Author: Sean Eitan Applebaum

With technology in the world becoming increasingly critical in our lives, the importance of security across the platforms we use are also becoming incredibly crucial to improve. Game Theory is already being used today in order to predict an attacker‘s method of stealing information from a defender.

The idea discussed in the article utilizes Game Theory, considering a game where a player (the attacker) needs to steal information from the second player (the defender). With this setup – we can create contradictory incentives, and allow these models to compete with each other. Through the process we can analyze and model the security problems the attacker’s invade, and the security measures the defenders construct. Furthermore, this setup allows for multiple players, and up to hundreds of thousands of scenarios before deciding an action, in order to fully explore the capabilities each player has to offer, and even more-so simulate what a real attacker would do in the real world. In each scenario the payoff is considered for each action, based on the likelihood of success, and the risk of getting caught by the defender. Below is a simple diagram representing the decision network that the attacker and defender use in order to make their decisions:

The article further dives into details about the strategy prediction, utilizing fictitious plays – which are essentially fake scenarios created either by the attacker of the defender in order to predict what they will do, and how to overcome/prevent such an event. The article also discussed cooperative game models, for scenarios where the attacker may need to steal information from other players who are on the same team (such as from a company with many users who are all actively trying to prevent an attack). In this case the attacker might single-out a weak link with few security measures, or come up with some other scenario with a high payoff.

In conclusion, a Game Theory approach to solving network security as a whole would never be sufficient. However, the ability to consider hundreds of thousands of scenarios is an extremely powerful tool that should be utilized to its fullest potential in the industry. As network security continues to evolve, it is important that as many scenarios are considered as possible in order to protect personal and otherwise critical data.

http://yangxiao.cs.ua.edu/IEEE_COMST_game_2013.pdf

Liang, X., & Xiao, Y. (2012). Game theory for network security. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 15(1), 472-486.

How can we improve the quality of single-player video games? What if we increase the number of collectible items? What if we add more locations and areas for the player to explore? Although these are subjectively good ideas, how can we objectively analyze what determines a player’s interest in the focus of the video game? A game like the Telltale Series might focus more on plot, whereas a game like The Legend of Zelda would have more of on an explorative narrative.

The discussed study in the article analyzes a player’s actions and decisions in a single-player game utilizing eye-tracking software in order to determine what interfaces impact a player’s decision the most. The researchers correlated each of the player’s decisions as an edge between nodes of a graph. The graph was set up with each set of nodes grouped into categories like: Plot, Characters, Locations, Items, etc. (As seen below).

By correlating the edges of the graph to the player’s decisions, one can analyze the number of edges between the plot and the other categories in order to determine what advances a player’s desire to follow a plot. In the above case, it would seem as though it is the characters. If we consider categories to be network communities, we can analyze the weak ties that connect different networks in order to determine what aspects of the video game tie into the player’s decisions, and can be used as a tool for testing story lines and analyzing a player’s strategies. For example if we realized that components of an item encouraged players to explore new locations, we would see more edges between those item pieces and the locations the player explores in order to uncover them. This approach allows for an objective way to improve the quality of single-player video games. Game developers have more control over what actions the players will take in order for a more realistic and interactive progression of the game, all through an analysis of their in-game decisions.

http://www.thinkmind.org/articles/achi_2016_5_30_20291.pdf