Is infosec a game? (ZeroNights 2014)

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Is infosec a game?

Yesterday infosec was such an easy game to play.<br>Now we need a place to hide away?

These are screenshots of the game we used in lieu of slides for<br>ZeroNights 2014 keynote talk.

You can play the game online<br>in recent web browsers on fast CPUs<br>(we use<br>JsDOSBox)<br>or offline in<br>DOSBox<br>(which works perfectly even on slower CPUs)<br>or on bare metal (e.g. by adding it into a FreeDOS image).<br>To obtain a copy for offline play, simply unzip the PDF file below<br>(yes, you read this right).

The game requires a VGA card and a mouse, but is not picky about the CPU,<br>memory, and sound card (if any).<br>Although we only tested on a 386 and newer,<br>we're not aware of a reason why the game wouldn't run on a 286.<br>A floppy and 640 KB ought to be enough for any slide deck,<br>but the game does also use EMS if present just in case you're<br>running low on free "conventional memory".

Please click on the screenshots for enlarged versions<br>(and you'll be able to navigate between them there,<br>including via additional screenshots for a gameplay-like experience).<br>You can also

download a PDF file with all of the screenshots (7.1 MB,<br>including under 1 MB for an embedded copy of the game itself) or<br>view it on Speaker Deck.<br>(PDF file generated by Ange Albertini.)

There's an opinion that good slides are useless without the speaker.<br>While not universally true (by far), in a sense this may be one of those cases<br>(exceptions).<br>The expectation is that you might enjoy the game and its screenshots<br>as a form of art, as well as for the historical perspective they provide and<br>hopefully for some questions they provoke for you to ponder.<br>(The ZeroNights talk involved a lengthy conversation with the audience,<br>after a relatively quick walk through the game while bringing up some of the<br>questions. Yes, it was unusual in that aspect as well.)

Related material (important for understanding of some of the content on these screenshots)

Video of the talk (with audio in Russian as it was most appropriate to the local audience, sorry)

Pictures from ZeroNights 2014 (including some taken during this talk)

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