If the defendant was going to destroy evidence without wiping the entire hard drive, she should be fully aware of all of the system artifacts left by the activity she was trying to deny, and then remove them. However, the risk that she would miss something is too great (Obviously). Does your "evidence deletion/wiping software" know about logs left by an application,.ini files with usernames and settings, registry entries with user names and settings or last visited IPs, etc.
If the defendant had wiped the entire hard drive, she could have claimed that she had done so before the court order to turn the drive over - because if an entire drive had been zero'd out, there would be no date/time stamps to indicate when that wipe had occurred. By leaving the file system intact, she left all of the NTFS or FAT32 modified/accessed/create times linked to any files that she did not know about and remove. Furthermore she left any date/time stamps that may have been in those files. This allowed the plaintiff's forensic expert to construct a timeline of some activity regardless of the deletions that did occur.
On one hand, this is another example of the RIAA having resources and knowledge that your average Joe does not (Computer forensics experts are expensive). Most defendants against RIAA lawsuits can't overcome the resources at the RIAA's disposal which they apparently sling at anybody who crosses their path, innocent or no. On the other hand, I respect the court's judgement. If she had wiped the entire drive to protect personal data, that would have been at least respectable. But she just tried to remove file sharing artifacts, she did a bad job of it, and she did it after the court order. That's just bad news. Trying to run after you've been busted just makes you look more guilty. She must have never watched Cops.
You are correct. Things aren't as black and white as my original post. There are entertaining portions of the game, such as PVP and other challenges. Even the large farming instances look like they're probably fun when you're first figuring out how to finish them (I never went that far into the game myself, so I don't know for sure).
I was speaking more to the heart of the game itself. Lots of other video games pose challenges and include fun aspects. But there is a reason that when you type "/played" in WoW, it spits back a time that is measured in minutes, hours and DAYS.
If I asked one of the people I know who play WoW to type/played, they'd get a value in excess of one month (Maybe 2 months for some of them) in total play time. That's at least 30 full-24-hour days spent in game. Most video games have a play time measured in hours.
There has to be some reason that MMOs have such huge numbers of paying subscribers who dedicate so much time to the game other than a repeatable challenge or player-vs-player combat. Other video games have repeatable challenges and player-vs-player combat and many of the other same features. But no other type of game has so successfully implemented the psychological concept of operant conditioning with such a well designed schedule of reinforcement.
If I am correct, and that is the primary mechanism for WoW's success, then you will not see major manufacturers truly attempt to emulate a classic, table-top RPG experience. A classic RPG is flexible, and allows for enormous amounts of reconfiguration based upon the imagination of the players themselves. If you implement that flexibility, you remove the schedule of reinforcement that so successfully conditions people to continue to pay and play.
The team play, guilds, etc. were the features what used to appeal to me most about the game. But every day I watch my roomates come home from work and get online until they go to bed. And every Saturday/Sunday morning I watch them get up and get online for most of the day.
They're in a guild. They post on the guild forums. They run the high end instances in large groups. But what do they spend most of their time doing? Farming. Farming for rep. Farming for some "blueblossommithrilsilk" that they need to transmute to "essenceofitem#27" to sell for virtual currency. They're farming for recipes. Farming for that last piece to their tier two epic armor set #24, with bonuses to stats 2 and 3.
Despite the accoutrements that accompany the grind, they're still just in the grind. They're pressing the button and getting the reinforcement with all of their spare time. Everything else is just fluff. And that fluff is required for people to believe that what they're doing is really anything other than participating in reinforcement zone #36 for the 42nd time so that Mage #3 can get finally get reward, I mean chest piece, #7.
That's where the phrase "farm status" comes from. A guild runs MC over and over again without it ever being a challenge. Without it ever failing. All so that additional guild members can fill out their inventories (The reward for pressing the button for 3 hours as the de-curse bot, or the heal bot, or whatever).
Everyone keeps talking about what they would like out of an MMO. The bottom line is that Turbine is a business. Blizzard is a business. And we are predictable animals.
So what is WoW?
It's a simple psychological mechanism designed to get you to constantly re-use it. It's called operant conditioning using positive reinforcement. You take simple actions, you get a reward. You take the action again.
You press the button, you kill 10 whatevers or collect 10 thingamajigs, and you get experience and an item. You eventually get a little more powerful, and you go kill enemies that are proportionately more powerful as well. Sometimes they don't even look different, they're just called wolves instead of starving wolves!
Blizzard has used positive reinforcement delivered on a semi-fixed ratio schedule to condition 6 million people to pay them $15 dollars a month. Their ratio for reinforcement appears to be the most optimal of the current crop of MMO's, judging by their number of subscribers.
I applaud Blizzard, really. I've given them some of my money and time, so I'm just as much a dupe as anybody else. The scheme is brilliant:
Pay $15. Press the button. Get the reward. Repeat.
When this hook nabs you millions of subscribers and jillions of dollars, why would you make a game that actually appeals to more traditional, table top role playing fans?
Slashdot Mirror
You are absolutely correct.
.ini files with usernames and settings, registry entries with user names and settings or last visited IPs, etc.
If the defendant was going to destroy evidence without wiping the entire hard drive, she should be fully aware of all of the system artifacts left by the activity she was trying to deny, and then remove them. However, the risk that she would miss something is too great (Obviously). Does your "evidence deletion/wiping software" know about logs left by an application,
If the defendant had wiped the entire hard drive, she could have claimed that she had done so before the court order to turn the drive over - because if an entire drive had been zero'd out, there would be no date/time stamps to indicate when that wipe had occurred. By leaving the file system intact, she left all of the NTFS or FAT32 modified/accessed/create times linked to any files that she did not know about and remove. Furthermore she left any date/time stamps that may have been in those files. This allowed the plaintiff's forensic expert to construct a timeline of some activity regardless of the deletions that did occur.
On one hand, this is another example of the RIAA having resources and knowledge that your average Joe does not (Computer forensics experts are expensive). Most defendants against RIAA lawsuits can't overcome the resources at the RIAA's disposal which they apparently sling at anybody who crosses their path, innocent or no. On the other hand, I respect the court's judgement. If she had wiped the entire drive to protect personal data, that would have been at least respectable. But she just tried to remove file sharing artifacts, she did a bad job of it, and she did it after the court order. That's just bad news. Trying to run after you've been busted just makes you look more guilty. She must have never watched Cops.
You are correct. Things aren't as black and white as my original post. There are entertaining portions of the game, such as PVP and other challenges. Even the large farming instances look like they're probably fun when you're first figuring out how to finish them (I never went that far into the game myself, so I don't know for sure).
/played, they'd get a value in excess of one month (Maybe 2 months for some of them) in total play time. That's at least 30 full-24-hour days spent in game. Most video games have a play time measured in hours.
I was speaking more to the heart of the game itself. Lots of other video games pose challenges and include fun aspects. But there is a reason that when you type "/played" in WoW, it spits back a time that is measured in minutes, hours and DAYS.
If I asked one of the people I know who play WoW to type
There has to be some reason that MMOs have such huge numbers of paying subscribers who dedicate so much time to the game other than a repeatable challenge or player-vs-player combat. Other video games have repeatable challenges and player-vs-player combat and many of the other same features. But no other type of game has so successfully implemented the psychological concept of operant conditioning with such a well designed schedule of reinforcement.
If I am correct, and that is the primary mechanism for WoW's success, then you will not see major manufacturers truly attempt to emulate a classic, table-top RPG experience. A classic RPG is flexible, and allows for enormous amounts of reconfiguration based upon the imagination of the players themselves. If you implement that flexibility, you remove the schedule of reinforcement that so successfully conditions people to continue to pay and play.
I used to think the same way.
The team play, guilds, etc. were the features what used to appeal to me most about the game. But every day I watch my roomates come home from work and get online until they go to bed. And every Saturday/Sunday morning I watch them get up and get online for most of the day.
They're in a guild. They post on the guild forums. They run the high end instances in large groups. But what do they spend most of their time doing? Farming. Farming for rep. Farming for some "blueblossommithrilsilk" that they need to transmute to "essenceofitem#27" to sell for virtual currency. They're farming for recipes. Farming for that last piece to their tier two epic armor set #24, with bonuses to stats 2 and 3.
Despite the accoutrements that accompany the grind, they're still just in the grind. They're pressing the button and getting the reinforcement with all of their spare time. Everything else is just fluff. And that fluff is required for people to believe that what they're doing is really anything other than participating in reinforcement zone #36 for the 42nd time so that Mage #3 can get finally get reward, I mean chest piece, #7.
That's where the phrase "farm status" comes from. A guild runs MC over and over again without it ever being a challenge. Without it ever failing. All so that additional guild members can fill out their inventories (The reward for pressing the button for 3 hours as the de-curse bot, or the heal bot, or whatever).
Everyone keeps talking about what they would like out of an MMO. The bottom line is that Turbine is a business. Blizzard is a business. And we are predictable animals.
So what is WoW?
It's a simple psychological mechanism designed to get you to constantly re-use it. It's called operant conditioning using positive reinforcement. You take simple actions, you get a reward. You take the action again.
You press the button, you kill 10 whatevers or collect 10 thingamajigs, and you get experience and an item. You eventually get a little more powerful, and you go kill enemies that are proportionately more powerful as well. Sometimes they don't even look different, they're just called wolves instead of starving wolves!
Blizzard has used positive reinforcement delivered on a semi-fixed ratio schedule to condition 6 million people to pay them $15 dollars a month. Their ratio for reinforcement appears to be the most optimal of the current crop of MMO's, judging by their number of subscribers.
I applaud Blizzard, really. I've given them some of my money and time, so I'm just as much a dupe as anybody else. The scheme is brilliant:
Pay $15.
Press the button.
Get the reward.
Repeat.
When this hook nabs you millions of subscribers and jillions of dollars, why would you make a game that actually appeals to more traditional, table top role playing fans?
Gamer Population = Farm Status