From Ellen Messmer’s “Symantec takes cybercrime snapshot with ‘Underground Economy’ report” (Network World: 24 November 2008):
The “Underground Economy” report [from Symantec] contains a snapshot of online criminal activity observed from July 2007 to June 2008 by a Symantec team monitoring activities in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and Web-based forums where stolen goods are advertised. Symantec [...]
Posted on April 25th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, law, security, tech in changing society | No Comments »
From Paul Graham’s “Why TV Lost” (Paul Graham: March 2009):
The somewhat more surprising force was one specific type of innovation: social applications. The average teenage kid has a pretty much infinite capacity for talking to their friends. But they can’t physically be with them all the time. When I was in high school the solution [...]
Posted on March 17th, 2009 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, history, social software, tech in changing society | No Comments »
From Glyn Moody’s “The duplicitous inhabitants of Second Life” (The Guardian: 23 November 2006):
What would happen to business and society if you could easily make a copy of anything – not just MP3s and DVDs, but clothes, chairs and even houses? That may not be a problem most of us will have to confront for [...]
Posted on November 29th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
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From Timothy Burke’s “The Cookie Monster Economy and ‘Guild Socialism’” (Terra Nova: 2 May 2008):
Mechanisms of exchange have evolved in graphical, commercial virtual worlds from some remarkably crude beginnings. Veterans of the early days of the first Asheron’s Call may remember that at one point, there was no mechanic for secure trade between players. You [...]
Posted on November 27th, 2008 by Scott Granneman
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From Adam Swiderski’s “A History of Copy Protection” (Edge: 9 June 2008):
Fortunately, the games industry is creative, and thus it was that the offline copy protection was born and flourished. One of its most prevalent forms was an in-game quiz that would require gamers to refer to the manual for specific information – you’d be [...]
Posted on November 22nd, 2008 by Scott Granneman
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From Federico Biancuzzi’s interview with security researchers Greg Hoglund & Gary McGraw, authors of Exploiting Online Games, in “Real Flaws in Virtual Worlds” (SecurityFocus: 20 December 2007):
The more I dug into online game security, the more interesting things became. There are multiple threads intersecting in our book: hackers who cheat in online games and are [...]
Posted on November 21st, 2008 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: business, law, security, social software, tech in changing society, technology | No Comments »
From Bruce Schneier’s “Basketball Referees and Single Points of Failure” (Crypto-Gram: 15 September 2007):
What sorts of systems — IT, financial, NBA games, or whatever — are most at risk of being manipulated? The ones where the smallest change can have the greatest impact, and the ones where trusted insiders can make that change.
…
It’s not [...]
Posted on November 21st, 2008 by Scott Granneman
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From Charles Platt’s “The Profits of Fear” (August 2005):
Game theory began with the logical proposition that in a strategic two-player game, either player may try to obtain an advantage by bluffing. If the stakes are low, perhaps you can take a chance on trusting your opponent when he makes a seemingly fair and decent offer; [...]
Posted on July 31st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
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From Adam Liptak’s “Lawyers Won’t End Squabble, So Judge Turns to Child’s Play” (The New York Times: 9 June 2006):
Fed up with the inability of two lawyers to agree on a trivial issue in an insurance lawsuit, a federal judge in Florida this week ordered them to “convene at a neutral site” and “engage in [...]
Posted on June 11th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, law | Comments Off
From Information Week’s’ “ Trojan Snags World Of Warcraft Passwords To Cash Out Accounts“:
A new password-stealing Trojan targeting players of the popular online game “World of Warcraft” hopes to make money off secondary sales of gamer goods, a security company warned Tuesday.
MicroWorld, an Indian-based anti-virus and security software maker with offices in the U.S., [...]
Posted on May 5th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: security, social software, tech in changing society, technology | Comments Off
From James Grimmelmann’s “Life, Death, and Democracy Online“:
… The necessity of a ‘Quit’ option is obvious; no adventure game yet invented can force an unwilling player to continue playing. She can always give the game the three-finger salute, flip the power switch, or throw her computer in the junk heap. …
Banishment is the absolute worst [...]
Posted on April 28th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, politics, social software, tech in changing society, technology, writing ideas | Comments Off
From Ron Dulin’s “A Tale in the Desert“:
A Tale in the Desert is set in ancient Egypt. Very ancient Egypt: The only society to be found is that which has been created by the existing players. Your mentor will show you how to gather materials and show you the basics of learning and construction. These [...]
Posted on April 28th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, education, social software, tech in changing society, technology | Comments Off
From Jim Hanas’ “The Story Doesn’t Care: An Interview with Sean Stewart“:
I think that every means of communication carries within itself the potential for a form of art. Once the printing press was built, novels were going to happen. It took the novel a little while to figure out exactly what it was going to [...]
Posted on February 6th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: on writing, social software, tech in changing society | Comments Off
From Twin Galaxies
For the first time in video game playing history, a perfect score was achieved on the legendary arcade game, Pac-Man.
On July 3, 1999 at 4:45 P.M., taking nearly six hours to accomplish the feat — on one quarter — Billy Mitchell, 33, a Fort Lauderdale hot sauce manufacturer visiting the famous Funspot Family [...]
Posted on November 27th, 2005 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: commonplace book, cool stuff, technology | Comments Off
