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Most of the startup learning curve is a learn-on-the-job endeavor. Nothing replaces the real experience of managing your own company; however there are some lessons that are worth learning ahead of time.
Smart entrepreneurs learn to pick out which teachings should be followed and which should be discarded.
This is my common response I send when friends ask for a book list. I actually think blogs are far more important because they're real-time and often include comments that can help the reader learn the subtleties and exceptions of an argument. As I've said before, instead of reading this blog, I highly recommend these:
But there's something nice about books. Books are consumed in a different setting. They linger on bookshelfs. They get highlighted and earmarked. If you're new to the startup world, I would recommend reading and re-reading the following 6 books. In fact, I would go farther and say that you should not start your company until you read through this list:
The 6 best startup books to read before starting your company
A lot of this book is understanding how to put luck on your side. I put this book as first though because it can help you understand if you want to be an founder or a manager. Founders are a special breed. Peabody claims it's the B- players that like to hack systems so that they get 80% of the result for 20% of the efforts. Managers are early employees, A+ players, that can take a founders vision and create something remarkable. It's helpful to understand which one you are. And it's helpful to know how luck and intelligence work together.
As he says: "I was smart enough to realize I was getting lucky"
If you've never built a product or if you're a non-technical MBA, start here. The purpose is to learn the basics of agile development early on.
The m.o. of 37 Signals is:
"We believe software is too complex. Too many features, too many buttons, too much to learn. Our products do less than the competition – intentionally. We build products that work smarter, feel better, allow you to do things your way, and are easier to use."
Guy will show you how to start the company and how to raise money. This is your replacement for whatever textbook you used in your entrepreneurship class. It's a nuts and bolts guide to what you do at each stage of start-up process. Kawasaki is great about helping you understand how investors will view you.
One great example, he directs you against putting a competitive profile slide in your pitching deck that shows your features vs. their features. He's seen this enough times to know it's a useless cliche: the entrepreneur always claims to have more features than the competition. His solution is to list out your unfair advantages and their unfair advantages in order to prove you have a reasonable perspective on your market. Good stuff.
From my vantage point, Steve Blank is this year's favourite author, blogger, professor, and speaker. I know that some venture capitalists give his book out to all newly-funded management teams.
Blank outlines a method called customer development. In his words:
"Your startup is an organization built to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Your job as a founder is to quickly validate whether the model is correct by seeing if customers behave as your model predicts. Most of the time the darn customers don’t behave as you predicted."
Rework is a collection of essays from their wonderful blog, Signals vs. Noise. Reading it as a whole is a nice way to learn about how to think of your startup as a business that needs to make money. These guys are pro-bootstrapping, pro-profits, and anti-venture investing. They're a nice counterpoint to much of the startup literature that focuses on how to raise money as the primary goal in the early part of a company.
This is a good last book for this list because it gives you insight into founder culture. One of the most interesting (and unexpected) aspects of being in Y Combinator is that we got to see so many other founders working on their startups. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely endeavor and it's nice to have some perspective on how other founders manage ups and downs while executing at very high levels. The early days of the startup are the most interesting and unlike anything that comes afterward.
In her words:
Quote:
"This is what productivity looks like. This is the Formula 1 racecar. It looks weird but it goes fast."
Those are my 6. Would love to hear in the comments what other books you recommend.
“AMD ATI Radeon4850/4870 CrossfireX” review at Guru3D. Hilbert’s lost it again – high poweredgraphics have that effect on him... Anyway, what’s come to light, lately, isthe high power consumption of the 4800 series (now double-up on the cards andimagine), and the irregular driver performance. You can see a broad spectrum ofresults, but when Hilbert gets CrossfireX to work, it works great. But do putthings in perspective when reading: with the latest generation of graphics cardsworking in dual-GPU setups, you’ll be looking at buying a 30-inch LCD for2560x1600 gameplay.Readit here. XS Reviews is cracking open the Zalman GS1000 computer case, targeted at justabout anyone who wants to build a supercomputer at home. It supports E-ATX andvery long PCI cards and has hot-swappable bays for HDDs. Lots of space inside,if you’re “just” using a standard ATX mobo, but the panels are a bit dodgy,thinks the author. Not a snip at Ł100, but if Zalman could swap out those panelswith something better, they’d have a winner.Readon. A few years ago we were hack-napped off to a press conference abroad just tosee how Philips would conquer the world of mobile telephony. Some 18 monthslater, Philips withdrew from the market, unable to compete with the big namesand (our personal opinion) mostly due to their utterly rubbish user interface.Now Philips is reviving the brand (Xenium 9@9) in China with the brand new X800.ePrice in Taiwan has the review. The X800 is a full touchscreen design (no, youwon’t have nightmares about the old Xeniums) and it looks like something out ofHTC’s workshop, to be honest. Careful when reading the page, it didn’t play nicewithGooglenglish,but you’ll get the gist (and the photos).
Andrew at Tweak Town took some time to write a guide on how to replace theheatspreaders on your RAM. Naturally it’s one of the warranty-voiding themes,but if you’re in need of improving cooling, it’s a necessary evil. Andrewsoutlines three basic methods to do this (hot, cold, lukewarm), but it all comesdown to be REALLY careful with sharp metallic objects in close proximity of aPCB.Letloose the mad aussie scientist in you.
T-break had a party with the ECS P45T-A Black Edition. ECS isn’t really knownas a top grade mobo maker, but it doesn’t fall behind the competition featurewise with this one. The board supports Crossfire, but it’ll break down the lanesinto 2x8 as per the P45 specs, but when you try your hand at an overclock, Abbasthinks you’ll be left wanting. The “Black Edition” brings to mind ideas ofmodding, overclocking and serious tweaking. That isn’t the case, it seems. Goodprice, tho’.Readon. Tosh has hit the Portégč brand with its shrink ray and launched the G810.It’s no longer a notebook, as it were, it’s a Windows Mobile 6.0 smartphone witheverything touchscreen. It’s targeted at the same market as the HTC TouchCruise, but you really can’t avoid comparing the details with the iPhone. It’sHSDPA enabled and even includes GPS functionality. The only real thing goingagainst it is the slow speed of the image capture (slow flash, we guess). $550will buy you one.Readthe review here. Hardware Zone is gobsmacked by Gigabyte’s most extreme P45 mobo – the aptlynamed GA-EP45T-EXTREME. This board has it all, it seems, even a waterblock onthe northbridge that runs liquid cooling to the southbridge and the rows ofcapacitors. It also allows you to stick in 3 ATI cards and is populated by abevy of LEDs that alert you about your overclocking misdeeds. It’s only apreview, butit’stasty.
Linuxis a hacker’s dream computer operating system. It supports tons oftools and utilities for cracking passwords, scanning networkvulnerabilities, and detecting possible intrusions. I have here acollection of 10 of the best hacking and security software tools forLinux. Please always keep in mind that these tools are not meant toharm, but to protect.
1. John the Ripper
John the Ripperis a free password cracking software tool initially developed for theUNIX operating system. It is one of the most popular passwordtesting/breaking programs as it combines a number of password crackersinto one package, autodetects password hash types, and includes acustomizable cracker. It can be run against various encrypted passwordformats including several crypt password hash types most commonly foundon various Unix flavors (based on DES, MD5, or Blowfish), Kerberos AFS,and Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 LM hash. Additional modules have extendedits ability to include MD4-based password hashes and passwords storedin LDAP, MySQL and others.
2. Nmap
Nmapis my favorite network security scanner. It is used to discovercomputers and services on a computer network, thus creating a "map" ofthe network. Just like many simple port scanners, Nmap is capable ofdiscovering passive services on a network despite the fact that suchservices aren't advertising themselves with a service discoveryprotocol. In addition Nmap may be able to determine various detailsabout the remote computers. These include operating system, devicetype, uptime, software product used to run a service, exact versionnumber of that product, presence of some firewall techniques and, on alocal area network, even vendor of the remote network card.
Nmapruns on Linux, Microsoft Windows, Solaris, and BSD (including Mac OSX), and also on AmigaOS. Linux is the most popular nmap platform andWindows the second most popular.
3. Nessus
Nessusis a comprehensive vulnerability scanning software. Its goal is todetect potential vulnerabilities on the tested systems such as:
-Vulnerabilities that allow a remote cracker to control or access sensitive data on a system.
-Misconfiguration (e.g. open mail relay, missing patches, etc).
-Defaultpasswords, a few common passwords, and blank/absent passwords on somesystem accounts. Nessus can also call Hydra (an external tool) tolaunch a dictionary attack.
-Denials of service against the TCP/IP stack by using mangled packets
Nessusis the world's most popular vulnerability scanner, estimated to be usedby over 75,000 organizations worldwide. It took first place in the2000, 2003, and 2006 security tools survey from SecTools.Org.
4. chkrootkit
chkrootkit(Check Rootkit) is a common Unix-based program intended to help systemadministrators check their system for known rootkits. It is a shellscript using common UNIX/Linux tools like the strings and grep commandsto search core system programs for signatures and for comparing atraversal of the /proc filesystem with the output of the ps (processstatus) command to look for discrepancies.
It can be used from a"rescue disc" (typically a Live CD) or it can optionally use analternative directory from which to run all of its own commands. Thesetechniques allow chkrootkit to trust the commands upon which it dependa bit more.
There are inherent limitations to the reliability ofany program that attempts to detect compromises (such as rootkits andcomputer viruses). Newer rootkits may specifically attempt to detectand compromise copies of the chkrootkit programs or take other measuresto evade detection by them.
5. Wireshark
Wiresharkis a free packet sniffer computer application used for networktroubleshooting, analysis, software and communications protocoldevelopment, and education. In June 2006, the project was renamed fromEthereal due to trademark issues.
The functionality Wiresharkprovides is very similar to tcpdump, but it has a GUI front-end, andmany more information sorting and filtering options. It allows the userto see all traffic being passed over the network (usually an Ethernetnetwork but support is being added for others) by putting the networkinterface into promiscuous mode.
Wireshark uses thecross-platform GTK+ widget toolkit, and is cross-platform, running onvarious computer operating systems including Linux, Mac OS X, andMicrosoft Windows. Released under the terms of the GNU General PublicLicense, Wireshark is free software.
6. netcat
netcat is a computer networking utility for reading from and writing to network connections on either TCP or UDP.
Netcatwas voted the second most useful network security tool in a 2000 pollconducted by insecure.org on the nmap users mailing list. In 2003, itgained fourth place, a position it also held in the 2006 poll.
The original version of netcat is a UNIX program. Its author is known as *Hobbit*. He released version 1.1 in March of 1996.
Netcat is fully POSIX compatible and there exist several implementations, including a rewrite from scratch known as GNU netcat.
7. Kismet
Kismetis a network detector, packet sniffer, and intrusion detection systemfor 802.11 wireless LANs. Kismet will work with any wireless card whichsupports raw monitoring mode, and can sniff 802.11a, 802.11b and802.11g traffic.
Kismet is unlike most other wireless networkdetectors in that it works passively. This means that without sendingany loggable packets, it is able to detect the presence of bothwireless access points and wireless clients, and associate them witheach other.
Kismet also includes basic wireless IDS featuressuch as detecting active wireless sniffing programs includingNetStumbler, as well as a number of wireless network attacks.
8. hping
hpingis a free packet generator and analyzer for the TCP/IP protocol. Hpingis one of the de facto tools for security auditing and testing offirewalls and networks, and was used to exploit the idle scan scanningtechnique (also invented by the hping author), and now implemented inthe Nmap Security Scanner. The new version of hping, hping3, isscriptable using the Tcl language and implements an engine for stringbased, human readable description of TCP/IP packets, so that theprogrammer can write scripts related to low level TCP/IP packetmanipulation and analysis in very short time.
Like most tools used in computer security, hping is useful to both system administrators and crackers (or script kiddies).
9. Snort
Snortis a free and open source Network Intrusion prevention system (NIPS)and network intrusion detection (NIDS) capable of performing packetlogging and real-time traffic analysis on IP networks.
Snortperforms protocol analysis, content searching/matching, and is commonlyused to actively block or passively detect a variety of attacks andprobes, such as buffer overflows, stealth port scans, web applicationattacks, SMB probes, and OS fingerprinting attempts, amongst otherfeatures. The software is mostly used for intrusion preventionpurposes, by dropping attacks as they are taking place. Snort can becombined with other software such as SnortSnarf, sguil, OSSIM, and theBasic Analysis and Security Engine (BASE) to provide a visualrepresentation of intrusion data. With patches for the Snort sourcefrom Bleeding Edge Threats, support for packet stream antivirusscanning with ClamAV and network abnormality with SPADE in networklayers 3 and 4 is possible with historical observation.
10. tcpdump
tcpdumpis a common computer network debugging tool that runs under the commandline. It allows the user to intercept and display TCP/IP and otherpackets being transmitted or received over a network to which thecomputer is attached.
In some Unix-like operating systems, auser must have superuser privileges to use tcpdump because the packetcapturing mechanisms on those systems require elevated privileges.However, the -Z option may be used to drop privileges to a specificunprivileged user after capturing has been set up. In other Unix-likeoperating systems, the packet capturing mechanism can be configured toallow non-privileged users to use it; if that is done, superuserprivileges are not required.
The user may optionally apply aBPF-based filter to limit the number of packets seen by tcpdump; thisrenders the output more usable on networks with a high volume oftraffic.
Do you have a favorite security software tool for Linux? Feel free to comment and tell us about it.
He can otherwise be the perfectly articulate gent, but put your average blokenext to a games console and he becomes transfigured - Man becomes Caveman.Such are the findings of recent research in which brain activity wasanalysed while participants played video games. In what must have been a nightmare of wiring, scientists at StanfordUniversity rigged up participants to an MRI scanner while they played aspecially designed game, the object being to make the most gains interritory.
The study revealed differences in motivation between the sexes. In malesubjects, this brain activity increased as territory was accumulated.Writing in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, the report's author, DrAllan Reiss, concluded: “It's fair to say that males tend to be moreintrinsically territorial. It doesn't take a genius to figure out whohistorically are the conquerors and tyrants of our species.”
The study showed that women, although getting the hang of the game and able toassess how to win, were less driven to succeed. Well, that explains my verylimited discussions with my girlfriend on the subject of video games: “I cansee you're obsessed with blowing up that flashing red thing, darling. I justdon't understand why.”
DEBATE: Video games come with male territory Do they?
American author, critic and filmmaker Nelson George has stated that he believes videogames are now more influential to young male culture than music.
Speaking in a new book, Crime, by Alix Lambert and to be published by Fuel later this month, George compares videogames to hip-hop music and culture, which during the 80s and 90s had a massive influence on all aspects of mainstream and popular culture.
"Videogames are more important than hip-hop. There's no doubt about it," said George, in an extract of the book printed in The Guardian this weekend.
"The violence and nihilism that everyone thinks is in hip-hop is pumped up about 18 times in videogames. That's really what's driving young male culture, that's really the new rock n' roll."
While violent lyrics are just one of the bad influences that critics blame rap music for, George believes that not enough people are looking at videogames and the influence they have on a young male audiences.
"The funny thing about this debate is so many hip-hop critics are fixated on rap and not talking enough about videogames, which aren't a racially determinant form."
He also believes that Rockstar, and companies like EA with its music-influenced Def Jam franchise, have been smart to incorporate hip-hop culture into games.
Quote:
"Obviously these Grand Theft Auto guys were very canny because they tied in to Scarface, they tied in to hip-hop. But the games are different – they're not folk statements. Hip-hop was a folk music up until the late 80s."
"With videogames the relationship to the culture is different, they're much more like movies. They're a really interesting hybrid. The Grand Theft Auto dudes were all about figuring out how to tap into urban culture. Vidoegames, like movies, take in so many disciplines. At the same time, it's not folk expressions – at least, the way I understand it – of an individual."
<!-- Author Start --> Phil Elliott <!-- Author End -->
09:00 (BST)
16/05/2008
GamesAid charity launched <!-- Article Start -->
A new videogames industry charity called GamesAid has been set up withthe purpose of raising money predominantly to support children'scharities in the UK.
Founded by seven trustees, including Mastertronic's Andy Payne,Sports Interactive's Miles Jacobson and Relentless co-founder AndyEades, the charity will operate around a special industry socialnetwork website with the principal aim of democratising fund-raisingefforts and maintaining transparency of operation.
The website will also enable the charity to run without theneed for a fixed office location and staff, so that overheads can bereduced to a minimum - with the initial goal of keeping costs to below5 per cent of total funds raised.
"It's down to the people in the industry to suggestcharities, to get involved in the diligence process, to help steer theTrustees' opinions, to communicate with others, to build good feeling -to do the stuff that raises cash," Payne told GamesIndustry.biz.
"It's a new way of doing it," added Eades. "It's in the Web 2.0 world -it's a kind of socially democratising approach to charity. What you'veseen work with social networks, we're going to try some of those ideasout.
Quote:
"It's a charity that anybody in the games industry can getinvolved with, and the Trustees are just there to oversee with noself-interest. Hopefully that will allow other people to raise money,choose which charities receive funds - and anybody who wants to knowthe information, to find out who GamesAid has donated to, can findout."
Further information on how to get involved with GamesAid will be available soon on GamesIndustry.biz and GamesAid.org.
GamesAid is a new UK video games industry based charity. Itdistributes funds to a diverse range of charities; it is a means ofgiving something back on behalf of the industry.
GamesAidacts as a broker of charitable activity on behalf of the industry,taking advice from all sectors. It is a non trading body. The charityis administered by Trustees, who operate on a fixed term basis. It isformally run by a chairman, who is also on a fixed term.
GamesAid is a children and young people’s charity
At first glance, it seems like a regular blog. But look closer andyou'll see there's something very odd about the blog's content: It'svery familiar. Too familiar.
That's because you wrote it -- six months ago on your own blog.The rest of the content doesn't make sense: The same word repeated overand over again. There are ads all over the sidebar for products likeViagra and mortgage loans.
This, you realize, is a splog, and you're the victim.
"Splogs," or spam blogs, are one of the methods spammers haveadopted to manipulate the blogosphere for profit. The phenomenonstarted getting really bad in 2005, when Google's blog-hosting service,Blogger, was inundated with more than 13,000 fake blogs spawned by a script.
Splog topics are often so nonsensical and wide-ranging they can be hard to pinpoint. Scott Beale of Laughing Squid said some really strange splogs have shown up on his watch list, everything from "Phish Rocks, Dude" to "Geeks Meet Greeks."
But why do sploggers do it? How do you know if you've been splogged? And what can you do to stop it? Here are a few tips.
This page is a wiki. If you have any extra advice to offer, go ahead and add it.
[/TD][/TR][/TABLE] if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); } Find Out If You're Being Splogged
Splogs lift content from real blogs to increase the splog's PageRankat Google and generate ad revenue. The problem for bloggers is theirblog's PageRank may drop, and they may be associated with spam,damaging their reputation.
To find out if your blog is being ripped off, subscribe to newsfeeds at search engines like Technorati, Google Blog Search andIceRocket. Use search terms like your name, your site's name or itsURL. Most bloggers use these services to track what other blogs sayabout them, but it will also detect splogs lifting your content. You'llrecognize a splog by the unusual number of buzzwords in the maincontent area. And splogs often redirect visitors to an entirelydifferent site.
Tip: Analyze a blog's URL for suspicious keywords andthings like hyphens -- for some reason, most splogs' titles arehyphenated. Although some sites like Why Dogs Eat Poop are completely legitimate, despite the hyphens in the URL.
Tip: Use Google Alerts to track how your content, name, and web sites are being used on the web -- it's amazing what Google can find for you.
Report Splogs
While splogs may seem like a minor annoyance to the individualblogger, the overall effect of splogs is far-reaching. So, for thecommunity's sake, when you notice a splog -- report it. If the splog ison Blogger,you can easily report it by clicking the Flag button on the top rightcorner of the page. This will notify Blogger admins about objectionablecontent, and the splog should be removed. If the splog is on anotherblogging platform, you may have to contact the host directly.
Tip: If the splog has Google ads on it, the site can bereported to Google's AdSense program, and the account could be revoked.Look for the link that says "Ads by Google" at the bottom of thesplog's AdSense array. You'll see a form on the next page. Leave ashort note describing why you think the site is violating the terms ofservice for AdSense. Be sure to include the term "spamreport" beforeyou click Submit.
Tip: On the flip side of things, many blogs are easy to spot as being legitimate. For example, author of the PLR Model Blogdisplays his full name in his postings, which is quite rare. Othersigns of legitimacy include valid email addresses, lack ofadvertisements, non-spam comments which have been moderated, and soforth.
Remove Comment and Trackback Spam
While comment and trackback spam are not technically splogs, theyare related. Spammers who deal in comment and trackback spam sometimeslink to splogs in the hope of gaming the site's PageRank. Having a goodcomment-moderation system helps.
Movable Type has an upgraded Junk folder system to combat spam.
TypePad also has a Spam option for each comment.
WordPress also comes with built-in comment moderation that can help put spam on ice.
Trackback spam is harder to fight, and a lot of bloggers have resorted to turning off trackbacks entirely.
What to Do Next
One of the best ways to fight splogs is to be vocal about them.Demand accountability and diligence from hosting providers, and demandadditional barriers in the blog-creation process.
High-profile bloggers like Mark Cuban are demanding higherstandards from Google and Blogger. So far, Google seems to belistening. Blogger added a CAPTCHA human verification system to theblog-creation process so it can't be easily automated, and the companyhas published a list of deleted URLs so other search engines can removeknown splogs from their indexes.
The Byron Review was a report delivered on the 27 March 2008to the UK Government (in particular, the Department for Children,Schools and Families). It was authored and overseen by Dr Tanya Byron. The Review focuses on the use of videogames and the Internet (particularly social networking websites) by children, and discusses the use of classification and the role of parenting in policing these.
Update: The full review is now available to download here You can also access it via the DFES' site, which includes links to the Executive Summary and the Annexes, as well as a special summary for kids and young people The government's independent review of the effects of online contentand video game violence on children and young people was releasedtoday, and the author, Dr. Tanya Byron, has been on the press trailsince 5:30am. But people following this debate (or those who read thefront page article on The Guardian last month) will be little surprised; the Byron Review proposes suggestions which games industry trade bodies like ELSPA and TIGA have been active in and pressing on for years:
Quote:
· New codes of practice to regulate social networking sites, such asBebo and Facebook, including clear standards on privacy and harmfulcontent; · A gold standard for the use of console games, including clearset-up guidance for parents on issues such as pin codes and locks; · Better information for parents on how to block children accessingsome websites. Byron has been struck that the technology exists toimpose timers and filters, but there has been little take-up, knowledgeor development of the technology; · A new law based on a 2006 Law Commission recommendation making it unlawful to assist suicide on the internet; · A national council to implement her strategy, with a fixedtimetable for industry experts; a parents' panel and child developmentexperts to implement her recommendations.
(via The Guardian) More information on today's report is at the BBC (and in video) and, er, the Daily Mail, and keep your RSS readers here as we discover more ourselves. You can hear how Byron approached the task here, and Bobbie Johnson will be interviewing the author for next Tuesday's Tech Weekly podcast later this afternoon. I'll be attending an industry Q&A next week - what would you like to ask Dr. Byron?
Byron: Generational divide is biggest problem in ratings debate TanyaByron, author of the government's review into the harmful effects ofvideogames and internet use on children, has said that the biggestissue the industry faces is the education of parents who have lessunderstanding of interactive media than their children. The ByronReview, released today, recommends that a single age rating system beadopted for videogame packaging, the statutory requirement for ratingsbe dropped to 12 and a set of clear and consistent guidelines areadopted for advertising games. "The key finding is that we havethis huge digital generational divide at the moment where children areenjoying benefits and opportunities both online and in videogames butparents are really genuinely confused in terms of what videogames areand how their kids are playing them, what the content really means andwhat should they be allowing their kids to play and not play," she said.
"Forme it's about how can government really empower parents, society andteachers who grapple with these issues in schools to really supportchildren to think about risks both online and in videogames where mostadults are coming from the position of knowing less than the childrenwho are using these technologies." Speaking to BBC Breakfast News- which showed in-game footage of people being set alight and shot inGrand Theft Auto: Vice City - Byron said the industry is beingresponsible by classifying products, but parents are confused by thetwo sets of ratings currently being used by PEGI and the BBFC. "Wedo have good regulations for videogames, currently they're classifiedby a European system that was set up by the videogame industry itself -an industry that I find to be a responsible in terms of games that arebeing produced. They produce excellent games for children and they alsoproduce games for adults that should not be played by children. And atthe top end we have the BBFC classifying games," she said. "Butwhat we get at the moment on games being sold in this country are twosets of symbols which parents tell me they find extremely confusing andretailers would like to be supported more to be able to say to parentsthat really you shouldn't be buying this game for your child. "Inthe same way (parents) don't let their children watch an 18-rated filmthey shouldn't let their children play an 18-rated game because theyare not for children, they are for adults," she added.
Chapter 6 of the government's independent reporton the effects of internet content and video game violence on kids andyoung people, has a detailed analysis of the evidence on video games. The Byron Review,released today, provides an excellent and balanced view on what theoutcomes of playing actually games has on the players, based on thescant academic research in this area. Without a doubt, this is themost important chapter for anyone with an interest in this area toread, as it presents the research rather than the knee-jerk reactionsof both gamers and anti-gamers alike. First, it argues that psychologists based in the UK and Europe havea very positive approach to conducting research in this area,subscribing to what Byron describes as an 'Active Users' perspective,
Quote:
which is social scientific in orientation and argues that reactions tomedia content are context-dependent. Research from this tradition doesnot directly ask about questions of effect but seeks to understandplayer's interpretations and response to technology and the influenceof wider social and cultural factors on this (e.g. see work byBuckingham e.g. 2006).
This approach considers the gamut of media - from entertainment tonews broadcasts - rather than approach the issue as if it was isolatedfrom these spheres of potential influence. Interestingly, one ofByron's arguments is that US-based psychologists argue 'much morestrongly' for a link between violent games and anti-social behaviourthan their UK or European counterparts (what's been called an 'ActiveMedia' perspective). Other content-based hypotheses considered:
There is little evidence of a 'Catharsis effect'
There may be wider effects (i.e. beyond violence) on children's attitudes, values and beliefs
Realism, interaction and repetition may lead to deeper learning
The arousal brought on during some game play may have the same impact on children as high levels of stress
There is no clear evidence of desensitisation in children
There is little analysis of the role played by the developmental stage of children
Byron also examines excessive use, including research on addiction(evidence suggests that there are very few true 'addicts', but many'high-users'), the impact of games on social behaviour, the impact ofgender differences on excessive use and any differences in excessiveuse by age. In her conclusion to this section, she argues for ageratings, proposing that young kids' 'limited ability to interpretcontent using context and decider reality from fantasy' areparticularly relevant to this issue. But this chapter doesn't only focus on the negative - there aresections on the benefits of games, both online and off, and potentialeffects of new and emerging technologies. An excellent, well-balanced and well-informed read, and highlyrecommended to anyone who's ever stood up for games with only thepathetic argument, 'Well, I'm not a serial killer and I play games'.
Industry Response
Just in case you missedany of these, here's a quick round-up of official responses to today'sByron review publication. They're broadly welcoming with a few provisoshere and there. First up, ELSPA (theEntertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association) supportedDr Byron's advice. "We believe in one legally enforceable system forclassification of video games and to build increased public awarenessof both the age ratings system and the long-standing availability anduse of parental controls on all games consoles," said Director General,Paul Jackson. But the association expressed fears about the BBFC's ability to deliver on Byron's suggestions:
Quote:
Weare concerned that the proposals as they stand may struggle to keep upwith the public's increasing desire to buy and play on-line.
Quote:
The games industry would need to be re-assured that theBritish Board of Film Classification (BBFC) would be capable ofdelivering against any new remit, or whether PEGI may be moreappropriate.
Unsurprisingly, the Interactive Software Federation of Europe, the body responsible for the voluntary PEGIage rating system, concurred. Although a press release backing the aimsof the report was issued today, with Secretary General, PatriceChazerand, calling it "a thoughtful and open review", there wasimplicit concern about losing the classification impetus to the BBFC:
Quote:
PEGI is a rating system designed specifically forinteractive content by people who best understand that medium. As theEuropean age rating system of reference, PEGI has been serving about 30European countries including the UK, for the last five years already.
For its part, the BBFC was unremittingly supportive. "I warmlywelcome Dr Byron's report. She has listened very carefully to all thearguments, and exercised her independent and expert judgement," gushedthe board's director, David Cooke. Seemingly addressing ELSPA's fearshe added:
Quote:
The BBFC has been able to handle a major expansion ofthe DVD market over the last few years, and we are ready and able totake on the extra work envisaged by Dr Byron.
One element of the BBFC's self-congratulatory press release may haveraised a few wry smiles in certain sectors of the games industry,however:
Quote:
Unlike PEGI, the BBFC has the power, in exceptionalcases, to reject films, DVDs and games which have the potential to posereal harm risk.
A 'power', you'll recall, that was so effectively exercised on Manhunt 2... Finally, game developer representative, TIGA, chimed in.Again, there was broad backing for the propositions of the Byronreview, but TIGA expressed concerns that the industry itself would beexpected to foot the bill for, 'waging an information campaign aboutthe ratings systems for games'. CEO Richard Wilson points out to thegovernment that the operating climate is hard enough for Europeanpublishers without the huge costs this will inevitably involve. Unquestionably, the Byron review is a useful document, especially inits sound analysis of research methods used to gauge the effects ofviolent imagery on children. But there's a general feeling that,although a clearer ratings system can only help willing parents makedecisions about what their children play, the government can't forceanyone into making these decisions - and probably shouldn't even try.There will always be those who'll buy violent videogames for theirchildren regardless of the clarity of the classification signage. This isn't necessarily a judgemental conclusion. Hey, some parentsjust trust their kids - a perfectly valid position. Plus, in the modernera, we've become adept at filtering out the signs and symbols ofofficial intervention, from health warnings on ciggie packets toemergency advice cards in planes and trains, it's all semiotic sludgefloating along on the collective stream of consciousness. What this comes down to is, are parents prepared to take an active,time-consuming interest in what their children are doing withtechnology? If they are, great. If they're not, no ratings system oradvertising campaign on Earth will protect their offspring. Some peoplejust don't want to know that games are adult entertainment these days.Some people don't want to know what it is that teenagers do every nighton their broadband-linked PCs. It's just more information static, morelooming shadows in the peripheral vision. But do we really want a government that feels it must step in at this juncture?
BBFC: We CAN rate online games
The BBFC feels that a ratings systemit's planning for online movie downloads could easily be extended togames that are bought, distributed and played online, CVG sister siteTechRadar is reporting...
"We are fully able to take on the extra workload of rating around 500extra games over the course of a year," said the BBFC's Sue Clarke,referring to the ratings board's potential increase in workload shouldthe recommendations from last week's review be put into practice.
The BBFC rep added: "The BBFC is self-funded so funding [this extra work] is not going to be an issue."
Daily mail article unbelievable
Quote:
Dr. Tanya Byron has criticised themainstream press reaction to The Byron Report and video games ingeneral, claiming that the press "has the mindset 'all games bad' or'games industry equals bad'".
Speaking with MCV, Byron labelled the Anne Diamond article in the Daily Mail "Unbelievable" and reiterated her stance that The Byron Report was aimed at reinforcing safety for children.
Quote:
"I'm very clear that the games industry makes adult games for adults;it doesn't make adult games for children," Bryon commented. "Somepeople still don't understand that the word 'game' doesn't necessarilymean anything is right for kids."
Bryon also addressed theissue of how the public information campaign to educate parents wouldbe funded. In a press conference last week, MP Andy Burnham said it was"principally up to the industry" to fund it.
"In consultationsI've had, [the industry was] saying 'we will be prepared to fund thepublic information campaign'," said Byron. "This seems like a reallygood opportunity for the industry to position itself much morepositively in the social mindset.
"I'm not saying I expectthe industry to fund it. But that has to be worked out. Everyone has tobe grown up about it, and ask what we're really trying to achieve."
Use of the Internet and videogames is extensive among children ofall ages, and the use of these can be beneficial since they offeropportunities for learning and development.
There exists in both media material that is potentially inappropriate for children, both in terms of content and safety online.
The report does not focus on whether the media itself causes harmto children but instead looks at how the media can be used to makechildren's lives better.
Parental responsibilities
Many parents do not understand the media, which the Review termsthe "generational digital divide". This can mean that parents areoverprotective through fear of what is available.
Parents should be available to assist their children in making decisions about and during use of the media.
there should be a shared culture of responsibility betweenfamilies, government, and industry, to restrict availability ofinappropriate material to children.
The Review proposes a "national strategy for child Internet safety" which provides information to families.
Videogame classification
There are many systems already in place to inform parents and help them to restrict access to inappropriate games.
Current ratings systems (such as PEGI) are sometimes misunderstood by parents as "difficulty ratings".
The classification system should be reformed so that the BBFC plays a larger role in classifying games.
Game ratings are under increased scrutiny following the decision to give Manhunt 2 an 18 certificate in the UK. The game was approved for release after a nine-month battle betweendevelopers Rockstar and the the British Board of Film Classification(BBFC).
Its release comes as the UK games industry awaits the Byron Review into the impact of technology on children.
A Private Members Bill proposing more government oversight of the BBFC was tabled last month but was talked out.<!-- E SF -->
Julian Brazier, Conservative MP for Canterbury and Whitstable, whointroduced the bill, had said he wanted to "legislate against videonasties". Writing on his blog before it was talked out, he said: "Mybill aims to make the British Board of Film Classification accountableto Parliament.
"It would give a Parliamentary committee the power to review and veto key appointments and the guidelines the BBFC works to."
Mr Brazier told BBC News: "The problem is that the Video AppealsCommittee needs sorting out: it always sides with the industry and onlythe industry itself can appeal."
Dr Tanya Byron is due to deliver her review into the internet and video games and their effect on children at the end of March.
Games consultant and former Edge magazine editor Margaret Robertsonsaid the Manhunt 2 overruling came at a bad time for the BBFC.
She said: "Whatever the merits of this specific decision, what'sfrustrating is that the BBFC's system remains a very robust approach toclassifying games, in that it's based on an independent party viewingand playing the game, and taking into account context and tone."
She added: "I still feel the BBFC sets a world-wide gold standard of game certification."
She said that the BBFC's system was superior to the European voluntaryapproach of Pegi, which runs in parallel to UK-specific classification.
"Compared to the Pegi system, which is based on a questionnaire filledin by the game publisher, the BBFC system is clearly a moresophisticated and nuanced approach."
<!-- S IIMA --> [TABLE] [TR][TD]
Dr Tanya Byron's report is due at the end of March
[/TD][/TR] [/TABLE] <!-- E IIMA -->
She added: "As games become more complex, and start to tackle morediverse and challenging themes, we need an intelligent, sensitiveratings system which is alert to the fact that games can and do have asubtext to what they portray, just as film and television can."
Ms Robertson said that a much wider debate was needed about how theBBFC was run and how much oversight was appropriate for government.
Only a small percentage of games, those that contain violence or sex, are referred to the BBFC.
A spokeswoman for the BBFC said the body continued to work to the rules laid down by the 1984 Video Recordings Act.
She said there had been no suggestion from government that its role as a video games classifier was about to change.
Developer David Braben, head of Frontier Games, said self-certification of games by developers was a potential solution.
"We've heard reports that the Byron Review will say that the classification system is not entirely working.
"The law is a very blunt weapon. The real problem is that games arequite complicated and are a non-linear media, and are therefore muchharder to rate.
"There is strong argument for self ratings. For me, the Pegi system has worked well.
"Developers intimately know the content - whether its cartoon violence,nasty violence, or has sexual elements - and can apply ratingsdirectly.
"The issue is almost whether you need something above 18, whichAmericans have as 'Adults Only', which is used for porn and cannot beon public display."
He added: "We need a system that is very clear to all of us. At times I fear the BBFC feels it is powerless."
Richard Wilson, chief executive of Tiga, the national body whichrepresents the commercial interests of developers, said members wereseeking consistent standards for games, films and TV.
He said: "The whole ratings system is going to be under review because of the Byron Review.
"Whatever was going to be the outcome of this particular case withManhunt 2, the government has initiated the Byron Review and that willsupersede that decision
"We feel that the same standards that apply to films and TV should apply to games."
Dr Tanya Byron <byronreview>Look forward to hearing the outcome of the ByronReview next year. Be safe Love Nicole ... I Can't understand why the ByronReview have been gave ...
Author, inventor and noted futurist Ray Kurzweil delivered a keynote speech at GDC in which he attempted to forecast the next 20 years in gaming.
Quote:
"The gaming industry really fits in with what I want to talk about, which is the acceleration of progress,"
he explained.
He noted that game consoles today are equivalent to the supercomputers of only a few years ago, and that they are really the
Quote:
"cutting edge of what's happening."
Kurzweil lamented the use of the term "game" to describe our industry – just as he dislikes the term "artificial intelligence" – because it makes everything sound unreal, and therefore unimportant, as in:
Quote:
"It's just a game."
They are much more important to Kurzweil.
Quote:
"Ultimately, virtual reality is going to be really competitive with reality,"
he said.
Kurzweil has been studying technology trends for thirty years, because his basic interest has been in being an inventor. He has been a pioneer in the fields of optical character recognition, text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology and electronic keyboard instruments.
"The key to being successful as an inventor is timing," he said. He doesn't doubt that 95 per cent of teams could really build what they say they can build if given the resources – but 95 per cent of those projects will fail because the timing is wrong.
Kurzweil disagrees with the notion that the future is unpredictable. While that may be true with specific projects, he demonstrated that progress is an "exquisitely smooth exponential progression."
In his opinion, there has been a very smooth, very predictable progression over the 20th century despite unpredictable human history which included two World Wars, a Cold War and the Great Depression.
This progression doesn't just apply to computers and communication devices, but also affects everything we care about such as our health and medicine – which he now considers to be yet another information technology.
Noting that the computer in a cell phone is a million times cheaper and smaller than the computer he used at MIT in the 1960s, he expects another billion-fold increase in price performance and capability in the next 25 years.
Quote:
"We are now in a situation where the acceleration is so fast that things change very rapidly in just a matter of a few years,"
he said.
Industries not currently thought of as information technologies – such as medicine and energy production - will be considered as such in the future
"By the 2020s, our economy will all be information technology - the games will have taken over the world," he said, to wild applause.
The challenge, then, comes from the software. Will it be able to accurately model human intelligence? Kurzweil thinks so, believing that in 20 years we will have models and simulations of all regions of the human brain.
Eventually, we will be unable to tell the difference between AI and real intelligence.
Based upon exponential progression, Kurzweil said that had he been asked to predict the future in 1900 – at a time when 1/3 of the economy was in agriculture and another 1/3 in manufacturing – he would have said that by 2000 only 3 per cent would be in agriculture and 3 per cent in manufacturing.
The people of that time would have found that disturbing. Won't that be awful? What will people do to make a living? Kurzweil jokingly added: "Don't worry, they'll find employment in the gaming industry."
Kurzweil sees computers "disappearing" as they become part of clothing and belt buckles, with visual displays built into eye glasses.
Images will be written directly to our retina. We will have a high bandwidth connection to the internet at all times. There will be a full immersion visual-auditory virtual reality as well as augmentation of real reality.
Quote:
"Real reality is going to continue to be a little irksome for a few years,"
he said.
By 2029, Kurzweil things that we will have reverse-engineered the human brain. By that time, USD 1,000 of computing power will give us 1,000 times the capability of the human brain.
Kurzweil noted that human beings are the only species that refuses to be limited by our biology.
"The tools of creativity have been democratised; The tools of production will also be democratised," he said.
It remains a golden rule for spies of any persuasion that a walk in the parkis still the safest environment for receiving secret information verballyfrom an agent.
Anything divulged inside a building or a private car is potentially open to anextraordinary array of eletronic bugging devices or telephone interceptsystems. Bugging is a fine art, and the technology has leapt forward inrecent years.
The electronic bug allegedly used by the police to eavesdrop on theconversation between Babar Ahmad, suspected of having links to terroristorganisations, and Sadiq Khan, his constituency MP, during a meeting inWoodhill prison in Milton Keynes, was probably the conventional type.
The basic form of bug requires someone to listen in from several hundredsyards away, or to have a recording system hidden nearby that can store manyhours of conversation.
The Times wrote:
However, the latest electronic listening device is known as the GSM bug.Michael Marks of Spymaster, a company that supplies surveillance equipment,told The Times: “With one of these new bugs, all you have to do isplace it covertly under someone’s desk. It’s like a miniature cellularphone. You can ring it from thousands of miles away, it answers silently andyou can listen in on conversations. The GSM bug could be in an office inLondon but the person listening to the conversations could be in Australia.”
The renegade former MI5 officer, Peter Wright, author of the controversial Spycatchermemoir, claimed that in his early years as a Security Service officer, “Webugged and burgled our way across London at the state’s behest, whilepompous bowler-hatted civil servants in Whitehall pretended to look theother way.”
Since those cavalier days in the 1950s and 1960s, bugging and burgling onbehalf of the state have had to be authorised with warrants. Neitherministers nor senior civil servants have been allowed to turn a blind eye,because the security and intelligence services are accountable to Britishlaw and Parliament.
However, the level of authorisation varies according to the operation.Interception of telephone calls, post and e-mails has to be authorised witha warrant from a Secretary of State, normally the Home Secretary or ForeignSecretary, but also the Northern Ireland Secretary in dealing with Irishterrorism.
There are also two types of covert surveillance - directed and intrusive. Thelatter where police officers or MI5 officers seek to place electronicbugging devices inside residences or private vehicles, a warrant signed bythe Home Secretary is required.
However, directed surveillance, where police or the intelligence services wantto follow an individual in public or conceal a surveillance device withouthaving to interfere with property - and that includes bugging a prison cellor a table in the visitor’s room - can be authorised “internally”. In thecase of the police, authorisation can be granted by a superintendent.
Prison cells are not bugged routinely, but in the past there have beenexamples where conversations between terrorist suspects and other prisonershave been overhead by means of hidden listening devices.
In the recent trial of four Pakistani-born terrorists who pleaded guilty toplotting to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier, it was revealed thatMI5 had entered the house of Parviz Khan, the ringleader, and planted bugs.That break-in would have required a warrant from the Home Secretary.
Although electronic bugs remain the staple diet of the surveillance community,the mobile phone has provided a revolution in eavesdropping techniques. Theycan be used as bugging devices themselves, simply by placing them covertlyin an office or home being targeted and switching them on. Mobiles thatdouble as listening devices can be bought on the internet.
Terrorists are fully aware that encrypted mobile phones are vulnerable toeavesdropping by the authorities. “If you can acquire the service number ofthe mobile phone, what’s called the IMEI number, located just under thebattery, you can tap in to people's conversations,” Mr Marks said.
Terrorists try to foil the counter-terrorist surveillance experts by buyingpay-as-you-go mobile phones which they use once and then throw away.
When it was alleged in 2004 that Kofi Annan, then United NationsSecretary-General, had had his offices bugged by American or Britishintelligence services, there was much speculation over whether the form ofeavesdropping had been a planted mobile phone or an electronic bug.
However, there are other more sophisticated methods, including using lasertechnology. A laser beam bouncing off an office window can pick up thevibrations of conversation which can then be translated into speech.
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There’s been quite a bit of buzz recently after it was announcedthat OpenOffice 3 was due in September. It seems, however, most peoplestill aren’t aware of what’s in store.
We love OpenOffice.org, hereby referred to asOpenOffice like normal people do. We like the fact it does pretty mucheverything we need for free, we like the out-of-the box PDF and Flashsupport, its better-than-Word ability to work with large documents, andthe joys of using a standard file format that’s actually, you know, astandard.
But the Openpoffice.org website is a rather scary place. We managed to find this conference presentation lurking in the shadows before running away in fear of mid 90’s web design. Here’s the best bits:
Native Mac OS X Aqua version
The Mac finally gets a native OpenOffice. This has been going on for a while - you can already download the native OS X OpenOffice 2.3 beta, but this time it’s official.
Sure, NeoOffice already does this, but OpenOffice 3 for Mac is new codethat will be released and updated at the same time as the Windows andLinux versions. Speaking of Windows, Vista users also get some kind ofunspecified ‘integration’ for 3.0.
New PIM
We love our Pimms with ginger ale, lemonade, citrus fruit, cucumber and ice. OpenOffice 3 has a different recipe:
Email
Calendaring with meeting invites and free/busy publishing
Task management
Server connectivity to CalDAV servers, Google Calendar and SunCalendar Server, as well as the obligatory iCal support. Alas, nomention of Zimbra.
Specifically touted by OpenOffice developers as an ‘Outlook replacement’
Support for Everything
Remember showing your mates the Flash export in OpenOffice 2Impress? Well drag them round again, as OpenOffice 3 takes it a stepfurther.
PDF files can be imported into Draw and edited with all their layout intact. Yum.
The whole Openoffice suite can save ‘hybrid’ PDF documents that can be viewed as PDFs or edited as OpenDocument files.
Edit wikis directly from OpenOffice without learning Yet Another Needless Wiki Markup Format.
WordPress and Movabletype blogs can be edited too.
Support for MS Office 2007 XML. Microsoft confusingly calls this‘Office Open XML’. We call it Stop Naming Your Unstable UndocumentedShitty Format To Sound Like Ours Thanks.
Math fetishists can enjoy enhanced Latex support.
Extension Manager
Openoffice 3 will have simple Firefox-like extensions. There’s a wide variety of existing OpenOffice extensions already available:
Fax support (both send and receive)
Google docs integration
Remote control for presentations via your bluetooth remote
Version control with Subversion
Voice commentaries for presentations
Reports
Beancounters and thier minions can now make pretty documents from databases using Base’s new reporting engine.
Tara Reid
This release marks the appearance of Tara Reid in OpenOffice.Witnesses report the anorexic booze hound stumbled into OOs buildsystem by accident, and will now live inside OpenOffice translatingdocuments into a language only spoken when you’ve drunk 8 bottles ofvodka.
Unfortunately in current betas, when this feature is enabled, OpenOffice smells vaguely of pee.
So that’s it for OpenOffice 3. Betas are arriving in the next few months, and the final should be done by September.
What else would we like to see?
Well, like a lot of Open Source projects, a decent website forpeople to see and download the damn software, and not look at picturesof skanky pidgeons.
You may have noticed that OpenOffice’s own templates are, well,crap. There’s a big market for Office templates out there, whichinevitably work just fine in OpenOffice too. Most of these companieswould be happy to Open Source a template or two for inclusion inOpenOffice in exchange for a link back to their websites as thetemplate author. OpenOffice gets some decent templates, and thetemplate authors get to show off their work.
In December of 2007, game developer Guerrilla Games admitted toaltering newly released Killzone 2 screenshots in order to make themlook more attractive. "There are only the tiniest bit touched up," saidthe company's QA manager, Seb Downie, in a PlayStation.comreply to savvy gamers who noticed discrepancies when compared to actualgameplay footage. "There was a little bit of color-correction done andsome minor polish, but nothing major," he maintained.
Indeed, the advertised screenshot was hardly a radical improvementover its in-game counterpart. But it wasn't the first time GuerrillaGames had altered the game's appearance, either. Killzone 2's debuttrailer, shown in 2005, looked a lot more glamorous than it did twoyears later when proper gameplay was shown at E3. And who can forgetEA's exaggerated 2005 promo for its next-gen Madden? The screenshots looked superb, but the actual gameplay looked glaringly inferior when it was released later that year.
The Proof is in the Pudding
Faked, enhanced, or otherwise augmented screenshots are commonlycalled "bullshots." Their intent is to make a game look more appealingthan it actually is, and their occurrence has largely existed sincevideo games were first commercialized. So are bullshots misleading orjust good marketing?
"Exceptionally misleading," says Steven Kent, author of The Ultimate History of Video Games.But that doesn't mean Kent wouldn't employ the practice were he a gamepublisher. "It's kind of like negative campaigning in politics," hesays. "Everybody hates it, nobody respects it, but it's the upstandingguy who won't stoop that gets blasted." In other words, bullshots are aharsh reality.
They're also influential. "Players look to screenshots to quicklysolidify several elements of any given title in their mind: Theme,perceived quality, variety of content, and how the product compares tocontemporaries," says Scott Steinberg, author of Videogame Marketing and PR. "A passing glance is enough to set the tone for thousands of viewers."
But it's not just game makers that dramatize product appearance inpursuit of increased sales. Cosmetic and beauty supply productsregularly fudge the truth while citing wildly optimistic benefits andresults. Even respected news outfits have been known to beguile. In2006, Reuters admitted to altering a photo of a Beirut air attack fordramatic effect, and CBS digitally thinned an aging Katie Couric toentice a bigger audience. So if other advertisers are glamorizingproducts, it must be okay for game makers to do the same withscreenshots, right?
Not really. "Doctoring game images is different from airbrushing asupermodel, lacquering a Thanksgiving turkey, or falsifying a four-inchtall Big Mac," says Troy Goodfellow, a seasoned freelance game writer."With video games, the screenshot or video is part of what you arebuying. When you see a photoshopped model, you aren't in the market fora model. And the proof of a burger is in its taste."
He adds, "The visual image of a game is an important reason to buyit, so lying about how the game looks is only marginally more ethicalthan claiming you have multiplayer when you don't."
An Inconvenient Truth
But even though bullshots are often used to falsely influenceunsuspecting gamers, not all are designed with the intent to deceive,says EGM editor-in chief Dan Hsu. "Bullshots can serve a functionalbusiness purpose," he says. "Developers sometimes use 'target' assetsas a way to show people what a game is supposed to look like. Thepurpose could be to help sell a concept to financiers or put a visualon something that's not there yet. But it's the company'sresponsibility to let the press know that these are, indeed, 'target'screens and not the real deal. If they do that, then you can't fairlycall it false advertising."
When asked how often bullshots materialize, Hsu observes, "It's hardto say. But as far as those really obvious bullshots that are touted asreal screens," he adds, "that percentage doesn't seem to be that high."
Regrettably, most publishers with a confirmed or suspected bullshothistory declined to be interviewed when contacted by GamePro. Otherssimply ignored our requests, but one reputable developer, who wished toremain anonymous, replied by saying, "We don't do them [bullshots] anddon't want to be associated with any article that talks with folks thatdo, even if it's to say we don't do them." It's clearly a sensitive andpolarizing subject, regardless of the intent.
The historical success of doctored screenshots for creating hype andtheir mainstream adoption suggest that bullshots will likely persist.But their intensity should lessen and their frequency decrease overtime given the speed and archival power of the internet. Addresponsible journalism and a community of eagle-eyed players, and wecould be well on our way to ensure that no gamer gets duped.
"There's no excuse for doctoring images," concludes Steinberg, whoadvises game makers to capture the perfect shot without using forgery."It's one thing to make your product look as good as it can be, anotherto fictionalize or glamorize so-called in-game scenes. Call the latterwhat you will if it makes you feel better, but you're still lying toeveryday shoppers."
I have had a lot of people ask about whether there would be a"Hacker's Handbook v3.0" as there have been many many changes acrossthe years since I wrote v1.0.
I am pleased to announce that I have just been informed by my editor(god bless him!) that Carlton have given the green light to the 3rdEdition of "Hacker's Handbook" - but in their infinite wisdom arerebranding it as "Cyberthreat Handbook" (bless their little cottonsocks!).
via spyblog.org.uk/drk/2007/12/hackers_handbook_v30.html
Anyhow - I have no idea when they plan to publish it (probably inthe Spring) - and now I have to sit down and re-write, edit andgenerally get off my lazy fat behind and do some real work ...
Anyhow here is the info-sheet used by Carlton along with a mock up of the cover and the back cover blurb.
Since the first edition of Complete Hackers Handbook nearly everythinghas changed – sometimes for the better and mostly for the worse.
The word “Hacker” has been reclaimed by real hackers who like toplay with things and make something new of them. The explosion oftechnology called “Web 2.0” is the result.
Meanwhile the “Black Hat Hackers” have moved on. Hacking is nolonger a game for “script kiddies” or computer enthusiasts – but aserious and organised criminal enterprise.
Cyberspace has become occupied by transnational criminal gangs whomount “Phishing” attacks to steal personal information and who use“BotNets” to run “Distributed Denial of Services” (DDOS) attacks onlikely targets for “CyberExtortion”.
“CyberActivists” of all creeds and religions battle it out on theInternet using “0 day exploits” and “drive by Trojans” to infectservers and personal computers alike.
During open warfare and times of tension between factions in thereal world there is likely to be a corresponding increase incyber-attacks and web-defacements that affects every Web user byincreasing the chances of their computer being attacked.
Finally - “The Balkanisation of the Internet” caused by “CyberCensorship” - is a problem that affects the Internet at a hidden level,whether it is enforced by “Blacklist” style “CensorWare” programs at alocal level or by “Cyber Curtains” that restrict free speech in certaincountries (e.g. “The Great Firewall of China”).
Examining the new dangers the Internet faces underscores the pointthat the Internet is still a vulnerable and fragile technology. Thesenew threats undermine the very nature of the Internet - and mayultimately destroy it as the utility of tools such as email and webbrowsing decreases to zero - leading to the “Death of the Internet”
The CyberThreat Handbook is the ultimate guide to this intriguing electronic art.
Since Hackers Handbook 1.0 was published the Internet has got moredangerous – with the numbers of attacks accelerating on a daily basis.
Cyberspace has been invaded by transnational criminal gangs whomount “Phishing” attacks to steal personal information for IdentityTheft and use “BotNets” to run “Distributed Denial of Services” (DDOS)attacks on likely targets for “CyberExtortion”.
These criminal hackers attack computers as a means to an end – sothey target people who use the Internet on a daily basis to mount theircriminal attacks – placing ordinary users at risk..
The growth of Information Warfare means that CyberJihadis,CyberActivists and Black Hat Hackers funded by secretive intelligenceagencies, battle it out on the Internet by infecting servers andpersonal computers alike.
During open warfare and times of tension between factions in thereal world there is likely to be an increase in cyber-attacks andweb-defacements that affects every Web user – wherever they are.
These new threats undermine the very nature of the Internet - and mayultimately destroy it as the utility of tools such as email, onlinecommerce and web browsing decreases to zero.
The CyberThreat Handbook is not just Hacker’s Handbook 3.0 – instead itoffers the ultimate guide to an art that is no longer just intriguing –but also highly dangerous.
Revised and Updated: Phishing, BotNets, CyberExtortion, CyberJihad,Information Warfare, DarkNets, and the links between Hackers andTransnational Crime.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Described by the BBC as an “author and chronicler of the hackingscene”, Dr.K is a veteran IT specialist and “old school” hacker who hasworked with computers for over 24 years.
Trained in Cognitive Psychology, Psycholinguistics and ArtificialIntelligence, Dr.K soon spotted the potential of the Internet and beganlearning TCP/IP in the days before the “World Wide Web” had even beendeveloped.
Dr.K later worked in IT as part of the team that developed theprototype smartcard systems that later became the “Oyster Card” -before moving on to be an IT specialist for what The Times has called“The World’s Most Famous Secret Society”.
A long time attendee of “London 2600” - Dr.K eventually went on towrite Complete Hacker’s Handbook (Carlton 2000, 2nd Edition 2002) andHackers’ Tales (Carlton 2004).
I'll update here as I have more information - but I guess thatwriting a book about the Internet is a much more public experiencesince the 1st Edition and a lot of stuff will spill over into this blog.
The Half Life Saga Story Guide has FINALLY been updated with all of the information we learn in Episode 2 and Portal. "The Half-Life Saga Story Guide was created in order to provide a concise, accurate, user-friendly overview of the events dealing directly with the events of the Half-Life Saga".
What's the purpose of this site? The Half-Life Saga Story Guide was created in order to provide a concise, accurate, user-friendly overview of the events dealing directly with the events of the Half-Life Saga, and allowing users to easily get a better understanding of the story behind the games. It was written by Chan Karunamuni, with lots of help from contributions from users.
Why did you make this site?
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This site was created simply because I found that there were far too many people confused with the saga. It's being told in a method far different from the way normal stories and games are told, in a very passive nature. It's up to you, the player, to piece together the information and make conclusions on it. Inherent in these games is the fact that Gordon Freeman simply isn't supposed to know what's going on all the time; he's being kept in the dark for a reason. If you're diligent enough however, it's easy to put together a pretty accurate account of what exactly is going on around the game, and what events preceded them. I've tried to do this and document it here.
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Where do I get started?
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The main navigation is on that column over there on the left. Going by section, most of the information about the saga is laid out in the Saga Timeline in chronological order, so you're best to start out with that. Extended information about the Combine and other specific elements of the games can be found in the Expanded Info section. More specific answers to frequently asked questions can be found in the FAQ section. To read up on the latest updates and goings on of this site, check out the Latest News section. If you still have a question, feel free to contact me at the Author section.
Remember, this site contains massive spoilers regarding the events of the two HL games. The content of this guide assumes you've beaten both Half-Life and Half-Life 2, so if you haven't, steer clear. Lastly, enjoy! I hope you can get something out of the work here.
