Detection

Because the difference between desirable and undesirable behavior is often subtle, detecting when such behavior occurs is often a challenge. Typically, it's easy enough to see the final consequence of undesirable behavior ( angry parents, lost customers); it's often much more difficult to establish the root cause.

More significantly, there will always come a point where someone needs to make a value judgment as to whether a particular act was acceptable or not within a particular context. This judgment may occur far in advance of the actual act (as, for example, prohibitions that are embedded in program code), or it may take place immediately after the event (as when someone reports a violation). It may in some cases even be made long after the fact, when someone notices a statistical pattern or analyzes a set of user complaints.

Fortunately, many of the more serious abuses tend to be consistent behavior patterns on the part of individuals. These behaviors tend to be a reflection of the underlying value system of the player, and that is not something that changes quickly. Bruce Schneier, security consultant and author of Applied Cryptography , once said this about online games : "It's not important to detect every cheat. It's important to detect every cheater." Thus, it is in many cases possible to get a history of significant actions and judgments associated with a particular individual, and use that information in making future judgments .

The two primary means of data collection will be:

• Reports by automated agents within the system

• Reports by witnesses within the game

Unfortunately, neither of these sources of information is reliable, but there is hope because they are unreliable in different ways and can be corroborated in order to gain a more accurate picture. In particular, witnesses can be biased or untrustworthy but are really good at interpreting what they see in terms of values. Automated agents are all too easily misled (mistaking legitimate behavior for impermissible behavior, for example) but are incapable of dissembling or shading the truth.