Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Snag 60 TB of Everquest 2 Behavioral Data
A group of researchers who went from game developer to game developer looking to acquire data for studying online social interaction got more than they bargained for. Sony Online Entertainment keeps extensive server logs of everything that happens within Everquest 2. When the researchers asked if there was anything they could look at, SOE was happy to share the entire EQ2 database — upwards of 60 TB — for their perusal. In addition to basic gender and age queries — who interacted with whom, and when — the scientists are also trying to find ways to track more subjective characteristics, such as performance, trust, and expertise. "To get estimates of them, the team is experimenting with trying to track physical proximity and direct interactions, such as when characters share experience from an in-game victory. To give a concrete example of the data's utility, Srivastava described how he could explore the phenomenon of customer churn, something that's significant for any sort of subscription-based service, like cell phones or cable TV. With the full dataset, the team can now track how individual customers dropping out of the game influenced others who they typically played or interacted with. Using this data, the spreading rate and influence factor could then be calculated, providing hard measures to work with."
Update: 2/18 at 21:04 by SS: Sony contacted us to set the record straight about the shared information. All information that could identify players was removed from the data given to the researchers. Chat logs were not shared at all. Read on for SOE's full statement. "The information Sony Online Entertainment provided for the research project was scrubbed of all PII (Personally Identifiable Information) prior to being provided to the researchers. For example, no content of any player chat logs were shared with the researchers. The information shared consisted of data such as which in-game characters chatted with each other and the volume and frequency of the contacts. None of this information was connected to, or linked with, the real names or other PII, of any players. Basically, the researchers looked at the connections between players and how their online networks were built and used, not the content of any actual conversations that these players may have had with one another (that content was not made available to the researchers). Additionally, some EQ2 players voluntarily participated in a blind survey concerning their playing habits and demographic backgrounds. This information was anonymously gathered and shared between SOE and the researchers. Finally, corporations such as SOE and the researchers' universities have controls and safeguards in place to help to protect the privacy of individuals who voluntarily participate in surveys for research projects such as this one."
Update: 2/18 at 21:04 by SS: Sony contacted us to set the record straight about the shared information. All information that could identify players was removed from the data given to the researchers. Chat logs were not shared at all. Read on for SOE's full statement. "The information Sony Online Entertainment provided for the research project was scrubbed of all PII (Personally Identifiable Information) prior to being provided to the researchers. For example, no content of any player chat logs were shared with the researchers. The information shared consisted of data such as which in-game characters chatted with each other and the volume and frequency of the contacts. None of this information was connected to, or linked with, the real names or other PII, of any players. Basically, the researchers looked at the connections between players and how their online networks were built and used, not the content of any actual conversations that these players may have had with one another (that content was not made available to the researchers). Additionally, some EQ2 players voluntarily participated in a blind survey concerning their playing habits and demographic backgrounds. This information was anonymously gathered and shared between SOE and the researchers. Finally, corporations such as SOE and the researchers' universities have controls and safeguards in place to help to protect the privacy of individuals who voluntarily participate in surveys for research projects such as this one."
People didn't trawl through 60 terabigadits of data to find out things about being social. They went down to road to the local shindig and tried to talk to a girl.
Now, get off my porch.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
The Female elves aren't what they appear to be. LOL
Don't meet offline, trust me on this!
People didn't just go down the road to the local shindig. They organised meetings online and went on booze binges with fellow socially inept MMO players. We knew we were awkward, at least we were awkward Together!
FTFA: Mostly, the gamers seemed healthy; their body mass index was better than the US average and, although they were slightly more depressed than average, they were also less anxious.
How on earth is Sony measuring their customer's body mass index? I know 60 TB is a lot of data, but I don't believe that even the most magical of algorithms can derive player body mass indexes or whether they're "slightly more depressed than average" from it. I call bullshit.
In particular, if the researchers have access to user/character names (or worse, real ones!), Sony could be in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. I'm not a lawyer, but:
(F) any other identifier that the Commission determines permits the physical or online contacting of a specific individual;
Particularly if names can be correlated to age, it seems unwise. Without assurance that personally identifying information is not in the data, any parent of an EQ player should be concerned that they were sent to "a collaborative group of academic researchers at a number of institutions".
Not really, if running an MMO is what your company does. Keeping such logs is key to analysing game balance, tweaking the environment to optimise fun and game challenge, banning exploiters, and in general understanding the weak and strong points of your game, and fixing the weak ones. If you think those decisions are made solely on the basis of whiny posts on the forum, you have another think coming.
The interesting part is that this data is now being analysed in a different way, to study social interaction and behaviour... an area still somewhat poorly understood by MMO operators but in the end rather important to the success of their game. I can see why Sony was happy to allow their data to be used for this.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Actually, it was probably a survey, but you do raise a valid issue there about privacy. Exactly how much data did Sony share?
We were outraged that AOL shared some improperly anonymized search strings, which in some cases could lead to the guy's real identity. Here, if they even knew who to survey, it means that Sony just handed over RL names on a silver platter.
What else? Chat logs? 60 TB is a hell of a lot of data. And probably a lot of things you said at one point, but didn't think them too carefully, and probably didn't mean them in the long run.
As an easy example, think of all the people who've bought gold, or played a flirty female when they're male, or flirted with one who turns out to be male. Lots of public embarrassment potential. Or what if you talked about sex to someone who, as it turns out, was 8 years old? I'm sure some people would love to jump to conclusions there.
Sent some tells about sometimes wanting to kill your classmates or co-workers? I'm sure those will be worth some hysteria when the next school shooting comes around. Talked about drugs or about homosexuality? I'm sure some future potential employers would make a fuss about that. Confessed playing or chatting from work 'cause you're the network admin and the logs don't apply to you? Well, now Sony's logs do. Etc.
And how much of the billing data is in there, anyway? Enough for someone to steal your identity? But even if it was just enough to contact those people IRL and survey them, I'm guessing at least the email address must have been in there. I'm sure some spammers and phishers would love to have it too.
Basically even if you trust that those researchers probably won't do that, the circle of people with access to someone's private data just grew. It only takes one irresponsible git or disgruntled admin, or even an insecure network which someone can break into and look around, for that circle to grow even further. How many steps until someone does do something unethical with it?
Sony already did their part in not giving a flying fuck about protecting their customers' privacy, after all. It only takes one or two more people with the exact same cavalier attitude, before it bites some people in the arse for just trusting Sony.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
> Why did you think you have any reasonable claim to privacy in an MMO?
While I admit that not all speech is protected and some of your examples might have a bit of validity, your sense of proportions is way out of line.
> If you "sent some tells about sometimes wanting to kill your classmates or
> co-workers" not only would I not expect you to retain your privacy and anonymity,
> but I would expect Sony -- and anyone who read your tells -- to feel an obligation
> to notify the law.
Sony, maybe. From Sony's point of view, the tradeoff is relatively simple: what is the risk that this user will actually murder someone, and what kind of monetary damage could it cause Sony if that happened and Sony didn't report anything to the police beforehand, versus the cost of constantly policing the chats of that online game. But if you think your average police station is interested in investigating what might be tens of thousands of such reports (remember, you wanted every single user who heard this to report it), versus patrolling the streets and other more usual police duties, you're just being stupid. (I could understand your supporting users snitching to Sony, however, especially if the ToS encouraged or required it.)
> Talk "about sex to someone who, as it turns out, is 8 years old"? You should spend
> a night in jail just to cure you of your stupidity. Don't they teach you in school
> specifically *not* to make any assumptions about the age and gender of someone you
> "meet" online?
If this was in one of Disney's MMOs, well, OK, then jail is reasonable. If this was in a setting where the ToS explicitly forbids minors, then again, you're just over-the-top. It is unlikely in the extreme that any court would find you guilty of anything, unless you really have good cause to suspect that the person in question was a minor.
> Do not write anything in any online forum anyplace, even under a pseudonym, that
> you would not be comfortable having viewed by your teacher/boss/wife/husband/neighbor.
Again, fearmongering. You are correct that there is a risk of everything you post being connected with you, even if you use Tor or whatever, but, depending on circumstances, this risk could be very, very small. Like with everything else, you have to balance the risk of the post being connected with you versus the benefit of posting what you want to say. Just like when you decide to get in your car and drive to work.
> You do not have any right to privacy online (somehow this slipped past
> the Founding Fathers) and you are a fool if you expect any.
The legal system has a lot of inertia, and only just now starts to address this issue. So even if there is no recognized legal right to anonymity online right now, there very well could be one in another 20-50 years.
Expecting privacy in an MMO is like expecting Santa Claus to come down your chimney on Christmas Day: it displays a charming naivete when children express it, and psychotic ignorance in an adult.
Maybe if they hadn't nerfed Necromancers (et.al) in EQ1 they would still have a bunch of those customers. The game became a overwhelming exercise in extreme frustration in which many a Necro silently wished extremely bad things on the entire staff of Sony, those nerf'ing motherfuckers. Looks like those wishes came true.
I guess making lifetap a resistible spell wasn't such a great idea afterall, was it bitches?
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
1. I hope you realize that exactly that was what allowed the Soviet Union to keep its citizens in check.
Yes, everyone knows about Stalin's brutal repression, but that was toned down a lot after Stalin. They discovered that you can control people easier by making them think you have a dossier on them, and they can eventually get bitten in the arse by something they said in the past. And that even something which doesn't outright warrant a one-way trip to Siberia can bite them in the arse in some other way. Like maybe they won't ever be allowed to travel abroad again, or they'll never get a promotion now, or whatever.
It actually worked better than Stalin's executions and mass deportations, surprisingly.
People learned to do exactly what you seem to advocate: don't say anything you wouldn't be comfortable explaining to the nice commissar. Don't assume anything about someone else, other than that they might get you in trouble. (E.g., by being an agent provocateur and trying to get you to say something that'll remain on your record for ever.) Distance yourself from anyone discussing those forbidden things, you wouldn't want to go on record as associating with that kind of people.
It just made them unable to organize in any form or shape. That guy talking against the Party became not a guy to rally around, but someone who'll probably get you in trouble if you join him. You don't want that attached permanently to your record.
As an example of how well it worked, think Sakharov. He was a very loud in speaking against the regime... but nobody joined him anyway. The party was feeling secure enough about it to only slap him with an "exile"... to a relatively decent job in the fourth biggest city in Russia. Not in Siberia either. And while he did get a bunch of visits from the police, none seemed to be brutal or anything. Probably more to show everyone else that Sakharov _is_ being watched, and the party will know if you associate with him. It worked like a charm. Millions of people who secretly aggreed with him, didn't want to actually have it added permanently to their dossier.
And you have to bear in mind that we're talking about the dead-tree kind of dossier in the USSR's case. They had neither the manpower to actually supervise everyone and record everything, nor the search engine to actually find anything unless you actually gave someone a good reason to read yours. It worked anyway.
The recent trend of everything being recorded and indexed on the internet, could create a chilling effect of much more epic proportions.
2. Even if you take the approach of "if you were stupid enough to say X online, then you deserve whatever's coming to you", in reality it's trivially easy for someone to say stuff about you without your having consented. There'll be tells, blog posts, etc, discussing various things you've said or done or were mis-heard of saying.
So in effect if you want to have any kind of protection, you have to not say anything debatable to anyone, never assume about any person you meet IRL that they're not going to send an online tell about it, etc. Welcome to the wonderful world of talking only about the weather, and never trusting anyone. As I was saying, that's what turned the USSR into a mass of isolated and easily bullied individuals too.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.