Monday, May 9, 2011

Dear Sony, watch Zombieland & AVP!

Good golly Miss Molly, the PSN is still down! And here I have my U.S. Navy SEAL baseball cap proudly sitting in the rear window of my car. My sons, son-in-law and grandsons (and even one granddaughter) are anxiously waiting to play SOCOM4 on our regular Tuesday night plan-our-ambushes-via-IP-telephony slaughterfests. Hopefully you've fired the incompetent swine who set you up without proper security protocols (or if you're following the job-for-life management philosophy, why not have them cleaning toilets for the next decade?). Your assignment today, or maybe this evening as you're decompressing from another nightmare day of damage control (or is it damn-age control) is to watch a couple of movies.

My previous posts on elements of The Perfect Virus (principle #14 on Stealth and principle #22 on Defense) build a case for a fairly aggressive retaliatory strategy as the best course of action. And to get yourself into the proper frame of mind, I strongly suggest you watch Woody Harrelson in the movie Zombieland. Check out Alien vs. Predator, which chronicles a terrific winner-kill-all game scenario. Specifically,

  1. You've really got to "double-tap" the bad guys (Zombie Killer Rule #2). Any IP address that attacks you is fair game for slagging. If it's a botnet (aka zombie), the unsuspecting owner needs to start from scratch anyway. 
  2. If they can't figure out a way to be a good webcitizen, you'll get'em again. Quite Darwinian, actually. It's also Zombie Killer Rule #1 for them: Cardio. Idiots and lard-butts should get slagged first. 
  3. Numbers 1 and 2 above also accentuate Zombie Killer Rule #18: Limber up. You need to limber up and put your best and brightest on the task. 
  4. You need your Japanese-issued get-out-of-jail-free card ASAP. This complies with Zombie Killer Rule #22: When in Doubt, Know Your Way Out. 
Hey, you're a game company for crying out loud! Half the battle you're fighting will be a PR battle, so make it a grand game. Alien vs. Predator comes nicely to mind. Naturally, you're the Predator, going after the mindless Alien culture that has been infecting your PSN with root kits that turn your customers' PS3 into zombies and have popped out of your corporate chest cavities like so many nasty, mindless little monsters bent on reproduction and domination.

So what's your next step (after getting backing by your government to…play for keeps)? Any game has to have rules. Publish your rules (see my own Cyber Privateer Code of conduct for a few ideas). If you want to give the zombies a sporting chance, before you slag an offending computer you could freeze it with a message to the owner offering to eradicate (with their permission) the offending zombieware. A simple "click here if you agree" will suffice. 

Oh yes. And call Oracle's Larry Ellison (as I've recommended on previous occasions). He could probably loan you one or two of his warriors to help you pull this off.

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Implementation suggestions for THE MORGAN DOCTRINE are most welcome. What are the "Got'chas!"? What questions would some future Cyber Privateering Czar have to answer about this in a Senate confirmation hearing?