Chinese farmers are an interesting trend that encompasses both virtualization and globalization. Worldchanging, as usual, understands this nexus as well as anyone:
Chinese farmers may be on the cutting-edge of the global economy. But
not the Chinese farmers you're probably imagining -- rural
agriculturalists in the Middle Kingdom. The Chinese farmers I'm talking
about sit in front of computer screens for hours on end, killing video
game monsters online, over and over again.
...
People looking for an advantage (or simply pressed for time, and
wishing to keep up with peers) will pay surprisingly large amounts of
actual money for bits of virtual currency or rare items. And although
nearly every MMORPG prohibits such sales, auctions of virtual gear can
amount to millions of dollars every year.
According to the NYT, there are over 100,000 young people employed in China generating virtual currency. This example of mapping virtual economies onto "real" economies can inform the emerging discipline of security metrics. Metrics that value and classify assets should consider the intrinsic value from a number of different viewpoints. In other words the intrinsic value of, say, an Oracle database can vary from stakeholder to stakeholders the context of what the stakeholder uses it for is what determines the value. The value of the node by itself is not the same as the node functioning as a dependency in transcation depending on the data, what it is used for and who uses it.
NYT:
On eBay, for example, 100 grams of World of Warcraft gold is available
for $9.99 or two über characters from EverQuest for $35.50. It costs
$269 to be transported to Level 60 in Warcraft, and it typically takes
15 days to get the account back at the higher level.
It appears we are not only outsourcing IT, but kids are outsourcing playing video games, what would Steven Johnson say?