I do seem to be having lots of ideas here lately...

I thought it would be cool if you could have an email system set up in the game, in which you could send/receive emails through a website (or maybe an application run from the harddrive). It would authenticate you with your IP address/username, and emails would look something like "Surfpup@bla.hw."

You could take it a step further with Mail(SMTP) ports which must be installed/on in order for you to receive/send emails. If your mail port were to be successfully hacked, someone could look at your inbox and modify or add new emails to your inbox. They could fool you into thinking they received such and such email from someone, when it's actually completely forged. This might be taking it a bit too far, because anyone could easily modify emails, so maybe you could simply make emails readable, but not editable. Or maybe have an editMail() function that requires a really high attack level.

This could even coincide with the Encryption skill that you've been thinking about adding to the game. With a higher encryption level, you can have your emails encrypted on your HD/Mailbox so that if someone hacks into your mail port, they wouldn't be able to read them unless they have an equal or higher encryption level than yours.

Finally, another thing that would be interesting is the ability to email players with scripts. What if I wanted to set up an email newsletter type thing on my website? I'd be able to send emails to players (who are interested) info about progress on my hacktendo games or additions to my website. It'd be pretty darn cool.

All this would add even more to the realism and depth of Hack Wars, while allowing players to easily communicate with each other while they're not both online at the same time. E-Mail FTW!