U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft

I can not belive I just read this title!



This is probably a JOKE right?

You do not take this seriously, right?

Right?

Hey hey, if you could get free WoW and unlimited resources to play the game wouldn't you?!

Puns aside. They will probably try to cover all possible avenue's of communication people can use online. Imho MSN, AIM, ICQ, GTalk and the other types of IM networks are more likely candidates. Communications are somewhat secure and encrypted and only the people you invite are in. Not to mention its easy to create new accounts in bulk and very fast.

Recently the only secure communications available world wide has been the good old letter. As just about all other means are monitored by US agencies. If i would have to communicate below NSAs radar, online gaming would be a perfect tool for that. You can't use wordlist systems effectively in an environment where bombs and killig and attacking are everyday legitimate topics. So planing a terrorist attack (or any other such operation) using ingame CS or WOW chats to do it would be perfect. Only risk would be that an LE agent happened to be reading the exact conversation, as said before, wordlist systems are ineffective in those chats. They produce more flagged data than the operators of said systems can manually handle.

Thematrix:
IMs are already monitored and their encryptions are mainly open to US agencies. Plus majority of the talk there doesn't revolve around killing and plotting attacks, so the amount monitored data can be reduced with automated wordlists etc.

[edit on 24-2-2008 by northwolf]

I don't think the USG will monitor first-person shooters because those games are what brainwashes people into joining the military.
Even with everything I know about the corruption of the military, I still kind of wanted to join after playing Call of Duty 4 for a long time.

I KNEW IT!!!!
Those damn alphabet soupers have been gankin me all day>.

my question is, HOW do I join up? I'm willing to be paid 70k a year to play wow all day.

Cheers,

Camain

Originally posted by Trauma
I don't think the USG will monitor first-person shooters because those games are what brainwashes people into joining the military.
Even with everything I know about the corruption of the military, I still kind of wanted to join after playing Call of Duty 4 for a long time.

Actually I think they would watch FPS's (First person Shooters) alot more closely than others.

In CS (Countertstrike), anybody with about an hours worth of tinkering can make a map of any real or fictional location.. too exact dimensions if wanted. They could then load up and play "good guy versus bad guy" in that environment.

Add in the element of voice communications, you could have a group of people in different locations that only come together when ready to enact what they had been playing/planning for months.

We cant deny that these types of games are not a training device.. the US army has there own game... and its more detailed than most.

*edit* In saying all that.. I have been a gamer since DOOM and Wolfenstein3D. Love FPS's so I have nothing against them. I just think the potential environments some of the games create are underestimated.



[edit on 24-2-2008 by TwiTcHomatic]

Link to the original report.

***Sigh***

Please read the report on the original website that posted this story, link provided above.

The story that the original poster linked to is a hyped up version of the original story.

Here is the only quote in the original article regarding MMORPGs:

“Reynard is a seedling effort to study the emerging phenomenon of social (particularly terrorist) dynamics in virtual worlds and large-scale online games and their implications for the Intelligence Community.”

All this study wants to do is study the social dynamics of people playing these games to see if there are any trends related to terrorism. It is much like "profiling" serial killers... seeing what traits they have in common to try and catch them earlier.

Move along... nothing to see here!

The only way to find ""possible terrorists"(what a crappy idea) in an online game is that you pretend seriously to be one.

What they told us with that article is that they will BE organizING their own little "terror gangs" inside online games!

SO take heed and probably EXPECT THE INFLAMATORY REMARKS AGAINST USAND ALLIES TO BE ON THE RISE!
Don't worry though, it could only be from the "usual suspects". The world is not really hating you guys that much.

My take is they are just going to use the online games medium to recruit "antiterrorists" to fuel their wars, thats what I can understand from such logics. Indeed this could be an act of desperation.

In fewer words they might be going for more brainwash against your kids and mine.
I can't see any other logic or practical result from such moves. Only if they might be pretending they will be "fighting" terror to justify their funding and involvement while for istance playing WoW. More megaphonies perhaps?

When I play a game I really want nothing to remind me of breaking news, current world situation and all that crap and I don't want for ex. my kids asking me weird stuff they saw in a game. I can't monitor my kids 24/7 about what they do, who they talk to, what they see or hear. Can anyone else?

Moves like that will just bring the real world crap in the middle of our carefree play session.
Anyway I can always cancel my accounts the moment I see this happening, since I wont be liking it.

So it might be Bye bye Blizzard. (for example)

P.S. as it is quoted in the Bible:
Take Heed, don't let any man deceive you.

Peace brothers!

[edit on 24-2-2008 by spacebot]

My 15 yr old is into WOW seems as soon as he starts turns into a raving lunitic,got reprise last night somehow it crashed is computer,hope he goes back to weight lifting

reply to post by Oldtimer2


Sorry for the out of topic.
Request H.I.T training style books and get him to train 3 times a week for 50 minutes a session. It can have plenty of time for playing. It works trust me!

Google HIT training method. You can always thank me laters.

this is the OFFICIAL point were we can say definitively that the US Govt has outlived its usefulness

and for a minute i almost thought the Govt had intelligent people working for it.

me thinks its time to dismantle this retarded joke of a gov't.

IM SERIOUS!

this is utter retardation!

someone either forgot to take their meds, or has been taking too many meds , lol

how do you say it?

ZOMG pwnd!

How silly is the reasoning behind this?

It was far too easy to set up your own private, password protected message board or chat room to even bother with trying to "hide" within an online game.

If anything, this is just another means in which to monitor the behavior and psychology of a very large group of people that tend to group together mainly for the purposes of virtual violence.

It begs the questions of whether or not they'll be tracking those teams, clans, groups that do very well in coordinated attacks and possibly in identifying those indivudals that show themselves to be "natural leaders".

I can see a ton of reasons why they would wish to spy on an industry that attracts millions of players, but not one of those reasons has to do with the hopes of uncovering a terrorist plot.

We have long since known the government was socially retarded, now we can all see they are geek retarded too.

They have huge lists of these terror wackos! Real, live, flesh and blood 3rd dimension people. We spend Real tax dollars, to pay Real paychecks to the people to go out and Catch Real Terrorists. Not to frag imaginary terrorists in lala land.

Lets leave sweeping the trash and fragging in video games to our 15 year old kids .

I'm so ashamed for my country. I'm so embarrassed for them.

Yeah, everybody be sure to watch out for this guy.



I'd think this is more of an attempt to find Project Chanology members than anything else.

Anyone think they could use any help? lol Im serious I have a clearance ( had ) and have played and still own mostly all of the popular 1stpersonshooters

Doesnt say much for my social life but that can be downloaded if need be....

Originally posted by palehorse23

U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft

www.blacklistednews.com

Be careful who you frag. Having eliminated all terrorism in the real world, the U.S. intelligence community is working to develop software that will detect violent extremists infiltrating World of Warcraft and other massive multiplayer games

I think we're missing an angle or two here.

First, the U.S. certainly HAS NOT "eliminated all terrorism in the real world". If anything, we've only pushed big terror further underground and made them even more dangerous.

As such, IMO it's very plausible certain groups would use something like WoW as a tool (and cover) for recruiting, communicating, and planning. I can see government and law enforcement being rather interested in at least monitoring these channels.

Anyway it's a catch-22. Monitor, and it's a violation of rights. Ignore, and you're at fault when a plot is carried out.

America and freedom has been defeated. Bush has aloud the loss of a few buildings and 3k people to end America.

Sad really. What we are now who knows.

I do not believe the founding fathers would have given up so much of our freedom and privacy over such a small loss. Theres like 6-7 billion humans on earth the loss of 3000 while tragic is not worth destroying the American constitution and the American way of life over. I am sorry...

[edit on 24-2-2008 by Xeven]

[edit on 24-2-2008 by Xeven]

Originally posted by TwiTcHomatic
We cant deny that these types of games are not a training device.. the US army has there own game... and its more detailed than most.

They have VBS2, just like other countries army's have.
www.vbs2.com...
Virtual Battle Space

Frikking $1500 lol.

It's made by Bohemia Interactive, the same guys behind:

COMMERCIAL PUBLIC:
Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis (+ Addons Red Hammer & Resistance)
Armed Assault (aka ArmA)
Armed Assault 2 (aka ArmA2)

ARMY ORIENTED:
VBS1 (Virtual Battle Space 1, the same generation as Operation Flashpoint, but for teh army)

[edit on 24/2/08 by -0mega-]

Ah, but maybe it is a trick by the real terrorists to get the counter-terrorist addicted to WoW so they worry more about twinking out their rogues for WSG than actually trying to thwart a real attack. Or maybe Sony needs more EQ customers and rather than eliminate endless grinding they decided to spread a malicious rumor of G-man spooks playing WoW.

Nah, I'd agree it was a CYA when someone was busted playing instead of working.