For those that knows me, it’s not a surprise that I’m a bit paranoid with digital security. But in a good sense, I believe, because I do not suffer from this condition. It is an active and rational decision to be constantly aware of digital dangers. I am also very tolerant towards including extras security steps on the daily habits.

Inspired on two Brazilian stories involving cryptography, I decided to take a closer look into personal encryption. One from the fraudulent banker that could never be convicted because all the evidences were in his encrypted desktop computer. The federal police were never able to crack it. The other one was a forgotten laptop with major corporate secrets. The company? Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company and one of the top oil companies in the planet. Petrobras said that the secrets were safe: the strong encryption would hold any eyes from looking inside.

Imagine if suddenly someone steals your computer. Aren’t you going to be crazy?! Your personal photos, family stuff, work notes and free access to email and banking from the machine.

Note: I am talking about only encrypting the hard drive, so it is only useful for avoiding losing data in case of someone stealing your computer. Nothing else. Simple but efficient.

About 2 years ago, I discovered an open source product that I loved: Truecrypt/Veracrypt. It promised total protection for people like you and me. Being open source also adds much trust: not only I will not be locked with a single provider, but the method could be tested and commented by hundreds of eyes.

My desktop is unbreakable ever since. With powerful processors we have today, it is easy to turn all disks encrypted. Even the main Windows and Linux hard drives are protected. So if a theft steals my PC, I will lose the hardware but not the software. The information inside is unreachable. Even for USA government 😉 Ever. Hear that Obama? Ever!** **And the performance drop is unnoticeable. Amazing. I’m a happy customer.

On whole in the wall I was always worried but never dealt until: my smartphone. No need to say that it is probably the most vulnerable hardware that we own (we carry it everywhere) and it is full with important information. Easy to lose it somewhere or to be robbed. The information can be shared through the world. Finally I tried on my beloved Galaxy S3. One thing I knew I would gave to give up is the convenience of easy and fast access to my phone; entering a strong passwords all the time, because the whole point of the encryption is to lock other people out! For some, it is just a too heavy burden. For me it was not. A small price to pay.

While the encryption of the memory card was excellent, using it on the main phone’s memory compromised too much the performance. Odd. From boot to app switching, the lagging response was irritating. After two weeks, I had to revert it. Immediately it started to respond. I’m now gathering some strength to try this again. I’m going to read more to see what I did wrong. I know it is worthy.

Do you scramble your digital life or it can be read in plain view?

The acclaimed author of Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown brought another story from his symbologist Robert Langdon.

Now, instead of sitting under Leonardo Da Vinci’s works to create the conspiracy and mystery, the author drank from another Italian writer: Dante Alighieri. This fellow was responsible for writing the Divine Comedy, a narration about the 9 rings of hell.

Without revealing too much information about the book itself, I did not like the book. The character seems to know all the places too well, from secret doors, geography, history, and local informants. He knows everything. Also, he remains too calm and lucid even in life-threatening situations.

All the characters, good or bad, including Langdon, are also too resourceful. Do they need to travel across the globe now? No problem, there is always a contact that can spare a private jet, boat, or helicopter. There aren’t any dead-end moments, It is too much of a straightforward adventure.

Dante’s material is fascinating, but it was overused. He is not Da Vinci, it is not believable that everything in the world somehow conspired to link to his works. Finally, Brown used too many repetitive artifacts in his writings. It annoyed me by half of the book.

I would not recommend this book. I going to read some technical books to change the air…

The Chilean designers from ACE Team are back with the new crazy game Rock of Ages. It’s a strategy and action game like none you have seen before.

You control a ball that will roll downhill until it crashes at the enemy’s castle front gates. Repeat if it is not damaged enough. Your adversary does the same. The first to break into the castle wins. You can put obstacles between your enemy’s ball and your castle, in a Tower Defense way. You should balance your time and money between preparing defenses and attacking.

It’s overall idea is really nice but actual gameplay is not that fun. Well, It is fun at the beginning. I believe that it is fun in a sandbox mode, which you might experiment a lot. But for a single single player campaign, it is very frustrating. In the defense mode, the match is too short to allow you to test different strategies (or you win, or you lose in 2 or 3 rounds), neither gives you hints of would be a good call. In the offense ball rolling mode, the strategy is simple: avoid obstacles that make your ball weaker and go as fast as you can in the final meters in order to hit the gates as harder as you can. The problem is: that’s it. Not much else to do.

Nor difficult, especially for a strategy/action game. I was able to finish the game without complex thinking. The basic defense units, presented in the very first stages will take care of most of your needs in the entire game. The extra unities, gained when you reach later levels, are just visuals, offering almost no useful functionality. In like manner, the collectible stars, which was supposed to be difficult to obtain and would give the right to pass some portals, are also a piece of cake. So, it is more a matter to go and take them.

Another polarizing aspect is the humour. I felt it is genuine and fun, but you have to give it a chance, because it is not obvious or for the masses. Each stage is thematic from historic figures like Pope, or ancient legends, like 300’s spartans. The jokes are silly and the application in the actual level is vague. Nonetheless, it reminds me the same weird fun style from Zeno Clash.

Bottom line: play this game if you want to explore an original and beautiful game. Does not expect deep strategy nor loads of LoL moments.

I participated at Ludum Dare (give the game, in Latin), edition 27. It is a competition to create a game in 48 hours (in Brazil, from 10pm Friday till 10pm Sunday). The theme was “10 seconds”, but I refused to create an action game. It would be the most common approach. Rather, I created a strategy game.

In fact, there are 2 competitions: COMPO and JAM modes. The Jam allows you to bring a team and use pre-build stuff.You have to choose what mode you are going to compete. I didn’t know that was one OR the other, so I created a game in 48h and enhanced it in the next day.

Take a look. There are also some pictures from my design process.

But if you want to play it, download it!

EDIT 2021: all links are unavailable or broken

I heard so many good reviews about this book. There is also a movie being made, starring Harrison Ford and the little actor, not more than little from Hugo, Asa Butterfield. So I was expecting another masterpiece ready to be trashed by Hollywood.

The main concept explored in the book is the war room. Like a video game, war commanders see the battle and issue orders. Special maneuvers and spacial positioning are critical. It’s pure Sun Tsu. It’s Blizzard StarCraft.

However. [spoiler alert]

Orson created a story of a superhero that does not ever fail. Like… never. It is a tale of success after success. The main character knows the extension of his abilities, knows how to master them, and can perform formidably every single time. It seems that the character is cheating in an RPG game to the point to exploit the fun. Super smart, super fast, super agile. Superman.

The narrative style is nice. Besides being a futuristic sci-fi universe (usually hard to understand), Orson is good in the description so readers always understand the world from the first time. However, the movement description, important to the story, is too visual and difficult to comprehend.

Wow.

There is, though, a nice message about training. Because for little Ender, the training brought perfection for him. It is somewhat inspiring.