What is this "book" you speak of?
Ten Ton Hammer hates cheaters, don't get us wrong. But when we received a copy of _Exploiting Online Games: Cheating Massively Distributed Systems_ to review, we were anxious to see what the nefarious black hat crowd is up to these days. Released on Friday, is this book a warchest for the game subverting legions, or would outing the tricks of the hacker trade be of greater benefit to developers? Read our review for the answer to this question, and to see why MMORPGs game integrity is under continuous threat despite better security techniques.
"Beyond that, if government systems are a hacker's Mt. Everest, finance networks their K2, then MMORPGs and online games are like to Mount Rainer a beefy and constantly evolving challenge that doesn't punish mistakes nearly as harshly as the big boys. Early in the book, the authors note that the most a wayward hacker could reasonably expect was in effect a virtual slap on the wrist a banned account. Few enterprises and next to no individuals have been sued- much less arrested- for hacking an MMO, yet MMOGs are considered a "bellwether for other kinds of modern software" (p. 17). For these reasons, security will be a constant concern for MMOG developers for years to come, and Exploiting is a timely book indeed. But timely for whom?"
Read more right here at Ten Ton Hammer.
