World of Warcraft used to recruit terrorists

World of Warcraft used to recruit terrorists

theinquirer.net

theinquirer reports that 'Aussie Security experts claim that Second Life and online games such as World of Warcraft are being used to train terrorists. Apparently there are three jihadi terrorists registered and two elite jihadist terrorist groups in Second Life and they use the site for recruiting and training. This is on top of the Second Life Liberation Army.

(visit the link for the full news article)


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i never played any of those games but im wondering what age groups play them. i know WOW has millions of players, so i would imagine most of them being pretty young. for some reason im imagining that south park episode when they ganged up on the guy who was killing everyone in wow lol.

theinquirer.net
(visit the link for the full news article)

This is a Huge problem ... Especially with people getting married online and so on nd so forth. This is a digital reality world, and we now have people who thing that they are actually alive in this world. What would be the best cover up for terrorirsts.

i played online games like america's army and counter strike and could see how groups of people can practice tactics. i was never by any means a pro at those games but those online war based games are loaded with people who play in groups 24/7 and use team speak. im kinda wondering if its actual terrorists recruiting & training or hard core gamers aspiring to be part of an actual militia of some sort.

Quite frankly, you can use anything with a communications package to recruit for terror networks.

There's probably recruiting going on in MSN messenger, and by postal mail aswell.

It's kind of expected that they'd use games as recruitment methods. You can chat in games.

Could this be why the last 2 lots of 'terror' attacks in the UK didn't *ahem* go to plan?

This don't really surprise me too much, people will always find ways to use developments for whatever they happen to be interested in, bit like the porn revolution that happened as the net became usable. On the up side - you can't e-mail a bomb (but you can email software).

Besides, how many of these 'cyber nutters' do you think are not 13 year old loners with an internet pipe?

I play this game and run my own clan (Group or Faction within the game, to help one another complete leveling issues faster). I have never seen anything online that would suggest that people are recruiting online. Why W.O.W? If I were going to recruit I would use games that have to do with Real Life War, Like Battlefield 2... People may get better with time with these games but Im sure half of them couldnt run 2 miles in under 20 minutes -- I run into all sorts of people playing these games from as young as age 6 to as old as 45. I have only seen once somebody with a name related themselves to terrorist faction and that was on XBOX 360 Live. Normally people ignore the person or harass them because they feel its bad form to be using a name thats anti american.

The way they see it, get them while they are young and impressionable. These terror networks intend on being around for a long time...

and it's not an internet pipe... they're a series of tubes.

Originally posted by johnsky
The way they see it, get them while they are young and impressionable. These terror networks intend on being around for a long time...

and it's not an internet pipe... they're a series of tubes.

thats what i was thinking too, wow from what i read and seen screenshots of looks more geared towards younger crowds. i can see the older & more mature crowds playing the more realistic games just ignore and ban users like that from they're servers...or have fun with them and jus keep fragging them, or the old counter strike thing...kill them and then spray paint them lol.

Most of the concerns in the article are legitimate. I do agree that Second Life funds can be used to launder money, and there's a possibility of using any online game as a recruitment tool. Using SL game play to convey ideas is also a strong possibility, and I wouldn't doubt that they already are. The game is, after all, only limited to the users' imagination.

But, it really sounds like people are scared of what they don't understand when it comes to the World of Warcraft part. I actually feel bad for anyone that thinks World of Warcraft can be used as a "training tool" for terrorism. Recruiting, like I said there's a possibility in any online game, there's millions of subscribers; training, absolutely no.

I play BF2 on PS2 and there are quite a few people with stupid terrorist related names, however having been involved with this game since it's inception I can recall quite a few questionable comments relating to Anti-American views.

I was once told that someone actually received a visit from the Feds regarding some info being shared openly through a clan of players. I thought this was a fat pantload until I heard about the 30th claim of such, and though people like to tell stories. At least some seem quite credible and this has been over a couple years span now.

That's why I always play an American.......

I played a good bit of WoW and Americas Army. Most of the people on WoW are pretty young and even those who aren't act like they are. I never saw any terrorist or terrorist type activity in WoW or AA. The question should be raised : IF YOU SEE THESE PEOPLE DOING THESE THINGS GO ARREST THEM OR SOMETHING.

But no, it's all a big fat lie ! The #1 rule of intelligence gathering is _do not reveal your source_ ! Yet "they" keep coming out and telling the "terrorist" oh hey we see what you did there on WoW. If the threat was real they'd never reveal this "info" because when you do the terrorist get off WoW and are now off your radar.

What you see here is a trend : "the internet is dangerous, the terr0rist use the interwebs to hurt the motherland"

I just saw another "report" that teh terr0rist are using P2P.

They are about to try to clamp down on our interwebs, without a doubt.

Punish the many for the deeds of the few ! That's what they taught me in high school and now it looks like they are taking that lesson into grown up land.

The internet is the only bastion for the exchange of free thought and that bothers "them" a lot. They like their iron grip over your reality which the tv, newspaper and magazines give them. This whole `interwebs` thing is getting out of hand in their eyes. Any pee brain with a geocities account can expose their lies and that's very problematic.

Originally posted by discomfit
The internet is the only bastion for the exchange of free thought and that bothers "them" a lot. They like their iron grip over your reality which the tv, newspaper and magazines give them. This whole `interwebs` thing is getting out of hand in their eyes. Any pee brain with a geocities account can expose their lies and that's very problematic.

i totally agree with ya there, with the movement towards internet2 and the chinese style firewall to keep people locked into the main stream. who knows, we might have to revive the bbs or something like that. but im actually not so worried about that, the very people who get the bad name & rep of being hackers will come out with work arounds for that. i considered putting together some servers strictly for archiving.

Isn't the inquirer a tabloid?

I kind of doubt anyone can use WOW to train in terrorism. WOW is very much like EQII, or even Vanguard, and there is not much training in terrorism that can be done through those games.

As for second life. I know there are some people who have literally taken control of SIMs in SL, and not even the Lindens can ban them or do anything against them. It was a really bad idea that the Lindens allowed open sourcing in SL. BTW, the Linden dollar is depreciating, i think the change now goes for around 267.5 L$ (Linden Dollars)= $1 USD.

You can actually find out how much money (real life money) was spent in the last 24 hour in Second Life in the following link.

US Dollars spent in Second Life over last 24 hours
$1,268,533 as of 7:59am PDT

secondlife.reuters.com...

Entropia is much better than SL, it has the best of SL and a game like WOW.

The ingame exchange for Entropia is 10 PED (the currency in entropia) = $1 USD.

In Entropia there was a deal done not that long ago where 4-5 bank licenses were sold for a combined $404,000+ USD to different people. In time those people are going to make a lot of real life money because the online banks in Entropia will work just as regular banks.

They can charge interests and give loans etc, etc.

One of the conditions for being able to buy the licenses was that the players needed to have $100,000 USD ingame appart from the money they paid for the licenses.

There was a high school kid from Colorado who actually paid for his siblings College tuition and now he is saving for his own college tuition by just playing in Entropia.
mmorpg.qj.net...

Anyways, several people are literally making a living through both Second Life and Entropia.

Land being sold ingame is very expensive. There was another gamer who actually bought an ingame island for $26,500 USD.

news.bbc.co.uk...

BTW, it is not really as easy as it sounds to make money in these games, but if you play a lot ( or play for a very long time), and have good ideas, eventually you can literally make a good living. Crazy heh?

Anyways, as per the article, since this is from the "enquirer" i kind of doubt it.


[edit on 1-8-2007 by Muaddib]

Originally posted by discomfit
..........
The internet is the only bastion for the exchange of free thought and that bothers "them" a lot. They like their iron grip over your reality which the tv, newspaper and magazines give them. This whole `interwebs` thing is getting out of hand in their eyes. Any pee brain with a geocities account can expose their lies and that's very problematic.

No, actually the real problem is that governments can't really keep much track of what happens in games like Second Life and such.

There "was" a lot of gambling going on in games like Second Life, and people could make money which was not taxed.

A law was passed last week I think it was, which online gambling illegal, so many of the online casinos in SL are going downhill.

That is what many governments are trying to stop, the gambling by which people are making money which couldn't be taxed.

[edit on 1-8-2007 by Muaddib]

List of other peoples logins from second life from bugmenot.com

For all you aspiring cybernutters who can't be bothered with a simple registration form (more time to terrorize peace loving pixels)

Also some promo codes to get stuff like "a free yellow duck" (why do i even bother turning my pc on any more) from retailmenot.com

I like what here now said "People may get better with time with these games but Im sure half of them couldnt run 2 miles in under 20 minutes" thats reassuring!

I play Second Life someone direct me to the names of these groups I'll be happy to grief them.

Originally posted by Now_Then
List of other peoples logins from second life from bugmenot.com

None work. I just tried them.

I log on to SL from time to time, I'm having a feeling reporters aren't distinguishing the "SL terrorists" from RL terrorists; since so many users of SL roleplay, for a lack of better term, as if that is their true life. You really have to interact with these people to get a better understanding of what they are about. Without better details, it's really impossible to determine the difference.

[edit on 1-8-2007 by bluesquareapple]

I've seen Muslim groups on SL but no groups labelling themselves terrorists.

And if there is a group called Al Qaeda or something on there chances are its some pranksters trying to be funny. I'll go look for you guys; I'll come back with screenshots.