[CF-Devel] DM - God Finger - bleah!

[crossfire-devel at archives.real-time.com]

On Sun, 6 Jun 2004, David Seikel wrote:

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      On Mon, 31 May 2004 11:15:47 +0200 (CEST) Palfy Tamas
     
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      <
      
      xenon at csoma.elte.hu
      
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      > Personally I find it hard too. BUT, as for one reason - one that's not
     
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      > to be neglected - peepo hate to know they can be observed anytime. And
     
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      > _this_ fact they _really_ should know. (I mean - the fact that they
     
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      > _can_ be under surveillance anytime, without a warning.)
     
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      When people go overboard on privacy issues like this I feel the need to point out some truths about how the Internet really works.
     
     

Seems like you're completely unable to understand what I'm trying to talk
about. A very joyful thing, peepo think they're smart as hell and very
generous of them sharing their *unique* and *helpful* knowledge.
Knowing lotsa truths "about how the Internet really works" has nothing to
do about this. Just to state the strongest argument right at the start, I
think it's obvious that when our system cannot make certain things work
- and this not being our own fault - we still should have to try
everything to make things work as best as they could. Ya ken tell me lotsa
things why this is so pointless or why it is entirely superfluous to have
rules about privacy issues on CF for example, I simply know the fact that
something to work needs every of it's parts to work, and well a
half-working thing is better than a complete useless one.
So I just tell ya something maahn, start thinking like
"I do my job - I hope others will do theirs as well"
and ASAP forget things like
"Why bother - they not doin' it - Hell I won't either!"

And again - how the hell comes this here? Surveying policy on a MUD is - I
think - a little different than internet security issues.

Beides, CF have ordinary peepo with ordinary claims, nothing special, and
privacy is one of 'em. If one thinks "The fact as a DM I can watch any
players move shouldn't bother players - that's the way it is" and bullshit
like that, then this not-a-big-deal fact should be clear to every player.
Put in MOD or something like that. That's the fair way it is. As for me I
would hate the to know somebody could watch me reading books while sitting
on the toilet - while I never can be sure. Like internet. Da fact
that the "information that flows from my computer to the server"
could be observed by ad-lib entities doesn't mean they really do it,
in fact it's most probable they _don't_.

I wonder how many "new" things I have written down here, but I think
_none_. Just like the one I answered with this letter. Two completely
non-informative mails, I _like_ thing like this.
Little bit funny. But more annoying.


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      The Internet is a co-operative public medium.  Information flows from your computer to the server and back via any number of computers, routers, switches, etc.  The path through the world wide network can change from one instance to the next.  The owners of the intervening systems can be anybody in the world.  All these people, and anybody that has access to these systems, can snoop on whatever information is travelling through their hardware at any time.
     
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      Some of the methods used to get information from one place to another are broadcast media, you don't need to be on the path to snoop, you could just be on the same section of the network.
     
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      Server computers tend to log some of the information passing to and from their systems.  Basic information about files and pages downloaded from the web and email's tend to get logged.  Some games will log information.
     
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      If you want privacy on the Internet, use strong encryption, but assume that everything else you do is public knowledge.
     
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      To illustrate these points, a few years ago I was connecting to my bosses server in the same city on the east coast of Australia that I was in at the time, a distance of a few kilometres.  Things seemed a little slower than I expected, so I investigated.  There was a fault in my ISP's systems at the time, so my traffic was going all the way to the west coast and back again, several thousand kilometres.  Since this was work related, involving sensitive commercial information, I was using strong encryption anyway.  Only the delay was an issue.
     
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      Crossfire does not encrypt it's protocol, so whatever "secrets" players may be telling one another using Crossfire have no guarantee to remain secret.
     
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      People that own servers have every right to classify certain activities on the server as abuse of the services provided, and to use whatever tools are available to them to track down these abuses in an effort to stop them.  DM's should be able to snoop on whatever information passes through the Crossfire protocol, it's part of their job.
     
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      Crossfire is only a game...
     
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      [The information contained in this email is public domain, and can be used by anybody for any reason.  Hi mum if you are snooping.]  B-)
     
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