Off Grid - a game where data is your most powerful weapon

[mozfest-bot]

[ ID ] 21472a79-6ad7-46e4-bf05-5771005f5c78

[ Submitter's Name ] Rich Metson [ Submitter's Affiliated Organisation ] Semaeopus [ Submitter's Twitter ] @offgridthegame

[ Space ] cities [ Secondary Space ] digital

[ Format ] game

Description

Off Grid is a videogame about data privacy, where you, the player, have to collect and manipulate the personal data of the other characters around you in order to complete your mission. People will be able to learn about the network and data vulnerabilities of 'connected spaces' through one of the main mechanics - hacking into IoT enabled devices that exist in all the levels - to collect data or change the behaviors of guards and other characters.

Agenda

We would demo the game as an interactive experience (bringing 3 or more laptops and attaching to screens to make it a larger installation) having "makers and learners explore these dilemmas" through the "mischievous interventions" that take place in hacking connected spaces in the game and talk about the vulnerabilities of having your data so interconnected with smart objects in a building. Participants will be able to experience a simulated set of 'hacks' for gaining personal data from vulnerable IoT devices, fridges attached to calendars, vending machines sending advertising, IoT thermostats, voice recognising TV's etc. and play with that by playing 'pranks' and socially engineering the characters in the game. This is done by sending personal data you have collected to other machines, causing chaos, and manipulating the behavior of the AI characters who react to the data you have collected and the connected spaces you have tampered with.

Participants

We will bring a minimum of 3 computers and attach to large screens where possible, this makes it possible to scale from 1 to 10+ people per machine, so moving from 3-30+ is quite seamless. We have presented the game successfully at Mozfest before and essentially used it as a prop for a wider discussion with participants while one person plays, so that a discussion about how vulnerable individuals are to the software vulnerabilities in connected spaces can evolve quite nicely.

Outcome

Hopefully engaging in our session will give participants a more hands on awareness of the issues around connected spaces and how vulnerable they can be to being around such devices. We would like players and participants to be able to think about what data they may be sharing with IoT devices going forward and how they might adjust their behaviors going forward.

[EPIKhub]

This sounds really interesting, most of us conceptually don't think about risk in this way, we have a broad understanding of how to save guard ourselves in a physical none digital way, but never think that the rules of our physical world also exists in the digital; your car is a device, do you leave it unlocked with all the content of your bag open for all to see? ;)

[EPIKhub]

Session accepted in the Youth Zone

[richmetson]

Possible updated descriptions for the program:

Summary

Come and learn about data privacy and cyber-security by playing Off Grid, a game where your aim is to collect and manipulate the data left behind by other characters. You will be able to hack internet connected devices and if interested get a brief intro into how to mod your own hacks in the game using the easy to learn scripting language Lua.

Detailed Description

We live in a world of connected devices, and everyone leaves a breadcrumb trail of data when they use their phone or connect to the internet, but what information are the 'smart' items around you collecting, and how easily can 'The internet of things' be hacked to reveal these things?

You can come and play Off Grid, a stealth hacking game currently in development where collecting data is your most powerful tool, and get a hands on feel for what data people leave lying around and how easy it can be used to manipulate or hack into the devices they own.

You will be able to play a small demo of the game in its current state and then if interested design an 'Internet of Things' connected device that could go in the game, and think about what kind of data it might collect. From there we can show you the basic modding language that you can use to make these devices and walk you through how to write basic lua code to mod a game.

You should be able to come away from this session with a new perspective on how much data is left behind in the world, how vulnerable the cheap 'smart' devices that are now popping up everywhere are, how this puts your personal data at risk, and hopefully steps you can take to mitigate this.