Saturday, October 28, 2006

Virtually better doesn’t mean safer in real life

It is reported that a security breach was discovered on September 6 and more than 650,000 accounts were affected.

"The exploit was shut down but the hacker could have seen a lot of information, including passwords. This data seen by the hacker included 'Second Life' account names, real life names and contact information, along with encrypted account passwords and encrypted payment information. The hacker is not thought to have gotten away with any credit card information.

In August, AOL fired at least three of its employees because they released private information about 658,000 of its customers. As Dan pointed out in Privacy Breach Affects 650,000 Users of ‘Second Life’ Game, privacy breaches are unfortunately gaining proportions and are becoming more frequent. So with this trend, how to protect players' privacy may be a challenge for Linden Lab. And in a social environment like SL, players also need to learn to protect themselves. Internet safety for kids in such a virtual world also needs to be considered seriously before use a game such as SL in Education.

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