unforum

[vpisteve]

The AIM Game Redux: Issues of Security

[C_Brennan]

I agree wholeheartedly Steve. Players should be wary of getting into games where they are unsure if it is a true game or not.

So people, if you are unsure if the game you are playing is a real ARG, and they begin to ask for contact information too quickly, be cautious in giving it out! If you don't trust the game, then don't give out any information you don't want to fall into the wrong hands.

And for the PMs, be careful with game hijacking, as it could occur because as the genre expands, there will be some people who really may just want to screw around with a new PM. While people cannot steal your AIM nicknames, they can produce something quite close. So I guess this goes to players too, make sure the spelling of the name is exactly the same as it was when you talked to the character previously.

10 points on the post Steve, this is definetly something that should be said with a loud voice, and this is also something everyone should know about and keep in mind.

[imbri]

Yeah, well said Steve and good tips Colin.

I'd just like to piggyback a bit on the hijacking concerns...

It doesn't just have to be a close fit on the name (swapping l for 1 or 0 for O), someone can hijack the game just by mentioning a few key words and such. This is also true with non-aim scenarios, people can and have made decent attempts at putting their own sites in-game.

Some games have welcomed it to a degree. We welcomed the Gentel Janitor live journal in Lockjaw as we were well aware of the site and who was behind it. We knew we didn't have to worry, but even so, we had a backup plan that we did eventually use (not because the player was out of line, just that we needed a bit more control over a character that he was writing about). So, we fired the sexy thing (much to the disappointment of the female gentel staff) and, fortunately, the player got the hint (had he not, we had other ideas brewing). The Janitor moved on to bigger and better things (making his appearance a year or so later when he cleaned up after the town council meeting in CTW).

Some games have not welcomed it. Early along in Metacortechs, there was a site that was causing quite a bit of confusion amongst the players. They had added our ingame measure to their site (a logo from a hosting company) and, as we couldn't be sure of the source and didn't want our players to face that frustration, we forced all the hosting company logos to be served from the hosting companies domain with a specific tag relating to the site it was appearing on. This allowed for relatively easy identification of in-game sites in a subtle way.

It doesn't have to be that blatant... circular linking within the ARG world and whatnot also serves that purpose.

So please, PMs, take cautionary methods and build yourself a safety net of sorts to help protect you and your players from the frustration of a hijacked ARG. You put far too much work into it to go through that headache.

I suppose that's one of my larger concerns with AIM and other chat programs as it makes it very difficult to provide that security as anyone can say anything. Heck, someone could come in and create an AIM account and with just a bit of creativity link Sarah Kiddo to LJX. One account could cause a mass of confusion for the players of two different games.

Just keep this stuff in mind and play smart and, for the pms out there, design smart.

- b

[Caterpillar]

OMG the time I spent registering nicks/emails for every possible variable of every char in UH just to help guard against such stuff. Easily one of the most boring PM tasks but a necessary one.

[Nightmare Tony]

During the early gig of Bees, a couple of websites were making claims to be ingame. A porno one and a political one. Dumb*sses.