Emerald Flame: Hello all and welcome to the Password Awareness Week Town Meeting!

Emerald Flame: If you don't want to listen in just type =event to toggle the Event Channel off! :-)

Emerald Flame: First I want to apologize for all the craziness this morning. The new password code had a few hick-ups, but should all be working fine now.

Emerald Flame: Well, aside from DragonScales on Digo Market but that should be working very shortly!

Emerald Flame: I'm sure you all know by now that a week ago a hacker logged on to the News Channel and posted around 250 names, passwords and emails, including several staff members.

Emerald Flame: There was much chaos for about a day and a few community members broke our rules, logging on those characters and stealing them and the Digos that were one them.

Emerald Flame: Cironir and the rest of the staff has been working hard this week to get all of those Digos and alts back to those with rights to them and suspending those who took things without permission.

Emerald Flame: Felorin has been investigating the hacker and will talk a bit more about that later. I will say that we are fairly certain that other names and password not posted were decrypted using brute force hacking tools.

Emerald Flame: The hacker did not take any Digos or change any emails or passwords. We are unsure how many other accounts he has though, so we are asking *everyone* to change their password to remain secure.

Emerald Flame: It's interesting that we were not the only ones hacked this week. Even the big guys had issues with password theft. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8292928.stm

Emerald Flame: So we recommend changing your passwords everywhere!

Emerald Flame: In general our community really pulled together during this time of crisis and I was very proud of everyone who contributed to the great helping effort last Saturday and after.

Emerald Flame: While I don't think a crisis quite like this will happen again, I do want to remind everyone not to log in to someone else's alt even if you have the best of intentions. Wait for staff or Guardians to handle the situation in future.

Emerald Flame: I want to say a special thanks to Mredria (Guardian Head) and Shy Red, Napster and Saidee (Guardians) who were on duty when the trouble hit and did an awesome job of handling things and contacting staff.

Emerald Flame: Rei-jin, Cironir and Gar jumped right in and worked hard to help everyone they could. The Helpers were amazing, fielding so many calls for help! Many other community members just pitched in and helped out where they could as well!

Emerald Flame: The programmers have been especially awesome this week with Farrier working long hours to get a new password system in place. Fox, Ryhn and Felorin have also been helping and investigating all the issues involved! The Bugge Hunters have helped to test the new systems.

Emerald Flame: We really do have the best community on the internet! :-)

Emerald Flame: Thank you all very, very much and in honor of everyone who helped, we are holding a Digo Day tomorrow!

Emerald Flame: Besides the Digo Day we have a couple of more surprises for you! This restart put in several new toys for all of you.

Emerald Flame: Ryhn programmed the ability for Dream Packages to have saved spots. Dream Package Owners should watch the Groups & Guilds forum for more information on this over the next week!

Emerald Flame: Farrier added the new FUN channel, that the new Events Beekins will use to hold their awesome events! You will type =fun to turn it on and play along with whatever cool game, dream hopping or other event they are running!

Emerald Flame: (Note for Eventers: Please do not use until you get instructions!) ;-)

Emerald Flame: Felorin is releasing Live Edit to the general public too! We feel that enough of the bugs have been worked out of this for you all to give it a try. We are still keeping shared editing just with SS for now. That part is still a little buggy and needs more testing.

Emerald Flame: Note: Always back up your dream before using Live Edit and use Save As when saving!

Emerald Flame: We hope you all enjoy these new features and if you want to know more about Live Edit, you can visit http://www.furcadia.com/download/liveedit.html

Emerald Flame: To find out more about upcoming events, visit our Community Calendar. http://www.furcadia.com/services/calendar/calendar.php4?&cmd=monthly&cid=13

Emerald Flame: I'm going to turn this over to Felorin now so he can talk to you more about Password Security and the events of Oct. 3rd!

Emerald Flame: All your's Felorin! :-)

Felorin: Thanks Emmie!

Felorin: Hi everyone, and welcome again to our Town Meeting for Password Awareness Week!

Felorin: As some of you may be aware, October is also Cyber Security Awareness Month. This is the sixth year, since it was set up by the Department of Homeland Security. You can read more about that at http://www.staysafeonline.org/ncsam

Felorin: Subjects like encryption, hacking, and computer security are something Talzhemir and I have been following since the 1980s. It's an ever-changing field, though some of the basic principles remain the same.

Felorin: We've always done our best to keep Furcadia secure, and we were fortunate when Fox (aka sanctimonious) joined us a decade ago, he's very dedicated to staying up on the latest information and security patches, and keeping our servers safe.

Felorin: To date, nobody has managed to log onto our server machines with full access. Not even the hacker who cracked a bunch of character passswords last week managed to get full access to everything that way.

Felorin: When I programmed our original password storage system back in 1994 (it was used in DragonSpires at the time), I made sure everybody's passwords were stored encrypted, so even our own staff couldn't read them.

Felorin: I used the same encryption scheme Unix used to store its own password table, which was reasonably secure at the time.

Felorin: A better password storage scheme was invented in 1995, but that didn't exist yet when I was starting out in '94! When I reused the DragonSpires server code in 1996 to make Furcadia, I kept the same password code too. It was secure enough against brute force attacks by the standards of the time.

Felorin: Computers today, though, are hundreds or thousands of times more powerful than what we had back then. If someone gets passwords encrypted the older ways, they can crack them with a brute force attack.

Felorin: Normally those encrypted versions are only on our server anyway. But this hacker found a way to use vulnerabilities in web scripts to get access to a lot of our server data files. We've been working on closing all those security holes up as well.

Felorin: To keep the actual password data uncrackable, though, Farrier has spent the last week working on a new encryption scheme, which went into Furcadia this morning. Hopefully this is strong enough to last a lot longer than another 15 years this time, and keep our passwords safe for decades to come.

Felorin: One interesting thing about encryption, as computers get faster, it tends to make things safer. If you make a computer a thousand times faster, attacks are a thousand times stronger - but the encryption protecting passwords gets a million times stronger!

Felorin: You don't have to do anything to switch your password over to the new system other than just logging into Furcadia. Since you're here, your passwords have already been switched over! For any other alts you have, it will automatically change your password over to the new encryption the first time you log in.

Felorin: Also, instead of being limited to just the first 8 characters mattering, we now support passwords up to 30 characters long. Nobody's going to guess or brute force a password THAT long!

Felorin: We do still strongly encourage everyone to change their passwords that hasn't done so in the last week already. If your password was hacked before this new security was put in, and you haven't changed it, anybody that got your correct password back then will still be able to use it.

Felorin: Also we'd encourage everyone to make a hard to guess password, and write it down or store it somewhere. There are special password storage programs you can find on the web if you don't want to use pencil and paper. Of course if you write it down, keep that paper somewhere safe!

Felorin: A hard to guess password should be at least 8-10 characters long, with both letters and at least two numeric digits. If you use both upper and lower case that's even better, or if you put in some symbols too.

Felorin: You can change your Furcadia password at www.furcadia.com/services/pw/change_password.htm - this link and many other helpful Furcadia tools are at our Services page, www.furcadia.com/services

Felorin: We'd advise everybody to follow these same password security steps elsewhere too - for your email account, characters on other games, web forums, etc. And especially for PayPal and online banking sites!

Felorin: It's always better if you don't use the same password everywhere. But if you do use the same one several places to help you remember... Please make an exception for sites that handle your money, like banks and PayPal.

Felorin: If you have been using the same password on any of those sites as on your Furcadia character, be sure and change those too, just to be extra sure nobody will try your Furcadia password there and get lucky and get into your money.

Felorin: People who have a lot of Digo items should make especially sure to change their password to a good strong one, as well. Though of course, if anybody logs onto your character and steals your Digos, we WILL transfer them back and suspend the person who stole them!

Felorin: Most of the time, you're not at any risk of someone stealing your passwords or other info on Furcadia. This is the first time we've had a big attack like this in over 12 years.

Felorin: If you change your passwords once now, we'll do our part to try and keep you from having to worry about these things for even longer next time. Maybe forever!

Felorin: Of course, it does pay to check the security on your home PC from time to time as well. People's Furcadia passwords aren't taken that way too often, but it has happened. Also don't save your character ini on a public computer at school or at a library!

Felorin: Make sure you have reasonable anti-virus software on your computer, and that it gets updated and runs scans at regular intervals. Most of them can be set up to do this automatically for you.

Felorin: With a little reasonable caution, you can keep your computer safe and virus free, and spend your time talking with your friends and having a good time, with no worries.

Cironir: http://www.avira.com/en/pages/index.php is a good choice. :-)

Felorin: The most common way people have gotten their passwords taken is by sharing them with somebody who turns out later to be untrustworthy. So don't share your password with anyone, keep it to yourself!

Felorin: Of course if you ever do run into problems with security of your Furcadia characters, passwords, or Digos, you can come to our Guardians and they'll get you in touch with someone who can help you out.

Felorin: In closing, I just want to say thanks to everyone for making Furcadia special all these years. We all look forward to seeing all the things you'll create and share and do over the years ahead! Furcadia makes us at Dragon's Eye happy, because all of you make it special here. Thanks!

Felorin: I also want to say a special thanks to Emerald Flame for helping the whole team coordinate efforts to work on our security upgrades since last week's incident. Some people don't know it, but she helps work on just about everything that happens here in Furcadia. Thanks Emmie!

Felorin: Now our Community Manager, Beekin Administrator, and Chief Guardian, Cironir is here to say some things. He's more involved in day to day security issues than most of us, whether they're large or small. Take it away, Ciro!

Cironir: Evening, folks. I'd like to talk a little about passwords and how to keep your characters secure. Felorin covered some of it, so don't mind the repetition. :-)

Cironir: In general, it's a good idea to change passwords every so often. A couple of times per year is pretty do-able. Try to use different passwords for your alts. That may seem cumbersome, especially if you have many characters, but it may already be sufficient to change just a part of the password. Perhaps incooperate the last three letters of the character's name, or the fifth to seventh letter. Something like that. Be creative.

Cironir: Maybe you'll say, "Hey, your password was posted too, wasn't it?". Yes, it was. But what was posted was an old password, one I had changed weeks and months ago. It's not easy or fast to brute-force hack a password, and if you change it every so often, at least for your most valued alts, you can really increase your security.

Cironir: Really important is that you don't use the same passwords between different services, like the same password for your main character and your mail account, or your IM. Or even worse, your Paypal or CCnow. Keep these things strictly separated. This applies to accounts on other games, too. If any service gets compromised (and it even happened to Google and Paypal, so we are in good company!), your other accounts remain safe.

Cironir: Now, I know I'll sound like a broken record (sorry, please keep loving me nonetheless!), but alt sharing and trading remains one of the top reasons why characters are "stolen". This affects far more accounts/characters than the "hacking" on October 3rd. About 250 names were affected in the hacking, but the number of alts that are stolen because of sharing and trading is higher than that.

Cironir: I can only strongly recommend to not share alts, or at least not have the same password for the shared account that you use for your other characters. Seems common sense? Yes, but it's still very often neglected, because trust and love get in the way.

Cironir: Often, furres share passwords with their loved ones and "best friends". When the relationships end, it's not rare that some drama happens -- and when people try to get back at you, because they are hurt or upset, and they know your passwords, little stops them from seizing the opportunity, if only to annoy you. Stay in control of your stuff, hormones and loving aside.

Cironir: Sure, it's bannable by our rules, but if you shared an alt long enough, we cannot tell who the proper "owner" is, and so we can't help. You can help yourself, though: by not sharing your alts. You don't need to prove your love or your friendship. If your lover or best friend asks for your password, it's time to take a step back and think. A password doesn't prove love or trust. Hang onto yours and don't give it away for any reason.

Emerald Flame: And then there's the birds and the bees! ;-)

Cironir: If you must trade alts before we officially support it and provide the tools for doing it securely (we really are working on this, as we know you want it!), change the password of the character before you give it to someone and use unique, random passwords. Just put some junk there, but don't be lazy and use the same password that you use for your fifty other characters. It's just a few clicks but protects you from a lot of trouble (and me, too! :-))

Emerald Flame: Ciro spends most of his work hours cleaning up messes from players who are not careful with their passwords! :-)

Cironir: Furcadia now supports passwords with up to 30 letters, numbers and special characters. You don't have to make such a long and meaty password, but the longer and more varied it is, the more secure you'll be. Throw in some capitals, add a few numbers (ideally not your birthdate), sneak in some special characters like punctuation marks, and enjoy knowing that no one will ever crack your password! Not until they are old grey-furred. :-)

Cironir: And yes I do. (Hey, no messing with my carefully crafted script! :-P) Here, I turn over to The Emerald Flame, who keeps all of Furcadia together and going. Appreciate her, because she is the one who makes all of this possible. Turning over to her. :-) (Sorry, I can't answer all whispers!)

Emerald Flame: Thank you Felorin and Cironir! In conclusion, everyone needs to change their passwords right now! https://sphinx.furcadia.com/services/change_password/change_password.php4 ;-)

Emerald Flame: Thank you all again and tell all of your friends that it is Digo Day tomorrow so that they don't miss it! :-)

Emerald Flame: We will be opening up for Questions & Answers in just a minute. Please have your question typed in and only ONE question per turn!

Emerald Flame: If you don't have SS and can't get to the dream to ask questions, have one of your SS friends ask for you! :-)

Felorin: AaronWeikart asks when there will be Gold or Diamond Sponsorship?

Felorin: Gold will come out after our Account system is done, we can't put it out without that. Diamond sometime after. All we can really say for sure about future features and updates is "We can't know when it will be done until the moment we finish it", software and game development is just like that.

Felorin: Sentra asks, what should you do if you changed your password, but the Furcadia Forums aren't recognizing your new password?

Emerald Flame: You should just be able to log out on the forums and log back in and it should work. It did for me! If it does not, please report to the Bugge Hunter Channel by typing help I have a bug with the forums!

Emerald Flame: There are a lot of subsystems to get working again and the programmers are working hard on it still!

Emerald Flame: Kamose also suggests: Try cleaning out your cookies and temp files, and make sure you are typing your new password correctly.

Felorin: If you run into any other problems with the new features, talk to Bugge Hunters too. :-)

Emerald Flame: Ichimaru Gin: Hi. ^^ Um, I know it wasn't talked bout in the meeting, but a lot of people are excited and curious bout it. Time frame for the release of the iPhone client? x3

Felorin: The hacker attack did slow us down for most of a week, while we dealt with that. But we are inches away from finishing the client and submitting it to Apple. From there it's up to them how long they take to approve it, or if they ask us to change a few things and re-submit. It can vary a lot.

Emerald Flame: Bitmap: I already changed my password which came with this alt in an alt trade, so I wouldn't have to change the password again, would I?

Emerald Flame: If you haven't changed the password in the last week, you should change it again and make sure it is a strong password. :-)

Cironir: 30 letters, baby!

Emerald Flame: DreamingWolf: Roughly how many attacks has Furcadia been hit with since it's creation?

Felorin: Only one of this magnitude. In earlier times when we hadn't fixed all our server bugs, troublemakers would occasionally find a way to crash the game, every 2 or 3 years something would come up and we'd have to fix it. The game would automatically restart within minutes, but it was still annoying, and they'd get banned for it. We haven't had problems like that in ages though.

Emerald Flame: That is in almost 13 years of the game being up too!

Emerald Flame: Rydia Aslin: When the accounts system comes out, will there be just one password for all of your alts on an account to worry about, or will every alt have a changeable password, like the system now?

Felorin: Rydia Aslin: When the accounts system comes out, will there be just one password for all of your alts on an account to worry about, or will every alt have a changeable password, like the system now?

Emerald Flame: The plan right now is to have only one password per account, yes. All the alts on that account will be protected through it. That's how most other games do it already!

Emerald Flame: Everyone tell Treeki Happy Birthday! ;-)

Felorin: Treeki: When the iPhone client is released, do you plan to release an accompanying update for the normal client with any accompanying additions? I imagine it'd be easier to do that than update iFurc later on.

Felorin: No, when the iPhone client comes out, it's just supposed to do what the current Furcadia client does now (except for dream editing and dream uploads). When we issue future PC updates we'll put out iPhone updates at the same time, it's pretty easy to put out a free update through Apple's app store.

Emerald Flame: Treeki says thanks to all! ;-)

Emerald Flame: Kauliflower: Are there going to be any new ferians? I suggest maybe a Ferreten or some type of rodent. Lol, how about a PLATYPUSEN? Oh how I'd love a platypusen <3 Because I LOVE platypuses :-D for some apparent reason.

Emerald Flame: Felorin's making me answer this one because he doesn't do platypus related questions ;p

Cironir: Chicken!

Emerald Flame: There will be more Ferians! Watch the SS forum to find out new stuff like that when we announce them! ;-)

Felorin: Btw, alligator does NOT taste like chicken. I tried some.

Emerald Flame: indie: I'm curious as to what exactly the new security measures being taken are. You've said that there are new ones being taken, what are they and how do they protect us from another attack?

Felorin: I'm afraid our policy has always been not to publically reveal details of our security systems. It just gives the would-be troublemakers a head start at figuring them out. We do try to make sure they're strong enough nobody would get in anyway. But there's no sense making their attempt easier.

Emerald Flame: Sanne: Since the restart: If I just change my password to something new will it be under the new encryption even if I don't login beforehand to switch it over?

Felorin: Yes, whether you change your password on our website, or log into the game, either of those actions gets your password stored under our new, stronger encryption.

Emerald Flame: Reeka: Will there ever be applications for the new event team?

Emerald Flame: Probably not, I'm afraid. We are purposefully paw-picking Eventers from mainly Council members who have shown that they are good with people and have been around long enough that we know we can trust them and who do not already have other time consuming tasks. Eventers have some senstive accesses that we have to be very careful who we give them to! They are still a trial group too, so it's a pretty small group for now.

Emerald Flame: Drum: I have heard rumors about mature port spaces in the making. Allowing only furres with a certain setting to see them? Is this true? and if so, what are some details you can give us?

Emerald Flame: I'll let Gar answer this one!

Gar: Actually you don't need a special type of portrait space to use a Mature port. The system is already mostly in place, just awaiting the client update. After that, some portraits may be given a higher standard when they're approved, and can only be used when in areas of at least that standard. What you WILL need a special space for that's coming out at the same time is animated portraits. ;-)

Emerald Flame: I will note that VERY mature portraits will still not be allowed until we have Adult Verification in.

Emerald Flame: Aimee Hart: My question is.. Are they going to be any speical stuff coming out just for SS people or on like holidays.. like easter thanksgiving or chirstmas. But even if then would some be free or cheap? And for People who has thanksgiving on monday HAPPY EARLY THANKSGIVING!! <3 ` ´

Emerald Flame: Usually Silver Sponsors get new perks at updates. :-) Watch the SS forum for anything upcoming for them! Happy Thanksgiving to the Candians and Happy Columbus Day to the US for Monday!

Emerald Flame: Doug: My computer died so I don't know if this has been asked in the time that I was rebooting. The last large meeting we had that I seem to remember involved a 32bit. It was said to be introduced to Furcadia players within the next update (at the time) and it's still not here, even after the update. Has this idea been discontinued and/or forgotten about? I know many furres were excited for more color choices, ect.

Emerald Flame: Unfortunately, Fox (aka sanctimonious) the programmer working on that, had to get a different job due to the recession and serious drop in Digo Market Sales. We could not afford to pay him anymore. We are still working on 32-bit, but very slowly since we don't have much help from him on it now. We want it done more than any of the players and we so wish we had it out there now!

Emerald Flame: If you want it faster, buy Digos or help find new players that will! ;-)

Emerald Flame: Anasia: It might have already been covered, but when will the edit my furre feature, in the furc window, be updated so that when you change your password, you don't have to download the new ini file? Right now it's set to only accept letters and numbers, so if you have a special character you have to redownload the ini file and make sure it gets put in the right place.

Felorin: That will be fixed in the next client update, whenever we get that finished. We can't change the furre editing stuff except when we put out client updates.

Gar: Pokefreak: Has there been maybe any thought or talk about adding Locals to digomarket, such as how Cookies are now on digo market. Like you can buy a local space for your dream, so you arent limited. (example: SS = 4 locals Group Package = 15 Locals and normal furre gets 2 locals).

Emerald Flame: We are not planning at this time to sell those features separately. It would take a lot of programming that we really need to spend elsewhere and you can get those features now with packages. :-)

Gar: AaronWeikart: In regards to upcoming animated portraits: Will there be a size limit on the number of animation frames they can have? Or will it be limited soley on kb size?

Gar: it will most likely be limited by kb size, and number of frames, however you're likely to hit the kb limit before you have to worry about frames. :-)

Gar: Kuger: The new perminate dream spots mentioned, how does that work? does the dream stay up after server restarts?

Emerald Flame: We will be posting more about those on the G&G forum. However, what will happen is we will agree on where your saved spot is between the Dream Package Owner and the staff, probably Cironir. Then we will add to the database where your spot is. Then only the Dream package owner will ever be able to upload to that spot.

Emerald Flame: We are very excited about getting this new feature into Dream Packages finally!

Emerald Flame: Because we don't have an interface for choosing your spots yet, we ask that you please be patient while we sort out where we will allow saved spots. Contested spots will likely have to choose alternate locations. We do have the power to open spots nearby that are not currently uploadable though. So everyone with a dream package should get a nice locations near where they want.

Gar: Damadar: There was a Social Media Project that was being done over the summer, an attempt to bring the Furcadia community even closer over multiple different outlets. There seemed to be a lot of internal interest in the project at the time, from what I understood, but it seems to have stalled now. Could you elaborate on what happened, or what will happen, with this project?

Emerald Flame: Pouncer Kitty was working on the web 2.0 stuff where we were making a network of sites like myspace a twitter. We had a lot of difficulty getting the Furcadia sites from many of the websites which really slowed the project. Pouncer is back in school now and I will have to find someone new on staff to take over the project.

Felorin: We all wish Pouncerkitty good luck at her new college, she's doing great so far!

Gar: Rubicon: Is it ever going to be possible to have proper music play on Furcadia instead of midi's? :3 Like MP3's and suchlike.

Felorin: Furcadia already supports a wide variety of music formats through the FMOD library, including MP3, MOD, S3M, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, and more. Sorry that's not more obvious or better documented, ask a Mason if you have trouble working it out. Also remember that those big-file music formats will make your dream a bigger download, and plan accordingly!

Felorin: We also would recommend staying away from WMA, as that's only licensed for use on Windows and won't be playable for iPhone users.

Emerald Flame: Sentra: From Morghan and Rendom: Will there be new avatars (or yummy food-related desctags!) and if so, what will they be?

Emerald Flame: There are several new avatars in production right now. Silver sponsors have had a peek at the Noble Rodents already...really adorable! There's a few seasonals and Ferians in productions as well. When we get 32-bit there's a huge number of new goodies just waiting to be released with the attachments as well! Best way to learn stuff like that though is to have Silver Sponsorship and ask on the SS forum!

Emerald Flame: Dark Sanctuary BAH: What do the cookies on Furcadia REALLY taste like? I've always had this un-fulfilled curiousity over them.

Emerald Flame: Funny you should ask! Just the other day while writing the iPhone FAQ we answered this very question! They are chocolate chip snickerdoodles!

Emerald Flame: Ichimaru Gin: Are youever going to have a thing where it shows you your login info. when you log onto Furc. so you can tell if someone else has been using your character?

Felorin: We don't have any plans to do anything like that currently. But it's certainly possible we might add that kind of feature at some point in the future. For now, if you have reasons to suspect that someone else has logged onto your character, you can always contact our Guardians and ask them to investigate. Certainly if you ever find one of your Digos missing, you should talk to them.

Felorin: I'd consider adding something like that to the info command, so it wouldn't have to spam every player every time they log on. :-)

Gar: Bitmap: Will we be getting dinosaurs? There are those of us who LOVE dinosaurs. I, for one, love Triceratops. Wouldn't it be nice to have an area in Furcadia where prehistoric furres could roam, about like Wylde for the modern-day ferians? For us dinosaur lovers, Furcadia isn't complete without dinosaurs.

Emerald Flame: They aren't really in the Furcadia Cannon, but who knows what will be added in the future. Furcadia is really about what you make and add to your own dreams though. You can be ones there any time you like!

Gar: Rat The Unloved: Concerning Permanant Dream spaces, for those with Dream and Group Packages, has any decision been made (that you can share) about what constitutes a "dispute" about a spot, and how that would be handled?

Emerald Flame: A few notes on that: If you've been pretty well exclusively uploading to a spot for at least six months, then you will get that spot if you have a Dream Package. Dream package owners will not be able to "snipe" spots from other dreams that load regularly to places. We'd rather open up new spots near by than risk causing problems for another community.

Gar: Kamose: If we changed our passwords after the hacking but before the new encryption system, do you recommend that we change them? (In other words, was my new password jeopardized by its brief exposure to the old encryption system?)

Felorin: It's extremely unlikely you would need to change your password again. Basically you'd be betting that another hacker came along during that one week, and got a copy of our encrypted hash file, without our noticing it. Even though we were working on security all week. If another hacker comes along now, your password is already highly encrypted and he missed his one week opening to get at your new one.

Felorin: If it really concerns you, it doesn't do you any harm to change it again. But it's very unlikely that you need to.

Gar: Mungu: Regarding the permanent spots for Dream Package holders; How long from now do you think it'll be released? Also, because of Rat's question.. Will screenshots be sufficient proof that we've had the dream spot for so-so long?

Emerald Flame: We will be working on it this week and beyond. We will start with long time Dream Package owners and Groups that there is no question about their location. From there we may require that you will post your location to the forums and see of anyone disputes it. We do have screenshots of all the main maps that show where people have been uploading.

Emerald Flame: We will try to get this up and running asap and with as little disruption as possible :-)

Gar: Kaze: Will there be an announcement made when the iPhone version has been submitted to apple's app store? Where will it be, if so?

Felorin: We'll be announcing when it's approved, more than it being submitted. I guess we'll announce it's submitted in the Furcadia Forums. When it's approved, we'll send out another newsletter to everyone's email. It'll tell how to get it, and it'll also have some announcements about our plans for PC Furcadia, upcoming festivals, etc. Also probably a reminder to change your password, for anyone who hasn't by then! :-) We'll also put up an announcement on the pop-up news dialog, and probably on the Furcadia main web page as well.

Gar: Sentra: From Aisumi: I really loooooooooooooove cupcakes! Will there by chance be a PERMANENT cupcake desctag that I can nibble on for as long as I live without it getting all moldy and attracting nasty bugs? Maybe even a cupcake avatar! <33333333333333333333

Gar: There are o plans for any new for-life desctags at this moment. You never know though. :-)

Emerald Flame: Yes, it will work for both! :-)

Gar: Drum: Will the iPhone app for furc also be available for the iTouch?

Gar: Slow Gar is slow.

Gar: Rydia Aslin: What is DEP doing to protect furlings from the recent outbreak of rabid woolie attacks? D:

Felorin: We've dispatched Inspector Clouseau to investigate Snowything, and expect a break in the case any day now.

Emerald Flame: I'm still of the opinion that we need to bring in a specialist, Bo Peep for instance! Or maybe the Big Bad Wolf!

Emerald Flame: Maybe Farmer Brown? :-P

Gar: Homes: Technology is changing for the better but, How can furcadia compete with say the bigger boys in the future(say as the iphone and stuff go extinct and the next big device comes out)?

Felorin: Devices like the iPhone actually make us more important for the time being, as they are comparable to home computers of the 1990s. Most of the big MMOs can't run on there, and we can & look very good compared to other apps on there. In the future, though...

Felorin: Talzhemir and I already dealt with this when we worked at Origin. Game series like Ultima and Wing Commander kept trying to do more and more, and spend more and more millions, as computers got more advanced. Meanwhile, we tried to focus on what makes games FUN, not on spending 5 million or 30 million on art, music, and animation.

Felorin: I feel that game designers who can produce work that captures some of the essence of what's fun to do will always have a place in the market. The top boardgame designers are still making games, even though their technology is just some cardboard, colored ink, dice, and bits of wood or plastic.

Felorin: Furcadia in particular I think offers better tools to all of YOU to add to the fun than about anything else out there. If we continue to improve that, and make Furcadia even easier for people to create in over the years ahead, I think we'll be important for that reason for many years to come.

Emerald Flame: Mungu was just curious. Will the actual furc screen change in size (bigger) any time soon? If so, when?

Felorin: Yes, it will get bigger, but I'm afraid we don't know when. We want a bigger screen as much as you do! Believe me, as soon as we know when, we'll tell you. :-)

Gar: Anasia: Some people who're on vista seemed to have a lot of problems getting Furc to work and stay working, back when stuff first started switching over, myself included. With Windows 7 getting released later this month, I think, is there a plan in action to make sure people who upgrade won't have that same problem?

Felorin: Part of the problems we initially had with Vista, before we put a lot of fixes into the client, came from it being built on an entire new "core". After Windows 95, they made Windows 98 and XP by just modifying and improving a lot of the same base code. Vista replaced a lot of it and changed major stuff "under the hood".

Felorin: Windows 7 is basically just an "improved Vista", so we are anticipating that there will be little or no trouble for Furcadia running on 7. :-)

Emerald Flame: We've already been shown to work in the beta versions of 7!

Emerald Flame: Sapphirus: I wondered, since there's many human or semi-human characters on furcadia, will there ever be human avatars to be played on Furcadia, and will there be an attachable/detachable wing feature for non-winged digos? (sorry, 2 there, but i'm very curious x_x)

Emerald Flame: I have to say that with the recession hitting us so hard, it is more likely than ever that we will come out with human avatars. They are the one "animal" that would still have a very large percentage of players willing to buy and play them. Adding a deer, lizard or kangaroo won't incease our sales much, but a human might be what keeps our staff paid! :-P

Emerald Flame: And with that note, we have made it through all the questions! :-)

Emerald Flame: Thanks again to all those who have helped out and been patient during this difficult week! I do hope you all enjoy Digo Day tomorrow!