demodulated

A WoW gamer was recently reprimanded by Blizzard Enterntainment for creating a GLBT-friendly guild, Oz. The charge? “Harassment - Sexual Orientation”

Blizzard game masters quoted the following guild advertisement, claiming it to be in conflict with their EULA section on discrimination by sexual orientation:

“OZ is recruiting all levels ¦ We are not ‘GLBT only,’ but we are ‘GLBT friendly’! (guilduniverse.com/oz)”

Confused by the allegation and confident that this was a simple misunderstanding, the gamer replied to Blizzard, quoting text directly from the EULA:

“This category includes both clear and masked language which insultingly refers to any aspect of sexual orientation pertaining to themselves or other players.”

To which Blizzard replied in turn:

“While we appreciate and understand your point of view, we do feel that the advertisement of a ‘GLBT friendly’ guild is very likely to result in harassment for players that may not have existed otherwise. If you will look at our policy, you will notice the suggested penalty for violating the Sexual Orientation Harassment Policy is to ‘be temporarily suspended from the game.’ However, as there was clearly no malicious intent on your part, this penalty was reduced to a warning.”

It would appear that this young woman is being punished for attempting to make a safe haven for likeminded people from the persecution of others, simply because putting these people in the same place would make them a likely target for further ridicule.

Despite the seemingly unreasonable totalitarian ruling of the company, Blizzard does in fact reserve the right to permit or deny any action on their servers. Though they have a commitment to their paying customers, WoW players are Blizzard’s guests and must adhere to the rules and judgements made by the game’s administrators.

Though they are in the right as far as the letter of the law goes, many WoW players have cried hypocrisy, claiming that pro-Christian guilds (a topic I’ve previously discussed) can be found spamming public channels with religious-bent recruitment offers to the public at large. If true, allegations of Blizzard’s skewed intolerance may come back to haunt them.

The topic of discrimination is a multifaceted one in WoW. The epic scale of the game has birthed an entire industry of “gold farmers” - services that play your character while you’re at work or sell gold for real cash. Since the most popular and numerous gold farmers are from China, and much press has recently brought the issue to light, many of the million-plus legitimate Chinese gamers have found themselves discriminated against by groups and guilds requiring applicants to say a few sentences in proper English before being accepted.

So it would appear that WoW players are bombarded with discrimination from all fronts. As the most populous virtual world in history, WoW will set precedent in its handling of such issues. Let’s hope, for the sake of cybercivilization, that the matter can be resolved symbiotically.

Radio Frequency Identification tags, or RFID, is a burgeoning new technology about to find applications in many sectors. RFID is a tiny chip that broadcasts data into the open air around it, much like a miniature radio station. The widest early-adopter, Walmart, will print stickers with RFID chips embedded, affix the stickers to all merchandise, and will be able to catalog inventory simply by walking down each aisle with a RFID receiver. This will substantially reduce costs in inventory tracking, shipping, receiving, and service. Truly a fascinating and powerful technology.

In fact, the technology is so powerful that various governments are preparing to incorporate RFID into passports, drivers licenses, travel visas, and other forms of citizen identification. This is very bad news for said citizens.

The positive side of RFID in identification is that many assets, material or human, can be tracked without physical contact. This allows for more efficient handling of long lines of irate travelers. It also means that receivers require less servicing as there are no moving parts or points of physical contact.

This is where the good points end. The other ramifications point to catastrophes of liberty and security - the very points argued in favour of this technology.

Historically, Walmart employees had to enumerate inventory by hand, removing items from shelves in many cases to get an accurate count. RFID enables them to do so without any contact whatsoever; tagged stock not yet unloaded from trucks could potentially be counted without even opening shipping crates. It will also be possible to determine precisely what products customers are carrying, what aisles they browse and for how long, and what Walmart products they are wearing. Couple this with an RFID Walmart card (this is speculation but with valid potential) and individual customer profiling is just a scan away.

This is the fundamental problem with RFID applications in tracking people - it can be done without their knowledge or assent. Governments, airport security, and police can forgo the unpleasantness of a “papers please” customs booth by simply eliminating the vocal request (and your accompanying response). Your “papers” on your RFID-enabled passport will be broadcast 10 metres around you at all times, readable by anyone with the proper receiver.

This is the biggest problem with the plan. Anyone who owns a Microsoft operating system knows how frequently security vulnerabilities are exploited. These exploits are usually followed up by patches to close the vulnerability. This is possible because computers are variable entities, designed to allow functionality to be modified as is needed over time. RFID tags are one-way, static chips that cannot be changed at all. As soon as the encryption is broken, your ciphered data is open to anyone with a compatible reader.

This is the crux of my alleged catastrophe. This fundamental flaw enables identity thieves and terrorists to become more powerful, flexible, and fast than ever before.

Instead of pre-establishing fake identities, terrorists could capture the identity of someone who just bought a ticket on a desired flight and immediately assume that identity. If something goes awry and the identity is flagged, another identity could be procured momentarily. Walking from one side of an airport to the other would yield thousands of valid IDs ripe for plucking.

Instead of digging through garbage for VISA slips, identity thieves could stand behind a shopper in the checkout line, scan their RFID identity, and take note of the shopper’s purchases. The thief could then use these combined data to convince a higher-up at the store to surrender even more private information about the victim, which in turn could be used to flesh out this borrowed persona for all kinds of nefarious uses - to take out a loan in the victim’s name, apply for credit cards, sell the identity to other criminals, and much more.

If you’re American you’ll likely have an RFID-enabled passport by the end of the year. You won’t be able to fly without one, unlike recent years where Americans were not obliged to identify themselves at all in order to travel. Though you can’t fly without proving your identity, you may want to ensure your identity stays safe until you allow it.

Though the technology will be applicable to countless industries and private uses, it will be up to governments to understand and limit the technology to its intended task - transmitting innocuous data that is meaningless out of context; RFID was designed for use in closed systems such as companies or warehouses.

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Many thanks to those who replied to my comment on the related article on Slashdot. You gave me some great ideas and I credit you for them. Especially slavemowgli who had particularly poignant thoughts.

I’ve read some really interesting articles lately about the immortality of data on the internet - a topic I’ve discussed previously. The most notable recent articles include:

• Ars Technica: Google + Facebook + alcohol = trouble
  (woman removes incriminating photographs from website while searching for jobs)
  
• The Register: German court orders shutdown of Wikipedia
  (German family sues Wikipedia for posting the real name of deceased hacker son)
  
• The New York Times: Keeper of Expired Web Pages Is Sued Because Archive Was Used in Another Suit
  (company sues The Wayback Machine for ignoring omission request)

In meatspace everything decays, including history. In cyberspace bits and bytes have the capacity to stand the test of time. Are we, as private individuals, entitled to the graceful decay of the past?

Let’s address the case of the recent lawsuit by a German family challenging Wikipedia to remove the real name of recently deceased hacker\phreaker, Tron. Being a non-profit organization, and thus not having a deutschmark to spare, Wikipedia was quick to comply. However, the gesture was purely for show. Wikipedia is contributed to and edited exclusively by the general public, and the gentleman’s deleted name was replaced very shortly thereafter.

The terms required to prevent a lawsuit have been met, and the matter has not changed one iota. The name can be found on both the German and English sites (in bold, no less), as plain as the nose on my face. The real name of Tron may as well be displayed in lights on Broadway. In fact…

As long as this truth is known by someone who is aware of an internet repository of information, it will never be dulled, obscured, or forgotten.

The matter of archive.org’s Wayback Machine being sued is equally frivolous. The terms of the lawsuit regard the service’s failure to reliably obey the webmaster’s passive request of content omission. This request was “voiced” in the form of robots.txt - a text file optionally placed in the domain root of a web server, which is optionally interpreted by automated services like search engines and archivers which may optionally choose to obey the commands in the file. No signed contracts + no obligation + no precedent == no court ruling. The archived data, unless actively requested, will remain publicly available.

Then there’s the flip side to consider - content which is forcably removed (or whose removal is demanded with force).

For example, take my favourite blog, SixthSeal. Proprietor Poh Huai Bin was recently threatened by police to remove illegal content from his web server, leaving the blog a still excellent but diluted shadow of its former glory. Thanks to internet archives, the taboo content lives on in nearly all its glory, including most of the contraversial photographs and videos. The URL for this content may as well be displayed in the corner of the TV screen during the Superbowl. In fact…

Showoffishness and smarminess aside, my point is simple. If you want it forgotten, don’t put it on the internet. With the trend of digital cameras being put into everything, the issue remains of one’s privacy being violated and shared without their consent. However, this is perhaps a topic for another day.

There are topics I’d love to discuss publicly, but I cannot afford to have them come back to bite me in the cyberbum. I urge you, my scores of loyal readers, to exercise restraint when voicing your spicier thoughts online. You never know whether a prospective employer, jealous mistress, spiteful nemesis, or mischevious child will happen upon your immortalized nuggets of incriminating gold.

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Addendum:

I just happened across this related article from the EFF - Google Cache Rule Fair Use

Wolfenstein 3D by id Software

The great grandpa of first person shooters is historically important not only for spawning an entire genre of games and inspiring other genres to follow in suit, but for being a great game in its own rite.

This trend setter was not the first game to present the world through the eyes of the protagonist, but it was the first to do so in a fully animated fashion with 360° of freedom. The game’s “2½D” perspective (3D world, 2D sprites) plunged the gamer into a prison cell deep in the bowels of a Nazi castle with knife in hand and the body of a prison guard at his feet. Even in an age of simpler games, what further motivation is required to mow through the ranks of the third Reich? An arsenal of 4 firearms (conveniently using the same-sized bullets) with excitingly huge muzzle flashes and truly kicking aural feedback increased the gritty urgency of the experience, causing the player to gnash his teeth along with B.J.’s meaty noggin shown at the bottom of the interface in varying degrees of bloodiness.

Colourful VGA graphics and lots of digitized sounds and voices coupled with tight controls and a variety of enemies are what discern this game as a classic game for classy gamers.

Fun fact - The Wolfenstein 3D game engine was the first to be licensed to other developers.

Final battle with General Fettgesicht ("fatface")

Doom by id Software

This is the one. The game I'm proud to call my very favourite of all time.

Doom is a superb game with insane graphics, perfectly balanced gameplay, impeccable controls, intense violence, and an incredible soundtrack. Though still a 2½D engine, Doom upped the ante by introducing multiplatformed planes (like multistory buildings and staircases), corners not limited to right angles, animated textures (like bubbling lava), quadrophonic surround (with a Gravis UltraSound audio card), and all kinds of innovations I'm sure I'm overlooking. This game's presentation was such a step up from the status quo that gaming magazines recommended Gravol to queasy players whose inner ears were fooled by the lifelike perspective.

Technical issues aside, the individual parts of this game were a wonder to behold. Character sprites were well animated, brightly coloured, and highly detailed. Level design was intricate and tricky, requiring players to find the corresponding switch or key that opened the next area. The art style was truly diabolical, depicting horrors such as skin-grafted walls, severed heads on pikes, rooms in the shape of swastikas, flickering and failing lights, and barren Martian skylines. Audio was equally frightening and foreboding, ensuring the phlegmy hiss of the cacodemon and the beastly howl of a zombified sergeant were equally as spine tingling as the silence of a long empty corridor. Last but certainly not least, the musical accompaniment was perfectly coupled to each level, upgrading the player immersion to full-on drowning suffocation in the forlorn, decaying hell of the game's martian space stations.

This game can still be purchased from major retailers and used game stores, and played in modern engines such as Doom 3 or modernized open-source engines like jDoom as well as many other handheld platforms. If you haven't played it you're missing out on video game history.

Smiles for miles

Half-Life by Valve Software

A rarity in that it lived up to its self-inflated hype, Half-Life breathed new life into a genre rife with second-rate Doom clones.

It did so by awarding a persona and context to the protagonist, Gordon Freeman, the John Everyman of M.I.T. PhDs of Theoretical Physics. In a bold move, the game's introduction trapped the player in an autopiloted tram, slowly cruising through the Black Mesa science complex, simultaneously showing off the game's artful customizations of the Quake 2 engine while hinting that a world exists outside the player and his soon-to-be-acquired guns. That's what Half-Life brought to the table - a cohesive universe where battles were dynamic, and even scripted events were convincingly presented as unlikely coincidencesces. Part of the game's immersion can be attributed to the fact that there are no cinematic cut-scenes per se; story sequences were presented through Gordon's eyes in real time just like the rest of the game.

The story, while strong, does not overshadow the stellar gunplay. Half-Life was truly a thinking player's shooter - a chess of shooters if you will - requiring strategy, trickery, diversion, and improvisation to overcome the game's deadly arenas. In fact, on-the-fly thinking was required when replaying the same battle after repeated quickloads. The variety of foes terrific, keeping the player guessing who is friend or foe, and who is crucial or expendable. Typically dreaded jumping puzzles were actually a treat in this game, thanks to a great control scheme with a few new moves. Weapons were punchy and fun as well, with some twists like a laser-guided rocket launcher, and some innovations such as an arsenal of flesh-eating xenobugs.

It may seem a "me-too" shooter on the surface - a total conversion of a then-aging engine - but Half-Life introduced enough original twists that it truly stands in a class all its own.

"I think I'm gonna need a bigger crowbar..."

No One Lives Forever 2 by Monolith Productions

The successor to many publications' "Game of the Year" and a real looker, NOLF2's tongue-in-cheek writing proved the genre's flexibility once again.

The original NOLF excelled not only in execution as a FPS title, but also in its mood, style, and witty dialogue. This sequel improved on the original in nearly every way with a breathtaking new game engine, lavish mod-style art motif, still-unsurpassed creativity in level design, and tons more hilarious banter by the game's roster of kooky characters. NPC actor and level design were particular shining points, sporting very fine detail with lifelike qualities and memorable uniqueness - what other game dares stage a boss battle in a tornado-borne trailer that flakes apart in real time, or a chase through the alleyways of Paris on the shoulders of a tricycle-riding Scotsman while pursuing a malcontent mime midget?

The game also introduced some gameplay improvements not so immediately apparent from the surface. In RPG style, skill points accumulated as objectives were completed and hidden items were found, which could be spent on any of the protagonist's numerous attributes. While this enabled the game to be played in a variety of ways (with force or with stealth, for example), it was a little strange that a spy should improve her abilities tenfold on a typical mission. Also, non-combat sequences, such as investigating the run-down Ohio home of a double agent, succeed in keeping the game varied and fresh.

A plethora of incremental improvements preserve this shooter's place in my innovative FPS hall of fame.

A stealthy kill with shuriken yields ninja intelligence

Canada has just elected Stephen Harper and his Conservative minority into office, replacing Paul Martin and his Liberals. This is not a swing to the right for Canada. The numbers show that we, for the most part, simply voted for our second choice in order to teach the corrupt Liberal party a lesson. But at what cost?

A concerned young woman said on CBC last night that if Harper was Prime Minister less than 2 years ago, Canada would be at war right now. This rang very true for me. As far left as our right wing may be, the Conservatives are going to bring about some serious changes that will challenge the definition of what it means to be Canadian.

For instance, Harper wants to revisit the previously closed issue of gay marriage. Canada called for a vote on the issue. Canada voted on the issue. Harper doesn’t like the outcome so he’s undermining the country to revisit the issue. Also, Harper was in favour of an American missile defence shield in Canada. Canada stands strongly against war and fears the implications of defending a country with such antagonistic leadership. I have a bad feeling Mr. Harper and Mr. Bush will find much in common.

There are other liberties, other shining points of Canadian freedom and individuality, at stake all of a sudden. Music sharing, medicinal and recreational use of marijuana, rehabilitation of troubled youth, environmental responsibility, and so much more are jeopardized by the Conservative administration. These pillars of the Canadian way of life will be placed on the shelf as new agendas are brought to light - identity verification, activity logging, military might, and legal punishment.

That’s right, Canada. You’ve basically voted yourselves unfit to govern yourselves. You’ve begged authoritarians to tighten the leash. Fear not, for you’ll get your wish. We will soon discover that more of us are criminals than we realized, and those criminals will be severely punished. We don’t want social issues to be addressed. We don’t want preventive maintenance. We only want revenge on those who have wronged us. Don’t worry. We’ll get it. Those of you who voted to “stand up for Canada,” prepare to bend over.

p.s., A very hearty congratulations to the NDP who increased its parliament presence by 10 seats, and to the Green Party for capturing the hearts of over a million Canadians. An extra special congratulations to Thornhill NDP candidate Simon Strelchik and Green candidate Lloyd Helferty for speaking so well in the local debate and for swaying more than 10% of our predominantly Liberal community.

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Addendum:

Thanks to Mycroft who mentions Harper’s “firewall article” as suggested reading. Here is a link to the article.

I’d heard that Harper wanted to reallocate some power from the federal level to the provinces, but it sounds like he wants to impose something of a full-scale separatist movement to decentralize allocation of funds and services altogether. Perhaps some provinces are not recieving sufficient support, perhaps not. It is particularly suspicious that his proposed “Alberta Agenda” exempts a wealthy province with no provincial sales tax from supporting the rest of the country. Harper most certainly has a point when he says “If Quebec can do it, why not Alberta?” This should not be acceptable in any province. United we stand, divided we fall.