version of Task Manager should be able to do?	I think CTRL_SHIFT_ESC is a surprise to a lot of people!
	I think Task Manager needs Dark Mode, and a way to show who has locked what file or device so you can kill the offender when needed.
Why is it that I can still find dialogs in Windows 10 that were clearly built using 16 bit Visual Studio 97 version?	This should explain it. When you achieve perfection, you leave it alone:
	https://youtu.be/l75a8CvIHBQ
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Please for the love of God, use your Microsoft contacts to stop the snipping tool from going away. It's literally perfect but they keep trying to discontinue it.	One Compound Word: SnagIt. It's what you need to make your life complete.
	After my time, but I heard the new snipping and history that's being built in to replace it is pretty good. It better be if they kill snipping tool!
Thanks for task manager! I use it for so many things. How do you feel about newer versions of Windows de-emphasizing the control panel in favor of their new settings app?	I'm all for it if they made sure they had 100% coverage of all settings. It's sort of weird that in this day and age, with an R&D budget in the billions, we still have a mix of new control panel and old property pages. But I like the new stuff if it covered all cases!
Hello Dave! Why does Windows have such a rough time transferring a lot of small files? Is it a limitation of NTFS?	It's not Windows, it's all operating systems. Part of it is filesystem related:
	Imagine copying a file takes 200ms of overhead plus 10ms per MB. Coping 100M of large files will take 200ms + 1000ms = 1.2 seconds.
	Now imagine you have 100M of 1M files. Now you have 100*200ms + 1000ms = 20000ms or 20 seconds. 20 times as long for the same amount of data.
Did you ever get a chance to work in/on OS/2? I stuck with OS/2 until 2005/2006, before moving onto Linux, and would love to hear any opinions and stories you might have.	I didn't! I used OS/2 a bit but never had a chance to work on it. Many of the people I worked with did, though... but if OS/2 were Kevin Bacon, I'm one degree removed.
I had waited more than 20 years to ask this... What the fuck is Trumpet Winsock?	That's what you need to use TCP/IP on Windows before it was included in Windows. You're welcome.
What was the idea behind having "generic" activation keys starting in Windows XP that would activate any version, it was said they were for [educational purposes], did Microsoft provide them to 501c3/non-profit schools, or was there a different reasoning?	I'm not sure what you mean by "generic". I remember retail and oem, but what was a generic key?
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There was a set of keys that became public knowledge partway through XP life that appeared to activate unlimited machines as valid, though added a banner "For Educational Purposes Only". I remember trying it back in the day and always wondered what the intention was that was important enough the key activations were never blocked. [I did have multiple legal keys, but curiosity killed the cat and I had to swap one to the "educational" key to see for myself, lol]	I don't actually know! But I can surmise that if it was displaying a banner down in the bottom right corner of the screen, it knew it was not licensed and was likely limited or time-limited in some way. Unless you could actually ACTIVATE them with that key, which would surprise me.
How does OLE still work? I can't think of anything else that complex and old that still runs. We've got a legacy piece in our application that uses it and I can build against it using .net 4.0, in an Azure pipeline and deploy to windows 10 hosts and a piece of 90s technology still works perfectly. How and why?	It was complex, but pretty well written and very well tested. That's not to say there aren't a lot of bugs outside the common case codepaths, but I bet if Office used it, it's pretty solid, and will be forever.
Other than your personal phone number, did any Easter eggs make it to general availability?	There was one in the Win9X shell, but I think we removed it for Windows XP and later. So not that I'm aware of!
Have you ever wanted to make a "sequel" to Space Cadet?	There are actually two other tables available in the original Maxis game that should work, in theory, but I think Space Cadet was the best of the 3, so...
Were there ever any 3rd party edit/change to shell that made you think, "Why didn't we think of that?"	Not offhand, but "Stacks" on MacOS where it tries to rescue your mess by grouping things by filetype (Images, Docs, etc) is pretty clever. So that's something I wish we'd though of!
Have you worked at all with Bryce Cogswell and Mark Russinovich?? Also, what was your initial response to Process Explorer /the Sysinternals stuff??	No, but the SysInternal guys are geniuses of the highest order, so far as I'm concerned (and I say that based on their products, no knowing them). They know their stuff.
What are your best/oddest purchases you were able to justify as a work expense (for example, were you able to get MS to buy pinball machines as an R&D cost)?	I had DirecTv in my office! I was working on the Media Center prototype and we couldn't get cable on campus, so I got the dish installed on the roof, etc....
	I had a Tempest machine in my Office but at my own expense. I started right around the days of the "shrimp vs weenies" memo, so they were pretty cost conscious.
Is it true that you and Dave Cutler got into a knife fight over a hand of poker gone bad?	A broken bottle is not a knife.
Was DoubleSpace stolen from Stacker?	No. As I understand it, DoubleSpace was licensed from an Israeli developer. Then I heard that Stacker had somehow been awarded a patent on using a hash table in compression, which sounds pretty ludicrous if true. There was a trial, and even though it revolved around hash tables and math and compression engines, and no one on the jury had been to college, as I heard it. So the big guy lost. That's the story I heard, your mileage may vary. I'm not a spokesman, etc.
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MS-DOS 6.21, the most useless version. I remember writing an extra "2" on my 6.2 OEM disks when the update came out (no point wasting disks).	You say "useless", I say "canonical".
	I think I actually worked on 6.22, not sure. It was 6.2 something. In terms of usefulness, the features I added to it personally were:
	- Moving Doublespace to HMA to free up a lot of low mem, as noted
	- Giving Diskcopy ability to do it in a single pass with no swaps
	- I wrote a new version of Smartdrv that added CD-ROM support
	- I wrote a special version of Setup that worked via deltas and put everything on a single floppy (no point wasting disks).
	Mind you, I was just a summer intern when I did that, and it took me about 3 months.
What are your favorite DOS command-line tricks that still work in Windows 10?	doskey!
What actually happens if someone deletes Win32?	Human sacrifice, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria. Do not attempt.
Did Bill ever swing by your cubicle and tell you'd he'd take your assignment home and finish it in a weekend if you didn't hurry up?	Cubicle? It was the 90s at Microsoft! I had a corner office with a table, chairs, a Tempest machine, and a sofabed.
What is the best project you worked on or had friends work on that was canceled, that you would revive if you had the resources?	Windows Media Center, I'd say! And I wish they'd done a great AutoPC that the OEMs could have licensed and made common to most cars.
There has been a lot of hate on Windows / Microsoft from the Unix / Linux advocates. What are some narratives that you disagree / don't think are true?	I used to love the Amiga, so I know what it's like to feel a sense of advocacy for a platform that you feel is superior but overlooked in the marketplace.
	I think the most untrue narrative I've heard about them is that they all have neckbeards. I think it's only "most", not all.
How do you introduce yourself at parties?	"Does anyone here know how to update my Groove subscription on my Zune?"
What OS are you using now? What's your favorite OS of all time? What's the worst OS of all time? What's the worst Microsoft OS (if different)?	The best OS of all time was Windows NT 4.0 with the Shell Update Release.
	The worst OS of all time was the TRS-80 Model 1, Level 1 DOS that didn't have the keyboard debounce code in ROM yet so you couldn't even type on the thing.
[deleted]	No, I never put a true easter egg in anything. Especially in an operating system, I don't believe in them. You have to be able to trust the OS, and I think it goes against that.
How did you get started in this specific field?	I first wandered into a Radio Shack store in about 1979 when I was 11, where I saw my very first computer. It was not connected yet, as the staff had not figured out how to set it up yet. Being somewhat precocious, I asked if I might play with it if I could manage to set it up. On a lark they said, “Sure kid, have a shot”, and ten minutes or so later I had it up and running. This endeared me to the manager, Brian, enough that every Thursday night and Saturday morning I would ride my bike down to the store: I’d type in my crude BASIC programs and they were kind enough to indulge my incessant free tinkering on their expensive computer. So that's pretty much how I started!
Do you ever have moments where you’re like “they have it so easy nowadays” or do you think that because of the groundwork put in place 30 years ago that systems have become exponentially more complex?	Only when someone spools up an entire docker instance to pipe something to it on the command line... then it's like "Really? You're basically booting a virtual computer as a command?"
What's the best C++ expert tip you can share for fellow programmers?	If you make anything in your class virtual, make the destructor virtual, particularly if there's any chance that anyone might delete an instance of your derived class through a base class pointer. Otherwise, the behavior is undefined, I think, but even if it works, it's not what you want!
^{the below is a reply to the above}
Wow this is eerie. I literally fixed a bug a couple weeks ago that was this specific case.	They can be weird bugs to track down, too!
Tabs or spaces?	Spaces on an indent of 4, tabs set to 8.
How can I open an MS Binder file?	Push down on the metal tabs at the top and bottom of the central spine of the binder. That will release the 3-hole punch claws, and then you can remove your printed file.
"It's now safe to turn off your computer" Why was this splash removed?	I think most current BIOSes can do it on their own by now!
Do you have any insight as to why MS decided to build Windows 95 from the ground up instead of building off of an existing *nix system the way Apple did with OSX? Was it just for backwards compatibility or were there other reasons? Also, had you gone this way, how do you think Windows, and the industry in general, might be different? I'm asking as someone who thinks that WSL is the best thing to happen to Windows in years.	Windows 95 was not built from the ground up, but NT was. The most succinct reason (and just a guess, I'm not a spokesman) is that even though MS had Xenix on hand, there were fundamental problems in the way Unix handled SMP multiprocessor locks and so on at the time. I presume these have long since been solved in Linux, etc, but not without significant work.
	WSL is one of my favorite things too, but for the library of tools and software, it makes available to me, not because of some fundamental architectural superiority, I don't think!
What are your feelings about "Microsoft Bob"?	https://youtu.be/rXHu9OmLd8Y
What did source control look like in the 90's? How did MS keep its code from leaking out to the public? How did you handle versioning and different developers working on the same feature?	We used a tool called SLM, or Source Library Manager. It was sort of available briefly as a product under the name Microsoft Delta.
	It was OK for smaller teams but did not support branching, so just before I left we moved to Source Depot.
Why was Ctrl + Alt + Delete changed to Ctrl + Shift + Escape?	It wasn't! Ctrl-Alt-Delete raises the "Secure Alert Sequence" which triggers the OS to switch to the secure desktop, where you have the ability to click a button which will start task manager upon return to your regular desktop.
	Ctrl-Shift-Esc is a feature built into Winlogon that launches a TaskManager on the current desktop without switching to the secure desktop.
	There are theoretically hacks and exploits that can only be caught by switching to the secure desktop, so if you're ever in doubt, ctrl-alt-del is the more secure way to go.
How did DOS ever get away with just pulling device names like "COM1" out of thin air when it came to output redirection etc..?	That's for compatibility with MS-DOS.
What are you currently working on?	Mostly on LED and Microcontroller projects that I detail on my YouTube channel, and the channel itself takes a fair bit of my time! If you're curious, you can check out my current successes and failure adventures at http://youtube.com/d/davesgarage
Did you work with Kris Hatleid on Super Hacker and the game Evolution?	I worked with Kris on an unreleased title called "Commander Video". That's largely where I learned assembly language, since he did the bulk of the coding, I watched and did level design, etc. 1982 or so I believe!
Got any dev back door mainframe access codes for pinball?	hidden test
Dave, how did you manage to do all that without being able to google everything?	That's one of the craziest things... I got a degree in computer science before you could even look anything up!
	The hardest part was OLE2. Coming form a different platform (the Amiga) it was a monster to wrap my head around, and the book (Inside OLE2) was not the best for introducing devs to OLE. It scared me, and I sure could have used a YouTube tutorial or two!
Hi Dave! So here's a bit of an odd one. I loved your Space Cadet Pinball! I must have spent countless hours on it as a kid, and even now I still occasionally try to find ways to boot it up. A legitimate classic. But lately, the version windows offers just... don't feel the same. They aren't as nice. Is there a game you can name that you would say feels like a worthy successor to Space Cadet Pinball? Or even any more general pinball games you would recommend?	I have a real Black Knight 2000 machine here in the house that I fully restored, so I'm a fan of physcial pinball as well!
	I think the two best video games are (a) arcade Tempest, and (b) XBox Geometry Wars 3.
	GW3 is a classic, or should be!
Woah woah woah, University of Regina?!? Are you from here? Cool to see a UofR grad had such a major impact!	Yup! Check out the regina sub for a recent article
When working on MS-DOS what did you think of alternatives such as 4DOS, NDOS or DR-DOS, were they source of inspiration for new features or not at all ?	No in general, but Norton had NCD. It was a change folder command that could jump around the disk, so if you typed "NCD drivers" from the root, it could go down to "C:\windows\system32\drives". Super handy.
	So I tried to write one for NT, but it meant changing the working directory of the PARENT process (cmd.exe) and I could never figure out a clean and elegant way to do it without modifying CMD itself!
Which is the best version of Windows? (Figuratively speaking).	Windows NT 4.0

Passed - 1st Attempt. Thoughts, Tips, Facts

After 5 months of study, I passed on my first attempt! As many before me have been prone to do, I decided to write down my thoughts and experiences in the hope that others can better their own pursuit.
Fast Facts:

With all documentable exercises, extra mile exercises, course reading, and extra research, I spent 200.5 hours on the course material.
- I did not use the videos except when something in the book was confusing and seeing someone do it was needed, like navigating Immunity Debugger. Unless you’re an auditory learner, the videos are verbatim from the book so skip them.
I spent a total of 154.25 hours over 73 calendar days (28 usable days due to work) and broke into 40 machines in the labs, including the “Big 4” (I actually found 3 of the 4 to be not so bad, and one that isn’t in the group to be much harder). That brings the total course expenditure of time to 354.75 hours.
I did another 22 machines from TJNull’s Hack the Box list while waiting for my exam date after labs ended. I found these less helpful but it helps keep up muscle memory. I didn't track this as closely, but I'd estimate another 75-80 hours here.
On exam day, I got the necessary points to pass in under 7 hours and stopped to write my report to ensure I had all screenshots necessary for the report before terminating access. Confirmation took only 36 hours.

Background
I actually have a liberal arts background, starting my career with a double major in Political Science and International Affairs and going into government work for 5 years. During that time, I found that, though I enjoyed many elements of it, there weren’t enough appealing career options to sustain the next 40 years of my life. I built my first computer during my first degree and loved it, so after weighing my options I went back to school while working to get a Computer Science degree. I was also fortunate to shift my analytic work to a cybersecurity focus, looking at systems from a ‘red team’ perspective and passing my analysis to the organization’s actual red team for exploitation.
While I know everyone says it, red team is where I want to be. Not because it’s sexy and hyped up in movies, but because I love the mindset. I love taking something, be it an abstract political argument or a technical implementation, and finding the holes in it to then make it better or plan mitigations against.
After finishing my degree, I leveraged that experience and degree into a System Security Engineer & Security Control Assessor position where I am now. My certifications were more on the management and policy side with CISSP and Sec+ to meet job requirements. I knew of attacks and things to do to mitigate against them, but I hadn’t actually done them, and because my background was in analysis I didn’t have the technical foundation of a system administrator beyond what I learned in school.
The First Steps
I’ve known for a few years I wanted to take on the OSCP. I love a challenge, I love learning, and while I have no intention of being a paper tiger flitting from certification to certification, the structure of a class that covered as much ground as the OSCP was appealing in a world where there almost infinite directions in which to take off. A big obstacle, though, was the amount of travel I do for my job. Enter COVID.
I started building a home lab last year to get better at system administration and eventually turn it into a ‘purple team’ lab environment – experimenting with vulnerabilities and seeing what gets caught. I didn’t make it as far as I wanted, but when COVID hit and travel ceased, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to jump in and signed up for 90 days in the 2020 course. I worked through Over the Wire’s Bandit and Natas games to brush up on my Linux terminal and web app attacks while waiting for my time to start. April 26th arrived quickly and it was time to go.
The ~~Grind~~ Course
The 2020 material, if you haven’t heard, is much more robust than the previous iteration. Weighing in at over 850 pages, the PDF is a mammoth undertaking that is often high level and requires additional research. My COVID schedule at work dropped down to either 3 or 4 days in the office for 12 hour days, leaving me 3-4 day weekends to devote to the material. My plan was to get through the material and exercises by the end of May, leaving me 60 for the labs. I also planned to do the exercises and lab report, because who wants to pass up 5 points (see lesson learned...)?
With that goal in mind, I generated a spreadsheet breaking down the chapters and sections into chunks of around 45 pages each, give or take a few to hit a natural break point. I also went a little overboard and started throwing metrics against it to estimate actual time to complete each chapter based on length, my familiarity with the topic, and how much of the section was reading vs. screenshots to offset the length.
My estimate came out to almost 60 days which disappointed me. Thankfully, though, I was about 25% off in my estimates as some of the material was not as difficult as anticipated. 47 calendar days later (30 of which were spent studying), I was through the material and was ready to start the labs. I treated myself to a weekend off, first, because working 12 hour days in the office and about 8 hour days at home for a month and a half was brutal.
Lessons Learned/Advice:

Read the syllabus and do as much as you can ahead of time. I planned to, but COVID changed those plans. If you can get comfortable in some of the low-hanging fruit like navigating Linux, web app attacks, etc., you can save yourself a lot of time here.
I do not recommend doing the lab report. OffSec really needs to re-evaluate what’s required to get the 5 bonus points given the sheer scope of the new material. Many of the exercises are not helpful in, or sometimes counterproductive to, completing course objectives. What benefit is there in taking 10 different screenshots of starting a netcat listener when you will do that several hundred times? How are you supposed to document TheHarvester output when the IPs are constantly getting blocked by search engines?
- That said: do some of the exercises. I did reference the exercises I had done for things like Active Directory attacks and SSH tunneling. They aren’t all useless, just be judicious in what you spend your time on.
- Also do write up some of the lab machines. I learned a lot how my report writing differed from what they were looking for by writing up a few test cases and adjusted for the exam. What they’re looking for is more of a step-by-step write-up and not what I would consider information to put in a professional report.
Be prepared to do a lot of individual research. Some of the sections are simply “Here’s this tool, it’s cool, you should read about it more.”
Find a good community to get help. I did not do this and thought I could rely on the forums and admins. The forums are OK for the course material, but there’s a time delay in getting help and when you get to the labs people start getting a little silly. The admins were only helpful a handful of times, they take the mantra of ‘Try Harder’ a little too far. It’s a course and people are trying to learn, but despite being the providers they aren’t there to teach apparently. There were several times I came in with a specific problem and demonstrated the research I had done to try to solve it myself, but got a very obtuse answer or, on at least one occasion, accused of just wanting answers and not trying.

The Labs
Having sprinted through the material, I settled into a little more friendly pace for the labs; I aimed for a box per day for the first few weeks to ease into it and give myself a little more balance in life. If I did the box in 2 hours, great. If I did it in 8, great. Toward the end I started doing more in a day if I finished one quickly. I ended up extending another 30 days because I wasn’t feeling ready by the end of my initial 90 and lost a lot of time in June due to work.
I started with the two boxes OffSec has write-ups for, doing them myself first and then reading the write-ups to see their methodology or find things I had missed. I’d highly recommend folks take that approach.
The labs aren’t meant to be done sequentially. I found that I did better getting access through web applications, so I started by knocking down anything with port 80 or 443 open. I pivoted into another of the sub networks but decided to finish out the public network before diving further into those. I only took down one of the domains in the public network; it was interesting, but after doing it once it was not how I wanted to spend my limited time.
I used CherryTree to document my exploits, taking notes on what caused me to stumble, what worked for the box in case I needed to come back, open ports, credentials, and installed software. You never know what might show up elsewhere. I also documented 12 boxes fully for my lab report so I could pick the 10 that were the clearest. I started my cheat sheet from the course material and added to it as I found myself using things over and over, again in Cherry Tree.
If you undertake this journey, make sure you enumerate after rooting a box. You’ll often find things that lead to other machines. I do appreciate that aspect of the labs relative to HTB where you’re in and out and there isn’t much to it. Some folks have complained about not knowing if a box is dependent; that’s part of the game. If you’re in the real world, you’ll need to go with the flow, not just have one-off attacks against everything. That said, the lab is time limited and not free, so if you get a suspicion a box requires something else, you can always check the forums.
Oh, the forums. Sometimes a source of aid, sometimes a source of drivel. If you plan to take the course, please do not become one of the people that posts “OS-ID – Rooted” and then nothing of substance. But more than that, don’t become one of the people who calls using an SMB exploit “the Brazilian dancer” or running an exploit file in Python “using the snake.” It’s silly, it’s not helpful, and it’s pointless. I think folks on the forum have internalized the attitude of the admins – figure it out on your own, but here’s an obtuse tip so I can feel like I tried to help. OffSec does not want, nor should takers of the course want, direct spoilers because the goal is to build a methodology of figuring problems out, but that does not mean people need to be anti-helpful in a learning environment.
I felt like the labs were where the real money is made. The course was a pretty good foundation (augmented with external information, as mentioned earlier), but doing is how you’ll solidify what you read. Over the course of the lab, the number of times I needed hints went down as did my average time to root.
Lessons Learned/Advice:

The times I needed the forum, I could usually find a post that gave me enough to get moving in the right direction. Some folks say to avoid the forums, but you need to know yourself. It should not become a crutch, but banging your head against a wall is equally unhelpful. This is a learning experience, so learn. Just make sure you take solid notes on why you got stuck, the hint that helped you, and the lesson from it to carry forward to the future. The lessons I learned from my rookie mistakes early on were crucial to my success on the exam.
There are enough boxes in the public network to fill up lab time. One of the subnets is not hard to get into, so it’s worth trying out your port tunneling skills to practice, but it can get frustrating when your hop point keeps getting reset by other students.
Don’t go on the forum to rage when someone resets your box, but also don’t be the guy (or gal) who resets a box that was reset an hour ago. Respect others and modify your plan.
Take notes. Take lots of notes. You’ll need to build your documentation methodology as much as your enumeration methodology. The last thing you want to do is get into a box but not remember the command that got you there, particularly when your whole grade rests upon reporting it.
I wouldn’t do this every time, but practice cleaning up after yourself instead of just nuking the box. Sometimes that was as insightful as getting in in the first place.

The In-Between
At the end of the labs, I picked a date a few weeks out to allow me to take some privilege escalation courses and practice on Hack the Box (and because all the good times were taken… people aren’t kidding about slots filling up quickly). I went with The Cyber Mentor’s Linux and Windows privilege escalation courses, but I have heard Tib3rius is also useful. I thought it was a quick, but helpful, tour around options. He does rely heavily on scripts or executables to do the enumeration, so don’t expect to come out with a long list of manual commands to run, but it was good to level-set and helped build my enumeration checklist further.
I signed up for Hack the Box VIP to follow along in the class and do some further practice. I had pretty good success with some of the early boxes I picked from the TJNull OSCP-like list, but as I got closer to my exam and toward the bottom of the list, the boxes became a lot more of a CTF than OSCP-like. This hurt my confidence a little bit, as privilege escalation turned into hunting for strange files rather than what I experienced in the labs.
I did the same as I did in the labs: take notes on what caused me to stumble or look at a hint, what worked, what didn’t. All of that was crucial to my game plan for the exam. In all, I did 22 of the machines from Hack the Box. It was worth the month’s subscription fee, but don’t put too much stock in the boxes’ similarity to the OSCP.
The Exam and Report
This section will be vague for obvious reasons. I picked an 8 AM start time. That gave me enough time to wake up at my normal time (5:45), get breakfast, fire up my VM and set up my notes, play some drums and guitar to settle down, and start my check-in a little early. My webcam did not auto-focus, but they let me take a photo of my ID and display it on my computer with the screenshare. This took almost all of the 15 minutes and a few more minutes after getting my VPN.
I set up a new tmux session for each machine I worked on to log my output appropriately. I recommend getting a good strategy down so it becomes automatic and you don’t miss anything bouncing around. My strategy, like many, was to fire off my AutoRecon scans while I worked on the buffer overflow. The buffer overflow took me an hour, mostly because I was paranoid about documenting each step. The course is sufficient to pass this.
After the buffer overflow I took a break. In fact, I took breaks every 60 minutes, setting an alarm across the room that was annoying enough to make me get up to turn it off. I cannot stress enough how important it is to take regular breaks. Over the 7 hours I took 6 breaks ranging from 5 to 20 minutes. 3 of those 6 breaks led to an immediate breakthrough in either gaining access or escalating my privileges. This was something I was bad at in the labs, and it showed.
I took a look at my scan results and went for a 20-point machine. About 1.5 hours later I had access and another 45 minutes later had root. I took on the second 20-point machine and had access after 10 minutes and root after another 50 minutes. The 10-pointer took about 1.5 hours to get access due to a rabbit hole, giving me a passing grade. A fist-pump and break later, I decided to hold off on the 25-point box to start writing my report and ensure I had all the screenshots and code snippets I needed.
I gave the 25-point box a stab starting at about 6pm and identified a few possible entrance vectors, but after 2 hours of experimenting I couldn’t get anything to work and decided to end my exam rather than stay up late. My type-A personality wasn’t a huge fan of this, but it was the right decision.
A good night’s sleep later, I spent another few hours formatting and cleaning up my report. As mentioned earlier, I put way more detail into it than I would ordinarily put for a report like that, but I did not want to fail for not providing a “copy-paste” approach to my exploits. After double checking I had all of the proof files included and that I appropriately archived the files, I posted them up and sent the email.
A short 36 hours later I got the wonderful email saying I passed.
Tips

Take breaks. Take them regularly, take them often. I felt a sinking feeling during my first 20-point box not seeing an access vector. I took 10 minutes, walked around, did a few pushups, sat back down and immediately saw what I needed.
Print a reminder and stick it to your screen telling yourself to keep it simple and take a deep breath when you’re feeling stuck.
Enumerate, try, enumerate harder, try harder. I always wondered why the OSCP was considered “entry level” when it’s so difficult, I think I understand now: it’s not entry level in terms of technical knowledge, it’s entry level in that you do not need to recreate any kind of wheel.
Have a cheat sheet, but don’t stress too much about it. Some folks are hunting for all the sheets. This is what Google is for. Have the things you use regularly close-by (for example, set up an easy transfer folder in your home directory so you don’t need to type /usshare/windows-resources/… when you just want to put netcat on the system). Have a checklist for enumeration. Beyond that, if you don’t have what you need you can easily find it online.

Final thoughts and resources
To be perfectly honest, I was a little disappointed with the PWK itself. It’s nice to have a vast amount of data consolidated into a tight syllabus, but there’s zero teaching involved beyond reading the material. Some of this is good to foster research and problem-solving skills, but it hits a point where it’s not a great learning environment. That said, this past 5 months was a roller coaster of highs and lows and one that I enjoyed riding. The value of practical exams over multiple choice is huge and I feel much more accomplished than any paper test I have taken so far. Here’s to more, just maybe after a little break.
Resources
Enumeration:
Auto Recon – I used the default scan and then augmented in any areas that required further looks (e.g. a more intensive dirbustegobuster list).
linPEAS/winPEAS – far and away the best privilege escalation tool I used. winPEAS does require .NET 4.5 or greater so it won’t work everywhere.
accesschk.exe – Get it from xor.cat which has an old version with the /accepteula flag

https://xor.cat/2017/09/05/sysinternals-accesschk-accepteula/

Honorable mentions: linenum, linux-exploit-suggester, windows-exploit-suggester, Sherlock, PowerUp
Privilege Escalation:
Windows
https://www.absolomb.com/2018-01-26-Windows-Privilege-Escalation-Guide/
https://github.com/swisskyrepo/PayloadsAllTheThings/blob/masteMethodology%20and%20Resources/Windows%20-%20Privilege%20Escalation.md
https://book.hacktricks.xyz/windows/checklist-windows-privilege-escalation
https://sushant747.gitbooks.io/total-oscp-guide/content/privilege_escalation_windows.html
https://github.com/SecWiki/windows-kernel-exploits
Linux
https://blog.g0tmi1k.com/2011/08/basic-linux-privilege-escalation/
https://sushant747.gitbooks.io/total-oscp-guide/content/privilege_escalation_-_linux.html
https://book.hacktricks.xyz/linux-unix/linux-privilege-escalation-checklist
https://github.com/swisskyrepo/PayloadsAllTheThings/blob/masteMethodology%20and%20Resources/Linux%20-%20Privilege%20Escalation.md
https://github.com/lucyoa/kernel-exploits
Random:
https://hashcat.net/wiki/doku.php?id=example_hashes

Recap and translation of the official Russian community podcast (May 8th)

I am writing only the information Nikita had said on the podcast. Apologies in advance for possible mistakes, for English is not my native language. Everything is written in order of appearing throughout the stream. I am trying to add key point in bold, but there is additional info in translations. And I am certain there's going to be someone in the comments who will recap my recap, haha.
- New EFT sale commemorating Victory day (May 9th)
- Recent technical patch containts stuff for back-end.

There is mostly stuff for back-end. When there is some sort of overload of back-end the game doesn't feel well - you can't even exit the raid and all sorts of bullcrap is happening. So we added more logs, more debugging info and many little techincal bits and pieces.

- BSG team had a brief excercise in fast patch deploy and will strive to be faster in the future

We wrote it's gonna be 3 hours, but in fact it was 1,5 hours. So we want to be faster in that regard. Some people think the game is being patched magically by itself. There are times when we do something and it takes a long time. One time we were patching for about 6 hours, it's was very long. So we'll try to train ourself to deploy faster.

- Nikita is slowly getting mad in quarantine, so he wears a plate carrier all day long to lose some weight.
- Most of BSG team is working from home.
- BSG is currently testing and working on 12.6. BSG is delaying the patch because they are patching possible exploits that can appear in the new flea market system.

I am already recieving messages with potential exploits that people can try to use. See, here's the deal! We are making a game, all we want to do is to make the game. We don't frickin' need to "close the holes", fight with cheaters and so on. We are wasting a ton of time on this. Sure, you can say "UgH, tHeSe ArE mOdErN oNlInE gAmEs, ThEy MuSt HaVe PrOtEcTiOn FrOm ChEaTeRs" and you'll be right. But not to the point of allotting to it a third of all working time or even more.
Instead of making a functional system we must empirically and practically seek out all exploits by ourselves and with the help of the players and patch them. And we still won't patch them all. But you know what would happen when someone will find the exploit? They are going to blame us and say that we are lazy pieces of shit, that we do nothing.
In fact, right now we are delaying 12.6 because we are closing potential exploits in the new system. (Update regarding the delay at the end of the translation)

- Pre-wipe events are going to be announced right before the wipe.
- Renewed Customs is not going to be added in 12.6
- BSG banned 1500 cheaters yesterday (May 7th)
- BSG is actively working on cheater protection together with BattleEye.

We are working with BattleEye and making our own little subsystems that are designed to insure BattleEye is working properly. Right now everything that I recieve from acqueintances regarding cheaters, like "check this guy and that guy and those", I send to BattleEye and they say "Oh, they are already banned" or "They are in the banwave list". And it's very often that people ask to check those who are either already banned or in the little incoming banwave.
BattleEye has its own internal system and strategy that they don't even talk to us in detail. There are times when the new cheat appears, but BattleEye doesn't act right away. It "marinates" the cheaters and collects the list of them to later ban them all in one banwave. Instant bans are implemented for some cheats, for others they are not implemented. BattleEye is mostly working by itself. We can send them videos with cheaters from the forums and information regarding them, that's it.
Some people think that we ban people when we watch videos. This is false. We send videos and Player IDs to BattleEye's special team and then they identify and analyze them.

- BSG is working on traffic encryption

Some cheats are using alternative environment to analyze the information. For those kinds of cheats traffic needs to be encrypted. We are working on it. Not many game developers practice it. So we've decided to do it and we've been working on it for the past month. It's a serious thing and it heavily affects CPU, so we are trying to optimise it so that the client and the decoder won't go nuts.

- Most of the cheats on the Internet don't work

To those who are sceptical about anticheat's capabilty - you can search working hacks yourself. *everyone chuckles*
Oh, I'm not saying that you need to test them, just search for sites that say they are working.
95% of all sites that you'll see have hacks that don't work at all, even if they say otherwise.

- There's a person on Youtube that baits people into buying outdated hacks by buying channels and streaming old cheating footage. BSG is not happy about it

There's a new thing that's been going on recently. There's a Youtube channel with a stream going on. Big red LIVE in the corner, 16k botted viewers, all that stuff. It's a prerecorded video. The guy buys channels with 500-600 subscribers and streams it on purpose. And he actually sells nothing, no cheats. He even wrote "Why are you striking my videos, why ban me? I am not doing something bad, I am actually helping you! I don't sell cheats, really. You get the money and the cheater is punished!" That's insane. We've already banned thousands of those videos. We have the legal department that quickly sends info to Youtube.
Buddy, if you are watching this - please stop wasting your and everyone's time. The thing you are doing is not nice.

- New economy is going to deal with resellers and add a new layer towards a greater future goal

Right now everything is out of stock because of resellers. When reselling disappears there's going to be much more equipment for sale. If we take 10 players that actively play EFT and use flea market 8 of them buy the stock and immediately sell it, they don't even need it. But they know they'll gain extra 70 RUB from each bullet.
First, right now this situation is nonexistent. You'll need to craft the ammo, put it on flea market and it's much harder than it looks. With the added limit to buying per restock everything is going to be okay.
Second, we'll be looking into it all, how it's going to play out. If there's going to be some super deficit we'll try to regulate it.
Third, we are gradually moving on to the automatically regulated economy. I've been talking about it many times. Traders are going to be deciding what to do by themselves. If they see that the product is being sold out they'll increase the prices. If the product is being sold out regularly they'll decrease the amount you can buy per restock or even stop selling the product at all.
It's a vurtual in-game economy regulated by trader "pseudo people". Anything can happen. A number of items can disapper due to unforseen outocomes, events and the economy's unpredictability.

- New iterations of economy are designed to slow down the accumulation of top tier loot

It's a new reality that you need to deal with. We don't want to create a refined system in which "these bullets cost this much, those cost that much, I know I'm going to buy that item for that much, so on and so on". It's not interesting. Especially regarding top-tier loot like armor and ammo. Our mission is to slow down and make it harder to obtain high level stuff. With every new wipe we are trying to make in-game cycle more organic and smooth.

- 12.6 is going to be a special patch that will change how the game is played

12.6 is very important and not like the past ones. There is a bunch of new systems implemented like overweight, fatigue, trading of crafted and found in raid items. And it's a clear representation of your work. A player would be able to craft items in the hideout and contribute to the system. A real supplier and not just a reseller.

- Nikita dislikes people who try to get rich in a short amount of time after wipe.

The economical system is pretty balanced, but because of certain people that are used to playing EFT differently and gaining advantage by using legit and prohibited methods, it's all coming apart. We don't want to see people racing each other for high value loot to become rich in a short amount of time. It's not right!
You can say that it's life, that it happens. Damn, in our situation it's not the concept and gameplay that we wanted to implement. We want to make it harder, more complex. We want you, the player, to decide.

- Nikita wants each player to have a certain role in the game and not become the jack of all trades.

We don't want you to become the master of all skills, super trader, super killer, a know it all. When I was designing the game I had vision in mind that each player going through the game cycle would have his own place in it. Like "I haven't completed all quests but I've become a pro at certain skills". The limitations are designed to not let people become superheroes, like they are used to in all games. People must find their calling, just like in real life.

- To add more to the new found in raid only flea market, BSG will reduce the amount of items traders sell.

Why and how from the point of playable realism there must exist a rule "I must be able to find every loot in raid" ?
First, you need to level up the traders, to spend your time and resources on them.
Second, 75% of all loot is spawned in any way.
And here's the thing we'll be implementing. Almost all loot in 12.6 is going to be spawnable on locations and AI, it won't be sold. There are going to be new gear elements that will spawn on scavs, raiders and guards.

- Nikita is not in a hurry with adding new content, trying to implement it gradually

We are trying to "smear" added content. There are lots of planned top tier armor, but from time to time I just add a new rig, new backpack. For example, there is going to be a backpack that has about the same amount of slots as Berkut, but it looks cooler in black camo. It looks cool, but you can't buy it, just find on a scav.

- New AI-driven UN soldiers are planned for the future

"Was Med Pack added to the game for shits and giggles?"
"YES... But really, why was it implemented. Some time in the future we'll add AI UN squads that would have machine gunners, medics, something like that. And these backpacks are going to spawn on those medics."

- Crafting system is going to be redesigned to allow more crafting recipes

Everything is planned out. Most of the top tier ammo can be crafted already. And we'll add even more ways. Why are we not adding it now? To be honest, we want to redesign it all because there's simply too many crafting recipes. We need to make a new slick interface. We'll add more variants of crafting to ammo.

- New loot spawns and redone old spawns. Dynamic loot is done, but will be added in the future.

We need to rebalance loot, that's what we are doing right now. In 12.6 there are going to be new loot spawns, old spawns are going to be redone. And we have lots of task regarding dynamic distribution of loot. It's done, but why it wasn't added in this patch... we had no time, that's all! It would probably be added in 12.7 or 12.8.

- Nvidia Freestyle is going to be prohibited.

"Some players are using old Nvidia Freestyle because it's less FPS-hungry than new PostFX. But we all know that Freestyle gives an unfair advantage. What is BSG's position on those people and the usage of Freestyle?"
"Our position is simple - we'll prohibit it with BattleEye. Just like we prohibited Reshade.

- Test servers with Unity 2019 and C++ engine builds are planned.

To be honest, we have done the techical servers already. And we have the need to use them. We are planning to release a special build of the game on Unity 2019. It's going to be the same game, but on another engine. If you want to try it out you'll need to actively submit tickets with bugs, not just play the game. Also we need people that play alot and know alot about the game, so they would spot inaccuracies right away. Also the C++ engine build is planned for testing.

- Maps with just Scav and PMC extracts would be added when all maps are done

"I've tried hundreds of times to exit at the scav-pmc exfil, but only managed it once."
"Ok, I get it. But imagine that EVERY exfil is going to need both a scav and a PMC"
"Oh, then the question is when it's going to be implemented?"
"I would say after all maps are done."

- Karma system for PMCs and Scavs is written down, but will be implemented when almost all bosses are added.

The karma system for Scavs is planned. Moreover, we want to make DLC in the future about scav's life. In it you're going to be able to play as a boss, so on and so on. And karma is very tightly knit around playing as a boss. A player Scav can kill the boss and leave. In this instance the karma is going to affect the player very heavily - from increased cooldown to your presence already known to the boss when you enter his area.
Karma system is written down. But we don't implement it yet because we first need to add not all, but about 80% of the bosses to locations.

- Arena mode about fighting a group of bosses is planned

Bosses are very cool. It's going to be very fun gunning them in Arena. There's going to be a mode in which you'll fight with a group of bosses. With each new boss we are trying to add new AI, new behaviour. And it's going to be interesting how those AI's interact with each other.

- New boss Sanitar on Shoreline.

Right now we are making the Sanitar (UAP, Paramedic, Aidman) who's going to appear in 12.7. His behavior is ill, to say. He aids people, makes stashes, hides items. He's interesting!

- Voicelines for Scavs planned, not just current muttering

For Scavs we have everything recorded just like for PMCs except for specific situations. So yeah, it's planned.

- First addition of Steam Audio will be in 12.6

Sound! When is the sound going to be redone!?
The first iteration of the new sound is going to be implemented in 12.6.

- Bosses will have their own voicelines

Bosses' voices are being recorded. We already have the voice of Reshala.

- Someone wants to voice a character? Write to BSG and nominate that person!

If you want a certain famous guy to voice someone - post it on Twitter, add hashtags, write to us. Make some noise. In short, if the person wants it, I am all for it. I don't want to pay a lot of money and get inexpressive, protocol work. I want the man to really desire it.
If you have ideas - write to us on Twitter. Our PR guy is going to look through them and send them to the team

- PostFX presets maybe coming out

"Are there going to be presets for PostFX?"
"I've seen a bunch of requests for presets, even for certain locations. I don't know, I think it's too much. But I'll think about it.

- Presets for flea market? Nikita is gonna think about it.

"Can we get presets for flea market filters?"
"I'll write it down"

- PostFX also working in the menu is planned

It can be done so PostFX will work in the menu, it's planned. It's just it's going to be harder to implement.

- War belts are planned to be added after plate carriers and rigs are remade.

"When are War belts are going to be added in the game? And would it be possible to add them before the plates system?
"I personally don't like war belts. Just because I'm not comfortable wearing them, that's all. It's just me, I'm a damn well-fed tactical. The more I carry, the worse I feel. I can't jump from trench to trench like a mongoose.
In short - war belts are planned. But after the remake of plate carriers, customization of chest rigs and so on.

- Chest rig customization would allow to display the contents of the pouches.

We almost confirmed the design of chest rigs' customization. It's a serious task. It's going to be done before patch 13.0. We'll be doing for a long time, 3 or 4 patches. It's a complex system with a full-fleged interface. There are lots of questions about optimizing it all, so you won't need to render millions of pouches, bake them. And we also want to make so that the contents of the pouches would be visible, but there are many subtleties. Pouches are different, mags are different. Long, short, thick, thin. We'll need to code a system that automatically scales and moves it all. Clipping will be present for sure, but we'll try to minimize it. It's one of my most awaited features.

- Decorative elements for chest rigs.

There are going to be decorative elements for rigs. Like this spring hook *grabs a spring hook on the plate carrier he is wearing*. You'll be able to buy lots of them and cover your torso with them.
AND YOU'LL GET WHAT? CHAINMAIL!

- BSG will not introduce quests to increase pockets slot count.

"There were suggestions about adding more slots to pockets for completing special tasks, like kill each boss 100 times and get double the amount of slots for pockets"
"I heard that. But here's the deal, then it's going to be meta. Everybody is going to be using one pair of pants, one jacket. And we don't have many of them."

- New clothes for PMCs and Scavs in 12.6

We can add all sorts of clothes to Scavs. We can add something like... smear Vaseline on yourelf 8000 times and get workpants with rubber boots for PMC! You'll be running around in a plate carrier and rubber boots, yeah.
In 12.6 we'll add new clothes to both USEC and BEAR and one jacket for Scav.

- UN troops will make it harder for you to traverse the map.

UN troops are going to be controlling and dividing the map so you won't be able to go around freely. And they'll have features tied to working with Peacekeeper.

- Since the start of EFT bugtracking program there has been over 13k collected tickets.

Y'know how many tasks we have? Since the start of bugtracking program we've accumulated... let's see what's the number of the most recent ticket... 13049! It's a shitload!
In Contract Wars we waited 2,5 years to get to 1000th ticket! Bonkers, man.

- There is going to be a guide on how to properly write a bugreport

"You said that there are only 10-20% of decent bugreports, everything else is garbage. Is there going to be a guide how to write a good report?"
"Okay, I hope the support team is watching the podcast. Please tell them to make an article on how to properly write bugreports so you'll become a tester on TTS"

- Nikita is adamant about adding VOIP to EFT. But they'll be testing it anyway.

VOIP was planned a long time ago, it was a must have in the game. But I've watched a bunch of new multiplayer games like Squad and so on. You'd think they are cool tacticool guys, but even then... huuuh...
There is certainly going to be a guy that would turn on a loud gay porn and it would annoy other players. We'll be making and testing VOIP anyway. To combat such abusers maybe we'll implement report system.

- Player report system is planned

"Regarding the report system - is it going to be like in PUBG that you can report a suspicious player?"
"Yeah, it's a system that's planned to be implemented in a near future. You can report a player for suspicious activity, potential cheats, inappropriate nickname and also you can report a lagging server. The last one will be useful for us.

- Player reports will not get people banned right away

Don't even think that people are going to be banned with reports, it's not going to be that dumb. Dude gets flooded with reports and gets banned, nothing like that. It's going to be a secondary system. If the player has an inappropriate nickname first he is forced to change it and after that he gets banned if he does it again.
So here's a situation - let's say there is a super private cheat that costs 80k a year, no one knows anything. From that there's lots of data, lots of reports on that guy. Then we track him - here he has strange speed, there he gets too many headshots. And all of that together gives us a reason to act. Not on that single guy, but the whole cheat. We detect by analyzing the client and server data and say that this guy is a cheater and BattleEye then does everything to get hardware proof that this guy indeed is using a cheat."

- Secure container changes not in 12.6. Maybe will be tested in pre-wipe.

I had an idea about not allowing to store trading items in the secure container in 12.6. But sensing how someone would explode if it was added, I decided not to. Maybe it will be added to test it during pre-wipe.

- Compass is planned in 12.7-12.8

Compass is planned in 12.7-12.8.

- New added land on Customs will be added in space inbetween Old gas station to Construction site

The patch of land from the Old Gas Station to Construciton site - that's how much is going to be added on Customs. With buildings, so on. They have detalisation that other maps don't, I asked the team to decrease it, so it won't stick out.

- Shoreline in its first version was even more unoptimised than you might remember.

I've been optimizing Shoreline when it first came out and it's been a complete trash, honestly. The developer man simply copy-pasted 2 varieties of rooms on Resort. Slippers, hairbrushes, 6 toothbrushes in one cup, glasses, papers - about 350 objects all together. So he simply copy-pasted it all everywhere.
The wings on Resort are mirrored, right? So he makes one wing and just mirrors it. And it wasn't stored in folders, it was just a bunch of files together. And I've been deleting these damn slippers for a week to optimize Shoreline. And then I was thinking that I've optimized it - was 15 FPS and became 17 FPS. Later they've done lots of other things to Resort.
Wish you could see what the detalisation was on Reserve. And the Labs, oh the Labs! Y'know that area with mechanical robot arms? It was completely different! It had 3-layer assembled lab boxes. Everything was being deleted and redone.

- EFT book is done and may go live mid-May.

Tarkov book is completed. Right now proofreading and redacting is happening. And about the series - I hope it's going to go live mid-May.

- New wave of players was very hard on BSG. Overall they increased the amount of servers from 17 to 170.

The Twitch Drops were complete bonkers. Thank God online has smoothen out. Before there were peaks - people come from work and start playing in different time. Lots of peaks that have been freaking us out, often during the night. And I remember - right before the New Year we all sat down together to think. 40k online and we are dead, our back-end is dead. And after New Year 60k came. After a week it was 80k. Another week it was 120k. Then it was 140k. And it all came down to 170k-180k online.
And all this time we've been monitoring and raising servers from the dead non-stop. In short, we had 17 servers and got 170 servers. And it sucked so much, we had to work without weekends and breaks. Admins and back-end staff were constantly blaming themselves and each other, I've been screaming all the time. It was not cool. And we were DDoS'd around New Year almost every day. DDoS were the ones that cost 15-20k dollars.
It's really hard to deal with such big online amount and the game of such size. And you can say "uGh, WhY dOn'T yOu JuSt BuY aMaZoN sErVeRs?" They cost a shitload, that's why! 1,4 million dollars a year, I couldn't believe my eyes. So we continued to modify the system by buying more servers, finding bugs and building fail-safe security, fool-proof and fault-proof.

- The first batch of merch is complete, but it's delayed because the site is not released yet.

Merch is delayed because of coronavirus. The main problem is the site, they don't have the time to build it, to test it and finally release it. The first batch is complete, I'm sure it will sell out like hot cakes.

- Bug abusers and skill grinders will be fought. Bug abusers can be reported after the introduction of the report system.

"What's your opinion on system abusers that grind the skills and raise them in a short amount of time? And do you have any plans for them?"
"I have a negative opinion. I don't like when people play the game not the way it was intended. I am really sorry for you, the honest people, that play it fair. And those abusers later say something like "Ah, Ya DiDn'T sEt ThE pRoTeCtIoN, sO iT mEaNs It'S aLl LeGiT". For that I can say this - go fuck yourself, dear sirs. We'll be fighting you.
If you are using the bugs - after the patch there is going to be a report function for bug abuse. And we'll be banning for that. So please don't do it, just report the bug.

- Bug bounty and rewards for finding them may be implemented in the future

I've been suggested a lot of times an advanced system about bug bounty and rewards. So yes, eventually we'll do it. But it needs extra resources.

- Dead PMC items won't be counted as found in raid because people may launder them. And BSG knows if you try to do shady trading on empty servers.

"Why the items from the dead PMC won't be counted as found in raid?"
"I'll say it again - you'll be able to trade items and launder them. But you can say "Oh, make it so it only applies to people in party". But no, people find their ways. They enter empty servers at night, empty maps like night time Factory.
And you know, it's all being monitored. We've banned so many bots, so many scripters.

- Introduction of Captcha in Flea market. There will be different triggers for it.

Flea market will have Captcha. And there are different conditions for it to trigger. You refresh too often - get the Captcha. Buying too much - get the Captcha. Selling two times for the price much higher - get the Captcha and a note in back-end that you are a shady guy.

- BSG won't protect you from unfair trades, it's in player's interest to be careful when using Flea market. And in 12.6 dollars and euros will have different colors.

"What about protection from unfair trades like cheap items in exhange for Red Rebel?"
"This part is tightly knit around new wipe and its new found in raid only rule.
First, the items will be put on flea market with more care and more thought. So people will be more considerate.
Second, everything must be done in stages. You can't do anything all at once. We have lots of bugfixes and features planned, so we do them in batches.
We have a bunch of quality of life improvements, like metrics, fool proofs. In 12.6 dollars and euros are going to be differently colored, people have been asking for it for a long time.
We don't have the need to do it. Players must be vigilant and careful. Flea market is a place where you can be fooled easily and you need to be careful. People want super tools like automatic buy, buy orders, and so on so that they can become a magnate while picking their nose.
You can become rich, you'll learn the ropes and that will be your shtick in the world of EFT."

- Nikita hopes that people would find their own role in the world of EFT and stick to it

My ideal image would be that people in EFT would eventually pick people in clans and battle groups by their skills. Not like "Ah, Vasili is a cool guy" or "Oh, this one has lots of moneys". Like this guy can pick locks, this one runs fast, that one trades well. I want it to be like that, so everyone would have their own role. And replayability would be huge.

- System with 2 playable characters in different realms is planned - one is permanent and one can be wiped

We'll introduce a system with two characters - one in a permanent realm and one realm being wiped constantly. Second one is just like it's going right now and the permanent one is going to be when you'll finish EFT. You can finish EFT when everything will be done - quests, story, etc.

- Mobile app's functionality will be limited. Nikita would like to develop API for flea market monitoring services.

Mobile app had been planned a long time ago. It's functions will be limited - you won't be able to trade or go to hideout. At least we want the player to be able to get the insured items, get the sold items or renew the offers in flea market, check the flea market, look up the in-game encyclopedia. It won't have the full functionality so you'll have the full system without needing to enter the game.
Veritas is the guy we want to develop the system. But right now we don't have the time to do it all. He says he can do it all by himself, but I know he can't.
There is a site for monitoring flea market. How they do it is not right. For those kinds of people we would like to develop API. Because those services would potentially cease to exist because of constant updating and constant Captcha.
If the site is cool, we'll contact you and give you the flea market data. I think it's even going to be public - prices, items on sale, etc. People would be able to make applications tied to that data and we won't be against it. What we are against is when the ads are involved on such sites. Especially the advertisement of RMT.

- Nikita threatens sites with Real Money Trading and cheat ads with potential lawsuit and shutdown.

If I see these RMT ads one more time I'm gonna tell our lawyers and we'll shut you all down. I know you guys want to earn the money. You have Patreon, you have donations, ads, all that stuff. I am not against it. What I'm against is the advertisement of this bullshit. Some even advertise cheats. So please be careful about that. We can easily shut you down even for the simple icon usage. Don't be dumb, don't get yourself in trouble.

- API is going to be released eventually.

NoFoodAfterMidnight is parsing the data, datamining it. It's not right, but I'm not against it. I understand that they all have the same reason - "give us API". It's not like we don't want it, we simply have more important stuff to do. I thought we'll release API by 12.7. API will be released eventually, but please don't hurry us, we have more important things to do than additional resources.

- BSG is against people bringing up datamined stuff. Nikita asks for people to be more positive and not blame the team constantly.

Some nasty people datamine developer objects that generate a wave of unnecessary questions that we need to answer and react to. And sometimes we don't have time to answer them.
Bugusers find another bug and make a video on Youtube right away. What are you even doing? They all try to justify it by saying that they bring light and attention to it. You can't believe how hard it is to work when you need to fix something in a hurry.
There are sane people that know it needs to be fixed, but eventually. But some just start to blame us, call us dumbasses. It's unpleasant to hear. Sometimes you start to think why are we even doing it, who are we making the game for. It's hard. We have 100 people in staff. I can't just make a call-out for people to start working in 9 PM on Friday. I can't call and say "Sergey, what are you doing? Grilling? Drop what you are doing and go fix the shit!" But even that happens sometimes. When we were balancing back-end we had to get people from vacations. It's serious and people can't see what's hidden behind all this deal, how hard it is. People burn out, people quit because they can't endure it. And I personally feel bad about it. I wanted everything to be good, but the man quit. The man quits with pent up negativity, but I want others to feel positive, to know that they work in the best company in the world. Working tasks are okay, but when someone from outside starts to get on your nerves and throw unnecessary info at you, impose unnecessary actions at you it really sucks.
Someone might say "Why do you complain? You get the money for it!" I won't even leave comments to that.
People that want to stand up to the game, to protect it - please say something. Positive comments are much stronger than negative ones. I don't mean that you should be a fanboy. We make mistakes, we say bullshit. But we never thought and wanted to lie to someone and make money from them. You just want to make everything right. We are not the legendary studio that makes everything right, but we strive to become better.

- There were many events BSG wanted to visit, but due to coronavirus it was all cancelled.

The past year has been by far the most positive and productive ever. If not for the coronavirus and not for the cancellation of the events we wanted to visit, it would be even more amazing. But there are many things to come, it's not all lost.

- First iteration of skill redesign is complete

"Is there any infomation regarding skills redesign?"
"First iteration is complete. A part of skills will be redone - how they are leveled, bugs associated with them"

- Underbarrel launchers are going to be added after BSG adds hand grenade launchers

"When the new underbarrel launcher are going to be added in the game?"
"First we plan to add hand grenade launchers. After that we'll add underbarrel launchers."

- VSS ammo nerf in 12.6

"Is there going to be a nerf to VSS?"
"There's been a work done to it in 12.6. I think it's about ammo damage."

- EFT release date unclear, will be announced after the completion of key features.

"Nikita, you said that in May you may announce the date of release. Are you going to do it?"
"I thought in that time I'll know for sure. But I can't say it right now. Because right now there are many things in EFT that need to be done. These are Streets of Tarkov, chest rig customization and story quests. These 3 features need to be complete before we announce the release date.

EDIT: Update on 12.6 being delayed - Pestily checked with Nikita directly and is saying that 12.6 is not delayed. But in my defence I can say that Nikita did indeed say that 12.6 is beying delayed right now. You can check it yourself, even if you don't speak Russian. Open the podcast at 19:33 mark and turn on auto-translated subtitles. It is a bit scuffed, but Nikita says what he says - "А по факту мы сейчас 12.6 задерживаем из-за того, что закрываем потенциально возможные дыры как можно эксплоитить функционал".
So what I think happened is that 12.6 was supposed to come out much earlier. But because of the problems with flea market exploits BSG had to postpone the release of 12.6 without actually notifying the playerbase. It looked like 12.6 was going through development and testing phase without any major issues. But in fact not had it been for the sudden appearance of the potential exploits, the players could get their hands on 12.6 much earlier than now.

We have added on our database the newest Coin Master Hack where players gets their Free Coins and Spins. Play Moon Active’s new mobile title Coin Master which can be download on your mobile devices.

Evolution of Casino

What you are looking for is..... (Link in the Desc.)3

ILPT: Free stuff and money compilation, including free food, superstore goods, free coffee, free video games, free parking, free booze, free amazon prime, free weed, free gum, free Krispy Kreme donuts, free batteries, free windshield, free mail, free laundry mat service, and much more!

Edit:Just a recommendation, this post has been BLOWING up, and it’s hard for me to keep up, sort out everyone’s posts and label them to the right user. I apologize for the delay, but I recommend saving this post, as lots more tips will be added! Also in years down the road, it may come in handy... You never know.
Feel free to add any and all other ways for free stuff and money! It’d be nice to have a database for when shit hits the fan. If you do, I’ll edit the post and add yours, along with your username for credit!
Free money:
REDBOX money scam: rent as many video games as possible. Report your credit card stolen or lost and ask for a new one. Your old card will now be canceled and redbox will now be unable to charge you it’s fees. Take games to gamestop, preferably when they have the special going on saying you get the same amount in cash as you would store credit. They don’t deduct money for games without a case.
KEEP AN EYE out for strays for possible cash: If there’s no owner around, do NOT hesitate and get that dog/ cat. For one it will now be safe from cars and whatnot, and would be better off under your protection. Then contact the owners and cross your fingers for a reward or some kind of compensation for your good deeds!
PUBLIX flu shot: Publix will pay you $10 to get a flu shot, visit all Publix’s in your area and get free money from multiple shots.
AMAZON and discover card scam: With the 5% cash back discover card, purchase items on amazon and then return them for amazon credit, discover won’t find out about it and you’ll make 5% whatever you spend!
AMAZON return scam: Find really cheap items on amazon, and return them to Walmart or wherever for profit via gift card. If the % of profit is high enough, then sell those cards to websites that sell em for a certain % cheaper than face value.
UNIVERSITY book donation bin: Most university’s have a donated books bin where students donate their books for other students in need. Some books in the bin can be sold back to the schools bookstore, for usually around $80. If not, sell em on eBay!
Free food/drinks:
POPCORN at movie theatre: Go to your movie, wait a little bit into the previews. Then search the trash cans for a bucket of popcorn, or the largest popcorn that theatre sells. (It’s almost always free refills for a large). Pull it out, put it on the ground and step on it. Go to the concession stand and say “Hey, can i get a new bucket, some asshole stepped on my popcorn”. Tested and approved by yours truly, it’s worked every time and i never pay for popcorn now.
KRISPY KREME dozen donuts: Go to Krispy Kreme and apply for a job. Just simply applying gets you a free dozen donuts!
ANY MEAL, at nearly any restaurant: Bring an already dead insect such as a fly, spider, beetle, moth, anything, and put it in your food when you are 3/4 of the way done with it. Act disgusted, saying you don’t want a new plate and you are grossed out and just want to leave with your refund. Obviously won’t work if you say were in a different culture and that insect was supposed to be part of the meal.
BREAKFAST food: if it’s early, and your hungry but broke, swing by your nearest hotel that has complimentary breakfast and eat up! Tested and approved by yours truly.
GUM from gum ball machine: put super glue on a quarter and glue that sucker in the quarter turn dial thing, let dry, it will now keep forever spinning and you get free gum balls!; This can potentially be used or free money as well, if you find a gum ball machine that has the plastic balls with money in it as well as gum balls.
COFFEE from a walk in coffee shop: Go inside, wait for a min, and then go to where the customers get their drinks from the barista and claim you’ve been waiting 15min for your beverage. They will now serve you first as you’ve already waited long enough and you’ll get a free coffee!
COFFEE from at least Starbucks. Bring a $100 bill with you, they do not accept 100’s but your coffee will be made and you’ll get it for free.
ALCOHOL/BOOZE from a mini bar at a hotel: open all vodka, Jin, or whatever is clear booze is available, replace with water and then return to fridge. Bring tea or food coloring for more options. Tested many times, and approved by yours truly.
Free stuff:
AIRLINE ticket from another country: When flying out of your own country and going to another for some vacay, don’t buy a ticket back. Look up the countries laws and do just barely enough crime to get in enough trouble to where they deport you back to your home country. But don’t do so much that you end up in prison! Careful!
AIRLINE tickets free 1 way: Have a buddy use his card to by you and/or your so or friend to buy the airline tickets. After you fly, making sure you buddy is staying behind, needs to then report the card stolen and get a refund. Have him wire you your money back for tickets home.
AMAZON item scam: if you order something costing less than 5$, you can receive the item, return it, get your money back and keep the product for free.
GOODWILL or Salvation Army & Kohl’s scam: Get any pair of pants you’d want at goodwill or Salvation Army, any size, as long as Kohl’s carries the brand. Return them for a pair of brand-new pants to the size of your liking.
ANY SUPERSTORE item scams: Go to your desired superstore and pick out your desired merchandise. Go to the dog food isle and find a big bag of dog food that you can most easily open and reseal. Open, put merchandise inside, buy dog food. For extra safety, get a cart, and get 2 of each desired item that you want. Get dog food and put one of each inside the bag. This way it’s not nearly suspicious as say you picked up $100 headphones went to the dog food isle and it disappeared, your still buying it and is hard to tell on camera how many you actually grabbed. Make sure put the merchandise in the bag of dog food in the dog food isle, no one steals dog food and it has minimal camera coverage and security measures compared to the whole store. Purchase your dog food and merchandise, now if an alarm goes off they won’t even check. If hey do, you have merchandise that could possibly go off anyway. Return your duplicates of your desired merchandise for a full refund whenever you feel like it. I’ve worked at many superstores, they won’t check the dog food haha. Tested and approved by yours truly.
BATTERIES from amazon: Purchase batteries on amazon. Once received, return the item. They will give you a full refund and let you keep the merchandise.
WINDSHIELD repai new windshield: Find one of those trucks that says “How’s my driving? Call 1-800-blahblahblah”. Call the number and say the truck launched a hug rock at your windshield and it needs to be replaced, they will replace it free of charge and the driver will not get penalized.
SENDING MAIL: No need to buy stamps, just put it in the mailbox with the return address as the location where you want it to go. It will then get “returned” to the address for free.
VIDEO GAMES by redbox: Rent your desired games from redbox, report card stolen. Pretty much a one time use.
LAUNDRY MAT service: Coin operates washers and dryers can be manipulated for free use by taking a cue tip, ripping off the cotton, and pushing it into the coin slot repeatedly and it’ll read it as quarters.
PARKING at some airports and parking lots: Basically works anywhere that has a unmanned ticket station. Before leaving, walk to the entrance and get a new ticket. Your time is now reset.
AMAZON PRIME .edu email scam: Get a free 6 months of prime by applying to online community colleges, possibly enrolling in a free class if needed so your able to have your own .edu email. Or just figure out how to make one haha. Amazon gives college student a free 6 months. Do this twice a year, free prime for life.
FREE MARIJUANA!!!: Go to an app/website to where you can search for people needing roommates and whatnot. Find any that say 4/20 friendly. Call and say your interested and would like to check it out. Guaranteed, those guys will get you utterly stoned, they want you to rent out that room! Then leave and go to the next 4/20 friendly house, and get even more hi!!!
ADDITIONAL tips for free money, food and the goods, all from the comments. Keep in mind that they don’t all have to be good, and highly practical, there’s still a chance to get caught just like every tip I’ve listed. Please don’t criticize other people’s top ideas, just criticize mine. Oh and my spelling and grammar!
Free food and drinks continued:
ANY MEAL DISCOUNTS, best case scenario free it’s free, but you could get a discount or a coupon[from u/Yus_Gaming]: Politely tell your waitewaitress “I have been here many times, and never had a problem. (maybe some compliments as well). But this is the worst food I’ve ever tasted”. This will get you what you want.
CHICK-FIL-A free extra food(probably works in some other places)[from u/Yus_Gaming]: CFA has a policy to where they can’t take back food that a client opened. If you nicely complain that they didn’t make it right, toppings, ect.. If your an asshole they will take it back and throw it in the trash though. APPROVED by me, as i used to work there and saw it done many times.
GOOD CHANCE FOR FREE fast food, especially @ CFA[from u/Yus_Gaming]: Go through the drive through, and when you approach the window (edit from OP, just adding to make sure the fast food place doesn’t have a pay window and a food pickup window for best chances) act like you forgot your wallet, and you should get free food! APPROVED by me, especially since my boss specifically told us to do it.
MORE FREE FOOD, sounds obvious, but people tend to frown upon it[from u/Yus_Gaming]: Obtain your free food by going to soup kitchens, food banks, food pantry, and many churches also have potlucks. Some smaller churches also have free food after each service.
STARBUCKS FREE coffee, improved[from u/Kakuzi457]: Starbucks employee here. The simplest way to scam the system for a coffee, is to walk into starbucks, preferably when it’s super busy, and stand at the end of the bar where the drinks are being handed off. A lot of the time, we will have to call out somebody’s drink more than once because they didn’t hear their name called, their in the bathroom, etc... Really all you have to do is wait until you see a drink you like, and just take it if nobody else has.
Free stuff continued:
MOVIE TICKETS for friends at almost all theaters, requires two purchased tickets[from u/Leobreaker]: Two people buy tickets, and enter the theatre. One stays behind holding the seats, while the other takes both stubs out of the theatre, grabs the desired person you came with, and re enter. Repeat as many times as desired for more people.
BASEBALL TICKETS for friends at almost all games, requires two purchased tickets[from u/Yus_Gaming]: It’s the same concept as the movie theatre tickets, buy two, have someone leave with both and sneak each person in one at a time!
FREE MIRROR from Walmart.com(works for most all glass items)[from u/megookman]: order mirror online, then claim it arrived broken, they will let you keep it and refund your money.
FREE AIRSOFT gun from amazon(which you could sell)[from u/D4rkenedMatter]: purchase an expensive air-soft gun on amazon, and upon arrival claim the gun to be defective. Due to the customs regulations in the United States, amazon will just refund your money while getting to keep the gun. Use it if you want one, or sell on eBay for cash. Tested and approved by myself, without trying to scam amazon.
Free money continued:
USING WHISPER (an app) to scam guys for cash[from u/Leobreaker]: Download whisper. Take advantage of desperate horny guys buy asking for amazon gift cards for in exchange for nudes, by creating a fake profile and posing as a hot chick. Once money is received, Then send em nudes, and talk a little dirty if you want. (I’ve heard you can actually make a good amount of money this way, and you can always sell those gift cards online for cash, and i forgot about this one)
GET CASH from returning an item[from u/chewy_rat]: When returning an item, tell them your card was canceled and your waiting for a new one. Most of the time, they will give you cash.
This next one made me laugh, thought it would be funny to put in.
FREE MONEY from OP(me)[from u/trenchknife]: Beat the shit out of OP, and take everything off him including his clothes. Don’t kill him, so your way less likely to get in trouble. Spend his cash, sell his ID online and give anything else nice to your local homeless person.
DISCOVER CARD gas scam[from u/Yus_Gaming]: Since discover has 5% cash back for gas purchases, go inside and ask them to put 100 on whichever pump. Whatever you don’t pump, say there’s $60 left, it gets refunded but you still get the 5% cash back on the 100. To take advantage, this can be done several times in a row and you can pump a few cents in, then claim you accidentally absentmindedly put the pump back, put another 100 on and repeat as many times as you feel comfortable doing. (Note: there is a max cash back and i believe it’s 2k per “5% gas cycle”) TESTED AND APPROVED by me for three year in a row.
This isn’t the end! There’s more coming soon, so stay updated! Keep commenting free money life hacks!

online slot machine hack app video

Hack casino online slot machines. Slots are possibly the most popular and loved type of casino games the world over. It’s no surprise that there have been many attempts to hack online casino software and slot machines (mostly illegal) and many theories and strategies to help maximise your playtime and hopefully your opportunities to win.. And sure, in the past, there were many ways of Mobile casino slot machine hack apps – how they work. Those were physical slot machines hack, but the online casino world (as well as the rest of the Internet) is undergoing a shift to mobile. What should you do about that? Most mobile phone slot machine hacks start with an understanding of how random number generation (RNG) works. If you Russians Engineer a Brilliant Slot Machine Cheat---And Casinos Have No Fix Digging through slot machine source code helped a St. Petersburg-based syndicate make off with millions. Facebook Ronald coded them in such a way that it was possible to hack a slot machine with the help of simple actions. The system was extremely simple. Harris's accomplices inserted the coins in the appropriate order. For example, the following order was successful: two chips -pause -three chips - pause - one chip, etc. When the sequence was completed Program to hack slot machines Mega Jack - reprogramming the chip Dallas (DS5000T). Sold together with a special programming device. Almost impossible to set a bug in the chip or not. To win at a slot machine, you must enable the virus (bug). Is it a game at the quoted rates (5 steps) in a specific sequence. What is the Slot Machine Hacks? Slot machine hacks are the tricks used by hackers to identify the flaws in the program of slot machines. 100% working slot machine hacks helps the online casino players win the jackpot and big winnings along with free bonus and other features like free spins. A Mobile Slot Machine Hack Which Really Worked. What happens when you take cash-rich American casinos, Russian mobsters, high-tech equipment, and a team of jet-setting slot players and put them together? No, this isn’t the plot of a bad B movie, this slot machine hack really happened. In fact, it may still be happening today. Keep reading as I cover 7 ways in which you can hack into more slots winnings. 1 – Look up Online Slot Machine Providers to Find Best Payback. You need to play online slots if your main focus is winning the most money. The reason why is because internet slots offer higher payback on average than land-based games. Here are the most popular tricks to hack online slot: Online Casino Hack App – you can find an online casino cheat software on the internet, purported to consist of malware that will offset the algorithms used at the casino. This online slot hack is quite expensive, but it is promoted to repay players seven-fold. Hack 1. Don’t try and beat the system. Replicating the winning pattern of a slot machine is impossible. At the heart of it, are very complex algorithms. Don’t try and beat the system. The design of a slot machine is to give random results which are to pay out in an uneven distribution.

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online casino hack - YouTube

The technology casino cheaters have used over the years to rip off casinos in Las Vegas.Dave Malkoff [ http://davemalkoff.com ] reports from 2002 Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, t... 10 Secrets Casinos Don't Want You to Know. Subscribe for more amazing videos! http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-Richest Casinos are multi-million dollar business... Download at Slots! for iOS here - http://slotsios.com/download_slots Slots! on iOS has this cheeky hidden feature which allows you to cheat when nudges are i... So, if what the slot machine mech... Have you seen this? Wins money?... LINK: https://swiy.io/1Bwd I'm told it's a way to actually win money but I don't know. So, if what the slot machine mech ... Today we learn a hack to winning more on this slot machine, watch to see what happens. online casino oyunlarda mıtm tekniği ile oyun rng değiştirilebilir. Bunun için sunucu ile oyun arasında bir yer bulmanız gerekir. Bu şekilde oyuncuya gidecek... This tutorial shows you how to hack online RTG casino's using an auto-clicker and Cheat Engine. The purpose is to basically robot through the play-through re...

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Outriders - FAQ

GENERAL

- When will Outriders be released?

- What Platforms will Outriders release on?

- What kind of game is Outriders?

- Where can I watch the Outriders reveal trailer?

- Is there an official discord?

- Is Outriders a Free-to-Play game?

- Is Outriders a Games-As-A-Service?

- Will Outriders feature Micro-transactions?

- Will Outriders support Smart Delivery on Xbox? Will we get a free upgrade to PlayStation 5?

- Will Outriders support Cross-Play?

- Will there be DLC?

- Will my PC be able to handle Outriders?

- Why was the game delayed?

DEMO

- When does the Demo release?

- What will the demo include?

- Will my demo progress carry over to the full game?

- Will the demo feature crossplay?

GAMEPLAY

- Can I play all classes?

- Will I have to replay the story for each class?

- Does each class have multiple skills/powers?

- Why can we only play in groups of 3?

- How does difficulty scaling work?

- How does endgame work?

- What if I miss a loot drop?

- Why don't enemies drop loot in expeditions?

- Does that mean if I fail an expedition I don't get any loot?

- Can I transfer loot to another character?

- How does crating and mods work?

- Is there an in game achievement system?

- How do armour stats work?

- What weapons can we use?

- Can I play the whole game solo?

- Is there PVP?

QUALITY OF LIFE

- Will there be in game comms?

- Will there be loadouts?

- Will there be a transmog system?

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- What are the next gen upgrades for Xbox Series X and PS5?

- Do I have to be online to play?

- Is there a mass dismantle system in game?

- Is there an item protection system in game, such as item locking?

- Will players be able to mod/hack their saves etc?

CROSSPLAY/MULTIPLAYER

- Can I turn crossplay off?

- Is there a social hub?

-How does joining a friend work?

- How does scaling work when I join a friend?

- How does loot work in a friends game?

- How will I invite cross play friends?

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[Table] I am Dave Plummer, author of Windows Task Manager, Zip Folders, and worked on Space Cadet Pinball, Media Center, Windows Shell, MS-DOS, OLE32, WPA, and more. (pt 1/2)

Passed - 1st Attempt. Thoughts, Tips, Facts

Recap and translation of the official Russian community podcast (May 8th)

We have added on our database the newest Coin Master Hack where players gets their Free Coins and Spins. Play Moon Active’s new mobile title Coin Master which can be download on your mobile devices.

HOW TO GET FREE COINS AND SPINS IN COIN MASTER GAME

FEATURES OF COIN MASTER HACK FOR FREE COINS AND SPINS