Safety First

safety_largeI really don’t like the idea that the ugly side of the Internet has come to our friendly community, but, once in a while, &$#% gets real. We’ve had members of our community doxxed, Twitter accounts hacked and deleted, and many of us wondering what happened to the happy, safe little group we refer to as ‘Twizards’. I’m not pretending to be any sort of security expert here, all I can do is make a few suggestions that people far, far smarter than I have made.

1) CHANGE YOUR PASSWORDS! Go do that now. Don’t use the same passwords for different sites, particularly ones that might have access to any of your financial resources, private information, or your e-mail. If you think it’s too difficult to remember all those passwords, there are plenty of ways to help with this. I use a free, secure password safe app on my mobile phone called ‘Keeper’ to keep track of them, but there are a number of ways you could do that yourself. You could even go old school and just get a small notebook and write them down.

2) TAKE ADVANTAGE OF EXTRA LAYERS OF PROTECTION! Many MMORPGs offer a free authenticator app or a small authenticator device. Some banks do the same. Other services, Twitter included, will force you to enter a code they send to you in a text message every time you log in to Twitter. Those aren’t completely bulletproof, but they’re awfully close.

3) WATCH OUT FOR YOUR FRIENDS! One of the best ways we can beat these guys is watching out for each other. Keep an eye on your friends’ social media feeds (which you probably do anyway) for anything out of the ordinary, and check with them if something seems out of the ordinary.

We’ve been lucky that we haven’t had to really deal with this kind of hacking in the KI community, but it’s here. Now we need to protect ourselves. Our community can still be this great, friendly, helpful place, but we just need to be careful. If you’ve got any security tips, please leave them in comments. We could all use all the help we can get.

Spiral Radio101 #62 – ‘BOOST!’

cropped-spiral-radio-101-logo-preview.jpgSpiral Radio101 episode 62 is NOW AVAILABLE! Download the show from iTunes, Stitcher Radio, the SR101 RSS feed, or stream it straight from spiralradio101.com by CLICKING RIGHT HERE!

The version of the show that got posted was truncated. I’ll be replacing it with a full-length file later this evening. We’re sorry for the inconvenience!The full-length version is up and available NOW! Thanks for your patience.

Graduation Party Friday June 24th, 7:00 pm Central Time until ???

Spiral Radio101 is holding a fan site event on Friday, June 24 th at 7:00 pm Central time. It’s a Graduation Party, but it doesn’t matter if you haven’t graduated from Ravenwood or any other school this year!

Come one, come all!

The party starts at my Massive Fantasy Palace, but I have teleporters set up to several other houses to that folks can visit the NPCs that have daily gifts for players, like the Genie in the Sultan’s Palace and the Dragonfly in the Hive. Kiosk games will be set up in other houses, and you can fish to your heart’s desire.

KingsIsle gave us some Confetti Cannon codes to give away, so we will be choosing some folks at random. We will also dig into our prize vault for some Pirate101 prizes.

To join the party, be at Nightside at 7:00 pm Central time on Friday, June 24th. We’ll be on the Vampire Realm, Area 1. Be ready to add one of us to your Friend List so that you can teleport in for the fun and games. When you get there, feel free to invite your friends to port in. We’re not sure how long the party will last – as long as everyone is having fun we’ll try to stick around. Or at least leave our characters spinning if we need to turn in.

Hope to see you there!

Thanks, Leesha Darkheart

leesha d

I trust that everything happens for a reason, even if we are not wise enough to see it.
-Oprah Winfrey

leesha dLast week, KingsIsle made a business decision. I’m sure it was very difficult, but having been an observer of the business end of gaming for eight years now, I’ve seen it happen enough to know it’s a sad reality of this industry. While I’ve always felt for those people who were let go, this is only the second time it’s really touched my world. Today, our Associate Community Manager, Leala, better known to us as Professor Greyrose and to some of us as Leesha Darkheart was laid off and will no longer be serving the Spiral community in that capacity.

I’d like to take a minute to thank her publicly for what she’s meant to all of us, but, most of all, to me.

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