Computer Game Addiction Essay Example for Free

Computer Game Addiction Essay ABSTRACT With the constant improvements in gaming technology, ranging from graphics to new types of controllers to faster processors, there is a growing problem of computer game addiction. In order to fully understand this problem, one must define addiction. According to the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, addiction is a psychological or a physical dependence on something. LITERATURE REVIEW In this paper, we will discuss the problem of computer game addiction, one of the most addictive games, and ways to prevent or stop addiction. Massively Multiplayer Online Role- Playing Games Game addiction really started turning into a problem with the advent of Massively Multiplayer Online Role- Playing Games, or MMORPGs. While regular games would keep you entertained until you beat it, MMORPGs have no ending, so there really is no reason to stop playing. MMORPGs immerse the player in the world and since there is no way to beat the game, the goal is character progression. Leveling up your character and obtaining better and better armor and weapons is usually the norm in most MMORPGs. Addiction Questionnaire Dr. Kimberly Young, known as â€Å"the world’s foremost Cyber-Psychologist,† created a set of eight questions to ask one’s self to test for online gaming addiction. 1) Do you need to play online games with increasing amounts of time in order to achieve the desired excitement? 2) Are you preoccupied with gaming (thinking about it when offline, anticipating your next online session)? 3) Have you lied to friends and family members to conceal extent of your online gaming? 4) Do you feel restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop online gaming? 5) Have you made repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop online gaming? 6) Do you use gaming as a way of escaping from problems or relieve feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, or depression? 7) Have you jeopardized or lost a significant relationship, or even risked your marriage because of your online gaming habit? 8) Have you jeopardized a job, educational, or career opportunity because of your online gaming habit? Answering yes to any of those questions could mean that you are addicted. One would think that video games are harmless, but once they start interfering with real life and even take precedence over it, then there is a real problem. Video game addiction has not received official recognition as a diagnosis in theDSM IV standard [8], but is still aconcern for many people. Problems with addiction One study done on the problems of addiction used a modified version of the formal definition of gambling addiction. 607 8th and 9th grade students where surveyed, and of these 15% where classified as addicted. Of the addicted students, approximately 80% where male. Less than 30% of non-addicted student reported having been in a fight in the past year, while almost 50% ofaddicted students reported the same. Addiction also correlated with reported arguments with friends, and with teachers. Just as many students classified as addicted reported having a B average as those classified as nonaddicted. However, there where 4 times as many F students classified as addictedas there where non-addicted, and far more non-addicted A students than addicted ones. Not surprisingly, students classified as addicted averaged almost 4 times as much playtime as nonaddicted ones [7]. These figures are somewhat worrying. World of Warcraft (WoW) The current king of MMORPGs is World of Warcraft. According to a press release on Blizzard’s World of Warcraft webpage, World of Warcraft’s subscriber base numbers more than 8.5 million, as of March 7, 2007, and it continues to grow every day. The expansion pack that was recently released sold nearly 2.4 million copies worldwide just on the first 24 hours [3]. It is often referred to as â€Å"World of Warcrack.† Dr. Maressa Orzak, a Harvard professor and founder of Computer Addiction Services at McLean Hospital in Newton, MA, estimates that as many as 40% of the people who play WoW are addicted. She believes that games like World of Warcraft are designed to keep people in the game and that they are inherently addictive [4]. There are dozens of websites just for the purpose of providing support for WoW addiction. The game has a feature where if you type â€Å"/played† into the chat interface, it displays how much time you have spent playing that particular character. Some people report that they’ve spent 200 to 300 days played in the game [5]. In 2004, Zhang Xiaoyi, a 13 year old Chinese boy, committed suicide by jumping off a building afterplaying World of Warcraft for 36 hours straight. He left a suicide note saying that he wanted to â€Å"join the heroes of the game he worshipped† [6]. Fig. 1: A large battle between the Alliance and the Horde Is it Addiction? According to Weimer-Hastings and Ng, many people who are excessive MMORPG users are not actually dependent on video games [8]. They propose that many of these people use video games not because they are addicted, but because it is the only comfortable social medium for them. This was found through a comparison ofMMORPG player and other video game players. The MMORPG players tended to spend far more time playing, but much of that time is spent socializing. Some MMORPG players who showed long hours of playtime didn’t actually show any of the signs of addiction [8]. This study shows that care must be taken with the definition of addiction. Conclusion Video game addiction is something we must come to terms with as a society. Whether it is decided to be a read full fledged addiction, or just a compulsive behavior, it can still cause trouble in peoples lives. The problem will not go away either, it will probably only get worse, as designers get a better understanding of what makes consumers want their games. On the other hand, the problem is not as bad as it sounds at first. For many people these games are a social outlet, not an addiction. Video games are an integral part of many peoples lives now, and theyre here to stay. Lets learn to use them responsibly. References 1. Center for Addiction and Mental Health – What is Addiction? http://www.camh.net/About_Addiction_Mental_Health/Drug_and_Addiction_Information/Addiction_Information_Guide/addiction_what_is.html 2. Center for Internet Addiction Recovery – Are You an Obsessive Online Gamer? http://www.netaddiction.com/resources/online_trading.htm# 3. Blizzard Entertainment – PressRelease. http://www.blizzard.com/press/070307.shtml 4. Rob Wright – mmORPGs and Game Addiction. August 8, 2006. http://www.twitchguru.com/2006/08/08/ world_of_warcraft_players_addicted/ 5. WoW Detox – Ex-players’testimonials. http://www.wowdetox.com/ 6. Associated Press – Chinese‘Warcraft’ Game Distributor Sued Over Teen’s Suicide.May 12, 2006. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195236,00.html 7. Hauge, Marny R. Gentile, Douglas A. Video Game Addiction Among Adolescents: Associations with Academic Performance and Aggression http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/FACULTY/dgentile/SRCD%20Video%20Game%20Addiction.pdf 8. Wiemer-Hastings, Peter NG, Brian D. Addiction to the Internet and Online Gaming Cyberpsychology Behavior Vol8, Number 2 http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/cpb.2005.8.110

Asians and Kill Bill Essay -- Stereotyping Asia Asian Movie Film Essay

Asians and Kill Bill Sitting in the movie theater, I was baffled to see so many stereotypes touched on in one single film. These stereotypes were not just any kind of stereotype – they were those pertaining to Asians in particular. The obviousness and sheer transparency of the stereotypes made the movie look like a complete joke. The film? Kill Bill. The majority of today’s films starring Asian actors and actresses often contain numerous stereotypes. They cater to the biased views that most non-Asians have of Asian ethnicity and culture. What they do not know they make up for in ignorance and ridicule in one of today’s top forms of mass media. By using a widespread style of media in today’s pop culture, more and more people are being displayed the fabricated stereotypes of Asians. In one of the more commonly portrayed stereotypes in film, Asians are often portrayed as great martial artists. Martial arts seem to come less as a skill and more a natural ability to someone who is Asian. Somehow, it’s right in our blood. Actors who have contributed to t... Asians and Kill Bill Essay -- Stereotyping Asia Asian Movie Film Essay Asians and Kill Bill Sitting in the movie theater, I was baffled to see so many stereotypes touched on in one single film. These stereotypes were not just any kind of stereotype – they were those pertaining to Asians in particular. The obviousness and sheer transparency of the stereotypes made the movie look like a complete joke. The film? Kill Bill. The majority of today’s films starring Asian actors and actresses often contain numerous stereotypes. They cater to the biased views that most non-Asians have of Asian ethnicity and culture. What they do not know they make up for in ignorance and ridicule in one of today’s top forms of mass media. By using a widespread style of media in today’s pop culture, more and more people are being displayed the fabricated stereotypes of Asians. In one of the more commonly portrayed stereotypes in film, Asians are often portrayed as great martial artists. Martial arts seem to come less as a skill and more a natural ability to someone who is Asian. Somehow, it’s right in our blood. Actors who have contributed to t...

Encryption and network security Essay

Honeynets: Observing Hackers’ Tools, Tactics and Motives in a Controlled Environment Solutions to hacker attacks are usually fixes that are developed when damage has been done. Honeynets were solely developed to catch and monitor threats (i. e. a probe, scan or attack). They are designed to gather extensive data about the threats. These data are then interpreted and used for the development of new tools to prevent actual damages to computer systems. Talabis defines a honeynet as a network of high interaction honeypots that simulates a production network and configured such that all activity is monitored, recorded and in a degree, discretely regulated. Seen below is a diagram of a typical honeynet setup as given by Krasser, Grizzard, Owen and Levine. Figure 1 A typical honeynet setup Deployment of honeynets may vary as it is an architecture. The key element of any honeynet is the honeywall. This is the command and control gateway through which all activities come and go. This separates the actual systems from the honeypot systems wherein threats are directed to intentionally. Two more elements are essential in any honeynet. These are discussed below. Data Control Data control is necessary to lessen the risks posed by the captured threats without compromising the amount of data you are able to gather. To do this, connection counting and Network Intrusion Prevention System (NIPS) are used. These are both automated data control. Connection counting limits outbound activity wherein connections beyond the limit are blocked. NIPS blocks or disables known threats before it can attack outbound. The Honeynet Project Research Alliance has defined a set of requirements and standards for the deployment of Data Control. First is the use of both manual and automated data controls. Second, there must be at least two layers of data control to protect against failure. Third, in case of failures, no one should be able to connect to the honeynet. Fourth, the state of inbound and outbound connections must be logged. Fifth, remote administration of honeynets should be possible. Sixth, it should be very difficult for hackers to detect data control. And finally, automatic alerts should be raised when a honeynet is compromised. Data Capture The Honeynet Project identifies three critical layers of Data Capture. These are firewall logs, network traffic and system activity. The data collection capabilities of the honeynet should be able to capture all activities from all three layers. This will allow for the production of a more useful analysis report. Firewall logs are created by NIPS. The Snort process logs network traffic. Snort is a tool used to capture packets of inbound and outbound honeynet traffic. The third is capturing keystrokes and encryption. Sebek is a tool used to bypass encrypted packets. Collected data is hiddenly transmitted by Sebek to the honeywall without the hacker being able to sniff these packets. Risks As with any tool, honeynets are also threatened by risks affecting its usage and effectiveness. These include the risk of a hacker using the honeynet to attack a non-honeynet system; the risk of detection wherein the honeynet is identified by the hacker and false data is then sent to the honeynet producing misleading reports; and the risk of violation wherein a hacker introduces illegal activity into your honeynet without your knowledge. Alerting As mentioned in the requirements and standards set for data control, alerts should be in place once an attack is done to your honeynet. Otherwise, the honeynet is useless. An administrator can monitor the honeynet 24/7 or you can have automated alerts. Swatch is a tool that can be used for this. Log files are monitored for patterns and when found, an alert is issued via email or phone calls. Commands and programs can also be triggered to run. Honeynet Tools Several honeynet tools are available to the public for free so they can setup their own honeynet for research purposes. These tools are used in the different elements of a honeynet. Discussed below are just three of them. Honeynet Security Console This is a tool used to view events on the honeynet. These events may be from SNORTÂ ®, TCPDump, Firewall, Syslog and Sebek logs. Given these events, you will be able to come up with an analysis report by correlating the events that you have captured from each of the data types. The tool’s website lists its key features as follows: quick and easy setup, a user-friendly GUI for viewing event logs, the use of powerful, interactive graphs with drilldown capabilities, the use of simple search/correlation capabilities, integrated IP tools, TCPDump payload and session decoder, and a built in passive OS fingerprinting and geographical location capabilities. Honeywall CDRom Roo This is the recommended tool for use by the Honeynet Project. This is a bootable CDRom containing all of the tools and functionality necessary to quickly create, easily maintain, and effectively analyze a third generation honeynet. Much like the Honeynet Security Console, this tool capitalizes on its data analysis capability which is the primary purpose of why honeynets are deployed – to be able to analyze hacker activity data. GUI is used to maintain the honeywall and to track and analyze honeypot activities. It displays an overview of all inbound and outbound traffic. Network connections in pcap format can be extracted. Ethereal, another tool, can then be used with the extracted data for a more in-depth analysis. Sebek data can also be analyzed by this tool. Walleye, another tool, is used for drawing visual graphs of processes. Although this tool may be useful already, several improvements will still have to be introduced to increase its effectiveness. Walleye currently supports only one honeynet. Multiple honeynets can be deployed but remote administration of these distributed systems still needs to be worked on. Sebek This is a tool used for data capture within the kernel. This is done by intercepting the read() system call. This hiddenly captures encrypted packets from inbound and outbound activities by hackers on the honeypot. Basically, Sebek will tell us when the hacker attacked the honeypot, how he attacked it and why by logging his activities. It consists of two components. First, a client that runs on the honeypot. Its purpose is to capture keystrokes, file uploads and passwords. After capturing, it then sends the data to the server, the second component. The server normally runs on the honeywall where all captured data from the honeypot are stored. Found below is the Sebek architecture. Figure 2 Sebek Architecture A web interface is also available to be able to analyze data contained in the Sebek database. Three features are available: the keystroke summary view; the search view; and the table view which provides a summary of all activities including non-keystroke activities. References Honeynet Security Console. Retrieved October 8, 2007 from http://www. activeworx. org/onlinehelp/hsc/hsc. htm. Krasser, S. , Grizzard, J. , Owen, H., Levine, J. (2005). The use of honeynets to increase computer network security and user awareness. Journal of Security Education, 1, 23-37. Piazza, P. (2001, November). Honeynet Attracts Hacker Attention: The Honeynet Project Set Up a Typical Computer Network and Then Watched to See What Turned Up. Security Management, 45, 34. SebekTM FAQ. Retrieved October 8, 2007 from http://www. honeynet. org/tools/sebek/faq. html. The Honeynet Project. (2005, May 12). Know Your Enemy: Honeynets. What a honeynet is, its value, and risk/issues involved. Retrieved October 8, 2007 from http://www.honeynet. org. Talabis, R. The Philippine Honeynet Project. A Primer on Honeynet Data Control Requirements. Retrieved October 8, 2007 from http://www. philippinehoneynet. org/index. php? option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=18&Itemid=29. Talabis, R. A Primer on Honeynet Data Collection Requirements and Standards. Retrieved October 8, 2007 from http://www. philippinehoneynet. org/index. php? option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=18&Itemid=29. Talabis, R. Honeynets: A Honeynet Definition. Retrieved October 8, 2007 from http://www. philippinehoneynet. org/index. php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=18&Itemid=29. Talabis, R. The Gen II and Gen III Honeynet Architecture. Retrieved October 8, 2007 from http://www. philippinehoneynet. org/index. php? option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=18&Itemid=29. The Honeynet Project. (2005, May 12). Know Your Enemy: GenII Honeynets. Easier to deploy, harder to detect, safer to maintain. Retrieved October 8, 2007 from http://www. honeynet. org. The Honeynet Project and Research Alliance. (2005, August 17). Know Your Enemy: Honeywall CDRom Roo. 3rd Generation Technology. Retrieved October 8, 2007 from http://www. honeynet. org.

Symptoms And Symptoms Of Schizophrenia - 862 Words

Schizophrenia is a mental disease where patients can hear, see, and smell, things that are not actually there. These are referred to as hallucinations and delusions. Hallucinations are things that the patient sees and hears that are not present. Delusions are the belief or impression that what the individual is seeing is real. Scientists know that schizophrenia is a genetic disorder and it runs in families. This disease occurs in families and in the general population. In families it occurs in about 10 percent and in others it occurs in 1 percent. The exact cause of schizophrenia is unknown, but many scientists think that this disorder involves many different genes, not just one. They also thing this disease is caused from factors from genes and environment, such as being exposed to harmful things before birth. This disease is equally common in men and women, but men normally experience symptoms earlier than women. Symptoms of this disease are separated into three classifications, wh ich are positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and cognitive symptoms Positive symptoms come and go. Sometimes these symptoms can be severe and other times they can be very mild. Positive symptoms include hallucinations, which are things that a person smells, hears, feels, or sees that are actually not there. Delusions, which are when the individual believes something that, are not associated with the individual’s culture; an example of this is if someone thinks messages are secretly being sent toShow MoreRelatedSymptoms And Symptoms Of Schizophrenia1176 Words   |  5 Pages Symptoms The symptoms of schizophrenia are wide and varied, typically falling into three main categories, positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and cognitive symptoms. Each of these symptom types affect the patient in different ways, and in different degrees of severity. The symptoms may range from mildly irritating, to severe and debilitating. 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