Original Post
OK, I posted this in the Beginner''s forum a couple weeks ago but figured this forum would be the best place for it.
The background is that I''m part of a group of four senior computer engineering students, and for our senior design project, we are doing this:
"The goal of this project is to develop a working computer game to help introduce people to the issues surrounding computer security. The game would be modeled after the Sim games and would allow the game players to purchase equipment to help secure one of several predefined network configurations. The game would attack the network and the user would get points based on how well they designed the protection system. The game could either be web-based or Windows-based."
So...how to go about doing this? I''m not interested right now in technical details, such as the language to be used. I know a bit about networking and security measures, but I''m having trouble seeing how a game on this topic could be made into a) a visually appealing game and b) a game simple enough to be understood by non-technical high school seniors.
My initial idea is this:
You play the part of a system admin. The company you works for buys the servers and computers and hires the employees, but you are in charge of how these resources are accessed and secured. For example, you could decide to put multiple firewalls and then each firewall could be configured to different degrees of security. For example, let''s say your employees happen to have a low expertise (which you could increase by investing in employee training programs)...so you could prohobit any email attachments that come through. Or you could be more lenient and let just about anything through. In the latter case, you''ll have happier employees but have a higher risk of your network being hacked. In the former case, you will have a more secure network but your employees may see you as a Nazi. And so it goes...some security measures are innocous, some might hinder your employees ability to do work...you have to find the right balance.
And so to give the game its challenge, I think there would have to be some basic economic model. Over time, your company generates profits. You have no direct control over this, but if your company gets continually hacked, then of course your budget will be slashed. If you put too stringent and complex of security measures on, then that may make your employees too inefficient, and that will cut into the company''s profits.
So the challenge is how to make this graphically interesting. I thought maybe having an isometric representation of your office with employees and computers would be interesting, but might not be very relevant to actual network security architecture. Things like setting up a firewall or a new cryptographic standard...how would you graphically/symbolically represent this?
In the earliest SimCity (B&W days), building the actual city was put at a very abstract level...you just placed zones together. But at least there was a lot of graphical appeal in seeing your city grow. I can''t say that that kind of appeal lies in seeing your network grow. Maybe I''m just being unimaginiative.
So that''s the gist of it for now. Comments? Suggestions?
