posted on March 17th, 2008
Wired’s Threat Level blog is reporting that the gubmint is developing a program to detect terrorists in “virtual worlds and large-scale online games”; as revealed in a larger report on data mining from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The 15 page report is relatively vague about the implementation this project, codenamed “Reynard”, though it does note that this is a “seedling”, not a full-blown “project”, and that whether or not we continue to look for terrorists in MMORPGs will depend at least somewhat on results.
Now, maybe terrorists really are organizing attacks on the United States by meeting up in a Starbucks in Second Life. And if they are, perhaps it would be good if we c0uld find them there. But the report seems to think that online gaming behavior is largely “unstudied”, and that is holding us back from understanding what “suspicious” online behavior might look like. And maybe they have a point; online behavior studies thusfar, while plentiful, haven’t focused specifically on gaming. But for much less money than whatever they’re spending on “Reynard”, they could have just gotten some Eve Online and World of Warcraft accounts (heck, they both offer free trials!) and they would learn in about 10 hours what it may take this project years to uncover: it turns out the “virtual world” and “large-scale online games” are filled with “total cocks.”
This rant filed under: Political, Technology
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March 17th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Somehow I think we are going to see an influx of characters named Reynard running around. Maybe even Reynard guilds.
But would people really spending time in MMO have time to be terrorists?
Also I just realized it isn’t obvious from the main page that the rants have more content beneath.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
I dunno. It seems like being a terrorist would involve an awful lot of down time.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:49 am
I don’t think it’s a big concern.
Terrorist Cell Leader: Underling, did you execute that devious terrorist plot like I asked?
Underling: So sorry, but I was so close to reaching level 43 that I just *had* to go raiding last night.
I think a more believable scenario would be terrorists developing an MMORPG that is *so* addictive that no one can stop playing it. And considering this is the plot of a Star Trek: TNG episode…it’s still pretty unbelievable.
March 18th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
It could be a subtle form of economic terrorism (bilk the newbie $infidel) or fundraising for terrorism. I’m sure the isk is stronger than the dollar.