Chase_Arcanum

If someone really wants to break into a place, a lock isn't going to deter them greatly, I fear. I fence isn't going to deter them much more.... barbed wire along the top of the fence isn't, either.

Each layer deters another degree of less-determined malcontent, though.

Well, for some perspective, most people are paranoid in the wrong areas. Online privacy concerns are good, but the most prevalent identity thefts techniques begin offline (and predate the use of the term "identity theft"). Online info just facilitates things.

1) Have you ever dined at a restaurant where the bill is brought to your table? You give them your card and they take it to the register, swipe it, and bring it back? Anytime that card leaves your line of sight, you're risking what used to be one of the most common starting points for ID theft.

There are these tiny devices... easily smaller than an IPhone (a decade ago, the place I worked at helped law enforcement deconstruct 200 of them disguised as pagers. ) Waitstaff could run your card through it and swipe the data, just like a legit charge. In one night, they'd gather several hundred, upload them to an "exchange site."

A thief would get caught quickly using the accounts they nabbed themselves, so they're traded around the world via such discrete networks. The thief might never even USE a fake card for anything- he's just getting paid for the ones he gathers.

From there, you've got enough for basic false charges... without the end-user sharing anything online. but take those names (and relative locations, based on where the charges originated) and put it through several bots... can we find (and test) any more publicly-identifiable information?

Maybe get your home address or telephone? Switchboard.com's a gold mine fort that. Ok, there are three with your name variation in town? What's the harm in brute-force checking for a match? Let it trickle out over a few different sites over a few days, just to reduce suspicion.

Where being a little reckless starts kicking in: Maybe they also scan your blog or facebook posts, getting lists of info you may have used in security questions for various sites "What high school did you graduate from? What's your favorite cat's name?" etc. Maybe they do a credit check and realize that you're a REALLY good candidate for a little investment, so they pay the online services that'll get you more details...

2) Another one that's (hopefully) dying off: all those "pre-approved" credit card solicitations that we used to see. Sure, some people are careless and throw them out without properly disposing of them, but more frequently someone gets to them before you even get em out of your mailbox. (With so many dual-income households out there, a fraudster can reasonably expect most homes without cars in the driveway to be empty during business hours, allowing them to reasonably go to the front door, check the mail & take what they want without risk of being confronted. Wear something vaguely akin to a utility worker's outfit for added protection.

From there, same as before... the thieves could probably get enough info to open one of those accounts (and even get a change-of-address going) in the few dozen they manage to gather in a week, but their chances of success go up when they can get your REAL personal info from a google search.

3) My company outsourced several HR related tasks to a management firm. Said firm was in an office complex that outsourced cleaning staff duties to somewhere else. Cleaning is done at night, when everyone's gone. That cleaning company found vetting workers expensive, so they didn't.... and filing cabinet locks can be easily compromised over time. When that HR agency noticed several papers out of place and investigated, guess what they found?

Yep.

One cleaning guy didn't show up the day after this broke on the news... to my knowledge, they never caugt him. Doesn't really matter, though. Connect that to the kind of data-sharing network from #1 and the genie was already out of the bottle.

They had no clue if anything had been DONE, but they still contacted all their clients (tens of thousands of employees) and their insurer got us all a free year of full-scale credit monitoring, just to be safe.

Again, nothing that the end user (the employees) could have done differently, and if that person DID exchange our identities, they'd already have everything they needed for a solid case of ID theft.

Heh... I'm too old-school. I was gonna suggest two six-sided dice set to + "boxcars"

Come on, David, You're not gonna make me keep a running tally, are ya?

Just give us the /e facepalm that we've so earned... repeatedly.

I'll even commission Samuraiko to make a video of all the signature heroes facepalming, set to music. You and the other devs can link to it in forum posts!

heh... I know. Just a running joke.

If they get jigglebone physics in the game, the hair better be the SECOND place the tech is applied to.

<.<

>.>

Just sayin'

That's rather odd logic seeing as the tech is pretty much there-- just the user interface (and the animations) missing. Origin-linking animations would involve all-new untested tech.

From a development/testing/risk projection perspective, UI modification is an order of magnitude less challenging than introducing new tech.

Seconded.

I'm amazed this thread went as far as it did without it being mentioned.

somehow you always find the right words...

What? Didn't you get the memo?

Now, I'd love to help Europe get some lovin' too, buy you guys across the pond have to help us make your case.

The devs have said that they wanted an EXISTING CONVENTION / EVENT to attach this to (that doesn't conflict with the already-set dates), not just a location. As surreal and entertaining as a trip there may be, "Amsterdam" does not qualify as an "event"

Yes, but these things have a value that goes well beyond the con.

What's revealed there will be reported on gaming news sites. Videos will be posted online. It's free press AND a demonstration of fan enthusiasm at the same time.

When your events are mere weeks apart, you dilute your news or your biggest fanbase already knows everything you're going to say & show. Either way, you don't get the market buzz that'll help justify the cost of the presentation.

Yes, conventions are worth more than that, but if you can get BOTH out of a convention, you're a fool not to.

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Finally, these things sap you as a professional. The devs would be going from pre-launch crunch time to ComicCon to post-launch fire drills to GenCon in just two weeks.

I'd rather they recover, hit Pax West with all the enthusiasm they can muster, then maybe look for something in Mid-October in the south or central US (as unlikely as that may be, since it seems outside of big convention schedules) where they could again gather media attention with Incarnates previews.

I'd still say GenCon has a strong candidacy, it just wouldn't be my IDEAL candidate.

- Because they noted that they don't WANT TO split resources.
- Because one of the BENEFITS of investment in con participation is the news buzz for online sites, something that's lost in back-to-back games.

Shame too, before I mis-read PAX west's date, Dragon Con was the obvious choice... long enough after ComicCon & the likely GR launch to be a good buzz generator, great location for covering more of the nation. (I'm northeast/middle atlantic, myself, but anything on the east coast noth of DC was fairly covered by Pax East, so I'd rather they hit another area)


I'm more likely to attend GenCon, but I don't like the schedule. Two weeks after ComicCon is too soon for news buzz value. They'd either have to hold back at the Comic Con or give essentially the same presentation there.

HOW DO YOU DO THAT?
Geeze, you make that look easy.

I'd toyed with one that Seraph GaGa would sing to her idol (Rian Frostdrake's Seraph Blue) but really just couldn't make it work. Had to find something else that fits better for 'fashion sense...' but eventually got distracted by something else and never finished it.

(To "Bad romance" ...obviously)
oh oh oh oh ooh oh oh oooh oh oh oh!
costuming aggrievance

Rah rah ah ah ah ah
Roma ro ma mamaa
Ga ga ooh la la
Want your fashion sense.

I've been to Icon
Serge fell to his knees
I've been to facemaker- the one in Cap D
I want that look.
Look-look-look
I want your look.

Pink ninja headgear
and green schoolgirl skirts
with red leather corsets- so bright it hurts
I want that look
Look-look-look
I want your look.

You know that I know you
and we'll match down to the hue
I want it bad, your fashion sense.

I want your look and
I want your costumes
you and me have got some fashion sense.
I want your look so
please share those mushrooms
you and me have got some fashion sense.

oh oh oh oh ooh oh oh oooh oh oh oh!
costuming aggrievance

Rah rah ah ah ah ah
Roma ro ma mamaa
Ga ga ooh la la
Want your fashion sense.


I gave up on the idea at that point, but the next part could work with virtually no editing, after all:

I want your horror
I want your design...

lol

and a good example of why I still monitor comments.

Seriously, though. Yes, I did say I see them as "pointless and distracting" but the crux of it was that I STILL liked the comments portion of it- the ability to send a very quick indication TO THE AUTHOR about how you found a post without adding to the postcount.

THAT had value.

I know some people were getting harassed via comments, but I would have preferred an OPTION to disable comments, rather than what we got. I don't want to use my rep as a popularity contest, but it helps to see the trending.

Actually, Cinder (my wife) made the costumes while we were brainstorming the idea. I'll relay your praise to her.

I never FULLY set up the most elaborate part of it for Rian_Frostdrake though. I made her a zombie mastermind (her "backup singers") and even re-worded one of her songs in a bad parody she was gonna sing to Seraph_Blue... but never got the keybinds done. Besides, it'd be better as a music video... if there was anyone that would dare sing the lyrics I put together. Heck, even VOCALOID has more self-respect than that.

Agreed... or possibly "fire incarnate" "earth incarnate" "magic incarnate"

I always took it that the "Gods" part of incarnates stemming from a misunderstanding. It isn't exactly that Statesman is an Incarnate of Zeus, as was once stated, it's that Statesman is the incarnation of a particular platonic ideal for our era and Zeus was an incarnation of that same ideal in the greek age of heroes.

... and there may very well have been OTHER ages of heroes farther back in time... each with their own incarnates of those ideals.

Lady Ga Ga is clearly the secret identity for any/all of Rian_Frostrake's female alts, as Oddity McHuggins clearly demonstrates:

Nicely done.

I know- I was surprised by how many people did put value in the stars (and the current rep system, for that matter). Yeah, it would be nice to say "filter to show me only posts that have a star rating of X or higher" just to sort through the junk that much faster, but the reality is that: we all have different tastes and some will play the system

These two things will always make server-wide rating systems- whether for posts or people- essentially meaningless.

Want to make it meaningful again? There's a very simple change that could be done... it's just puts a murderous load for the database: Personalize the ratings. Rather than show me the ratings as calculated by the opinion of everyone on the server, show me values based on what my friends think.

- You usually befriend people that share some of your interests and values, so an aggregate of their likes and dislikes is more likely to point you to things you'd have an interest in. important and people you'd find valuable.

- 1-star bandits would be marginalized, as the only people that would see that star weigh a thread/person down are the people that valued that bandit's opinion.


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Me? The first thing I did on the boards was turn off ratings, as I see them as pointless and distracting, but I privately reviewed them and followed comments. It was helpful to know if something I'd posted and all-but-forgotten had been taken in a way I hadn't intended.

Teamspeak was noted as OK when we first saw this issue in beta, but those people may not have been using the hotkey.

The problem most often appears in systems that are competing for keyboard listenining- the hotkey poller for ATI, the hotkey for voice chat, etc. Not all keyboard listeners seem to be affected equally, though...

most of mine are