by Gloria Stern

Tod Foley is a game designer, consultant and technical director. He has authored many role playing games, including CyberSpace, the RPG. You may know him as the editor of PIX-elation, or as the panelist at the Electronic Cafe or numerous other industry conferences and live events. He is the founder of As If Productions. Get the picture? Wait. He's active in IICS, the International Interactive Communications Society, and he devised the incredibly innovative LARP (Live Action Role Play) - Ghosts In the Machine.

The Internet is touted as a place where people of diverse types and scattered localities can come together to work, play, and socialize in the spirit of the common good, congregating in all manner of self-organizing groups often known as "virtual communities". As many Net gurus will tell you, e-mail lists present an excellent environment for the construction of such experimental communities: distribution is handled automatically, list subscription can be strictly controlled (if desired), and the asynchronous nature of the medium enables subscribers to participate at their own pace, in their own unique way.

To many people (including myself), this sort of structure represents total creative freedom, and perhaps the best environment yet designed for shared human labor and social expression. In 1993, I was a key participant in one of these working environments - a progressive hothouse of furious metaphysical speculation called aleph@pyramid.com - where I learned that such freedom is not without its cost.

Hackers and Trackers and Tags, oh my!

Hey, we're not gonna candy-coat it: CyberSpace is a dangerous place. If the hakkas don't get you, the trakkas certainly will. Didn't your momma tell you to always use protection?

The links on this page lead to resources and downloads that will help you maintain the security and stability of your machines, your data, and your personal information.

Under perpetual construction. Got a link to add? Contact Us.