Author Unknown (was: [Mud-Dev] Money supply in game economies)

[Emil Eifrém <emil.eifrem@windh.com>]

On Friday, April 06, 2001 8:43 AM, J C Lawrence wrote:

[snip stuff on character<->player identification]

> Without some level of complicity from Bubba, you can't prove that
> Bernie and Boffo are actually two characters which are both played
> by Bubba.  Ergo, the definitions of trust, and of risks and veracity
> analysis become hopeless complex and subjective ("But his typing
> looked so trustworthy!  He spelled well!", "Of course Bernie isn't
> Boffo, they're such totally different people, and anyways, I'd know
> if someone was trying to trick me like that!").

Somewhat related to this: has anyone read the book "Author Unknown"
recently reviewed on Slashdot? It's written by an English prof with
apparent skills to identify people from their distinctive way of
writing. I noticed it a while back over at ThinkGeek and immediately
thought that it'd be very interesting reading for any mud admin who
has dealt with multiplayers.  Haven't time to order and read it yet,
but here's the intro from ThinkGeek [more at

  http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/things/3246.html

]:

   Foster's unique skills first came to light when a front-page New
   York Times article announced his discovery that a previously
   unattributed poem was written by Shakespeare. A few weeks later,
   Foster solved the mystery that had obsessed America for months when
   he identified Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors. Foster
   also took on a case involving the elusive Thomas Pynchon. And his
   contributions to the Unabomber and Jon Ben=E9t Ramsey cases have
   led the FBI and several police forces to hire him to train their
   organizations.

Here's the /. interview in case someone's interested:

	http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=3D00/12/26/2038233

-EE [emil at eifrem.com]
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