[MUD-Dev] TECH: Trusting Network Clients

[Tess Snider]

On Wed, 28 Aug 2002, Crosbie Fitch wrote:

> The player is not the enemy!

The worst exploiter I ever had to ban was a friend of mine.  With
friends like that, who needs enemies?

I think I began to figure out what you're thinking, when I looked at
your Gama article, "Cyberspace in the 21st Century: Part Seven,
Security is Relative"
(http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20020805/fitch_01.htm) you say:

	"The thing is, cyberspace only has to be useful to the
	majority of its users, i.e. entertaining. That means it can
	tolerate a small amount of vandalism or corruption and still
	remain useful."

Are you at all familiar with the "broken window syndrome"?  Back in
1982, sociologists James Wilson and George Kelling wrote an article
in The Atlantic Monthly describing this phenomenon.  In short, if a
window in a building is broken and left unrepaired, all the rest of
the windows will soon be broken, regardless of the quality and
propsperity of the neighborhood.  It's worth looking into, if you're
interested in sociology.

In any event, it's not okay for things to be "a tad tainted,"
because it's just going to get more tainted.  90% clean isn't good
enough, becuse it doesn't stay 90%.

But most people are fundamentally good?  Yeah, so was my friend.  He
was driven to his particular crime by the all-too-human trait of
curiosity.  Pandora wasn't a bad person, either, you know?

Mind your windows.

Tess


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