A friend sent me this link:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles//0,7340,L...3052074,00.html

and it got me wondering - what past-times, interests or hobbies in 2064 would get you security-flagged by corp or goverment employers?

To all Israeli Shadowrun players - this looks like a good way of avoiding the draft!

This is also the subject of this week's Full Frontal Nerdity webcomic (by Aaron Williams, the guy who also draws that Nodwick comic you can find in Dragon Magazine).

Note, if you're looking at it next week, the above link will no longer point to the right comic, but this link should.

And to be a little bit nit-picky, Role Playing won't quite get you out of the Israeli millitary, it'll just get you stuck in a crappy, low-security position, like mopping rest rooms at some supply depot.

Role playing games in Israel is bad news... another word for low security position is grunt. You know, those guys that man checkpoints that get blown up by suicide bombers?

Doing anything in Israel is probably a bad idea.

From what it says in the article, they ask if D&D is played, so Shadowrun players should still be ok, if theyre smart about it.

I don't know, maybe its a pretty good idea. I know a lot of D&D players who do things like...believe in crystal healing, and think they can cast magic, or somesuch. I even know one girl who thinks she is a reincarnated elf.

'Divorced from reality'? I wouldn't say gamers are divorced from reality, and SR gamers even less so. Why, we're not so much 'divorced' from reality as we are 'ready and willing to destroy any and all of it if it gets in the way', and even then only after the sneak-in plan goes to hell.

See? I think we'd clearly make great soldiers and CIA wet team operators.

Hello, good people at Homeland Security! How are you! We are good citizen! Good patriot+!


*psst* End-say, elp-hay, ow-nay.

Suicide bombers don't blow themselves up in day care restrooms.

Hazard pay?

Ah, okay, to boot with the security clearance, I'm happy with the job I got.

Interesting. I have heard claims that security agencies from America keep tabs on gamers, considering them intelligent and resourceful individuals, potentially ether useful recruits or liabilities, expending where there loyalties and political beliefs lie.

Of cause those claims came from a roll player, self admitted borderline psychopath that is paranoid with a tendency to the dramatic.

Edward

I'm reminded of the posters in Deus Ex where citizens are encouraged to rat on their colleagues, friends and families with descriptions of suspicious behaviours. Can't remember the exact content, but I did actually match most of them

heh, talking about deus ex, i doing a runaround in that game for the n-th time these days. maybe i should try to get my hands on deus ex 2 some day...

and those posters sounds like something out of 1984...

After sep 11 there was a ante terrorism package mailed out to everybody in Australia.

One of the possible threats that should be reported to authorities was a vehicle parked on a petrol station for court for more than an hour.

It has been slandered procedure at both petrol stations I have worked at for the night shift to use there car to block access to those pumps hardest to see from the console so thieves cant fill there and get away with driving off because you couldn’t reed there plate.

Combined with the piles of brewing equipment (legal but similar to distilling equipment and superficially similar to explosives equipment) in the back of my van I was just waiting for the bomb squad to show up.

Edward

Actually there is a serious point to all this...

Most dictatorial regimes attempt to suppress knowledge in order to keep the population unaware of what's going on as the dogma very rarely stands up to scrutiny. Even in countries with more freedoms there are examples of how knowledge is suppressed in order to prevent argument, or actions are taken under a certain guise with a comment such as "Only a commie, mutant traitor would support the rights of suspected paedophiles. You're not one of them are you?". Over the past few years we've seen this where the "paedo" or "terrorism" cards have been played to /force/ support for legislation that woudn't otherwise have withstood serious debate (UK ID cards are a great example of this - as an aside I've actually got something I've been dying to talk about here because it's very SR related, but apparently I'm under an NDA )

I use the Paranoia style comment above to serve as an illustration of what is actually going on...

Now, gamers are /generally/ able to read, understand and critique things pretty well - we can even make sense of the SR rules sometimes so what serves as intellectual political debate is pretty much beneath us, combine that with the fact that we're all, almost by defination, heavy users of the Internet and able to use that to gather information to support or criticise an argument and we become a target for suspicion assuming that we live in a society where that sort of thing takes place (which of course, I don't - honest). Combine that with the fact that most of the discussions here are related to either combat or security and I'd bet that someone, somewhere might be interested in what's going on...

Try sending a series of encrypted emails (we all encrypt email, don't we?) regarding a potential run to your group with subjects such as "Bank robbery plans", "Assassination plans" and see what happens!

Now I'm definately not a member of the tin-foil hat brigade, but I can see that it must go on - why else do we have a security service?

Security through obscurity is generally considered to be A Bad Thing ™ in the IT world, but a lot of physical security seems to be built upon it with knowledge being deliberately with-held so that people can't spot flaws in it. Strikes me as odd - I'd certainly prefer to get those flaws in the open so they could be corrected rather than bury my head in the sand.

Kind of drifted a bit here, didn't I?

Interesting this should come up.

In one of my other lives not too distant from this one, I'm working a joint on-line campaign with three other GMs, which means that e-mails detailing rules, NPCs, story help etc. fly back and forth all the time.

So I'm the only one of the four who isn't based in the United States.

Anyone got any ideas on how I can ask for detailed help regarding Sea-Tac security systems -- and get it -- without pinging every Carnivore alarm that exists?

I seem to recall getting suspended in high-school for a similar reason.
It prompted me to write a big report for my English finals about RPG's in general. I wrote to some bible colleges and places that were very anti-RPG to get their take on it, and wrote to TSR figuring they probably had experience with this sort of thing. I got tons of info back. For example, Dr. Joyce Brothers is a big supporter of RPGs. I also got a personality profile of typical role-players vs. various occupations. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Please do Dog!

[edit]But don't dog do![/edit]

And don’t forget the corporations that make the games and own host they run on would have a trivial time tracking down who is using the service. Also if they are taking advantage of the corporate prefer rate MSP account they can monitor your use on other corporations games.

And the privacy laws are irrelevant as the hosts are extraterritorial.

Edward

As an Israeli citizen, reading this gave me a damn good laugh.
I mean, "detached from reality?" soon they'll downgrade the security rating of anybody who watches TV dramas or read good novels for that reason. Seems that the generals don't really get that "imagination" thing.

Hey, I know several artillery guys who play D&D while waiting for long ours for action inside an APC; but when the time comes to act, they act; it's a GAME, DAMN IT! WE PLAY IT FOR FUN, AND WE KNOW IT'S A GAME! *sigh*

My friend was telling me (he works for some high tech defense industry company) about the lie detector tests he goes through every so often for his security clearance. Once they find out that you're a gamer, they will switch to a harder set of questions because they determined gamers think on their feet faster and are slightly harder to read than the usual average joe who does not game.

Obviously they play Diplomacy where he works.....Damn I'm still a bit miffed from the last game.