Pentagon Researchers Fear That World Of Warcraft May Be Used To Plot Terror Attacks

Wired:

The American military and intelligence communities are increasingly worried that would-be bin Ladens might gather in a virtual world, to plan a real-life attack. But the spies haven't given many details, about how it might be done. Now, a Pentagon researcher has laid out how such a terror plot might unfold. The planning ground is World of Warcraft. The main target of this possibly nuclear strike: the White House.

There's been no public proof to date of terrorists hatching plots in virtual worlds. But online spaces like World of Warcraft are making some spooks, generals and Congressmen extremely nervous. They imagine terrorists rehearsing attacks in these worlds, just like the U.S. military trains with commercial shoot-em-up games. They worry that the massively multiplayer games make it incredibly easy to gather plotters from around the world. But, mostly, virtual worlds are nerve-wracking to spies because they're so hard to monitor. The accounts are pseudonymous. The access is global. The jargon is thick. And most of the spy agencies' employees aren't exactly level-70 shamans.

In a presentation late last week at the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Conference in Washington, Dr. Dwight Toavs, a professor at the Pentagon-funded National Defense University, gave a bit of a primer on virtual worlds to an audience largely ignorant about what happens in these online spaces. Then he launched into a scenario, to demonstrate how a meatspace plot might be hidden by in-game chatter.

Read the whole story: Wired

Comments

[Chaucea]

*chuckles*

So much for the gamer-rationale of "It's Just A Game", nowadays.

[Birdman]

Wow hey ya know I have played Splinter cell a lot I wonder if I would make a good sniper? NOT... It is just a friggin game, morons geez these guys sound like they should be wearing tinfoil hats those martian brain beams can get you anywhere. I seen it in a movie so its got to be true ..

[Palemoon]

Believe it or not, but there is some credibility to the argument that a certain style of gaming can give you an edge in real life things. While they might not prepare you for the kick of a gun, they can build that vital thing called "hand-eye coordination" which is vital for doing things like firing without aiming and being able to hit something. You ever watch trick shooters before? Same thing they do, you don't see them hold steady and aim for like 2 minutes to try and hit a quarter thrown in the air. It's mostly hand-eye coordination. Same with baseball, driving a car, except feet come into play along with the hand and eyes. lol

Anyways, don't discount games just because they are games. After all, the US Army does use that America's Army game as both a recruiting tool and training aid. And I know for a fact that real life pilots can use flight simulator "games" to get extra seat time, or training time.

[ramblingjohnny]

The problem is your training the wrong way! Off course you can learn very valuable life lesson playing Counter Strike like watch your back and when everybody is shooting at each other standing still in the open is not so smart! For that matter you learn a lot about strategy by playing Chess.

[ElectricEye]

Simply paranoid.

[KCFreedom]

Is Warcraft being used by the Pentagon as a training tool?

I agree with another poster. Steaming pile of B.S.

If we'd just leave other countries alone, we wouldn't have to worry about terrorism at all.
But, that would be too easy.

[S1m0n]

Terrorism is the tactic you use when you have almost no power. Anyone with a nuclear bomb has a great deal of power. So much power that they could hole up in waziristan or Aceh or Sudan and tell the whole world to piss off and leave you alone, because you're now a government.

And if you really do have the bomb, you win.

[DRaymond]

Ok, CIA, this is obviously a serious threat to national security so I volunteer to do my patriotic duty, Promise to pay my monthly subscription and say a G-12 monthly salary with benefits and I will faithfully patrol WoW for potential terrorist cells.

On the other hand I have NO idea why they wouldn't just use IM or e-mails with steganography coded images as attachments or attachments containing nested truecrypt encoded files.

But then again I'm just not as sophisticated as these spy guys who know all about World of Warcraft.

[rusdr61]

What a steaming pile of BS.

[albanaeon]

I can just see it now... "We can start our plot to destroy AFTER I get my mage up to level 70."

[Destin]

If they are looking at world of warcraft, they are looking at the most incompetent players out there.

If they want a mindset, and actual games to fear, they should be looking at cyberpunk games like Neocron and Anarchy Online. AO even goes so far as to let you form "clans" or "corps" depending on which side of the conflict you are on. It's heavy on "player vs player", meaning, human vs human. It's more than a shoot em up, lol. And obviously, planning and teamwork in these games pay off huge dividends. Plus with Neocrons "twitch" control aspect, it greatly builds hand-eye coordination. That game let's you use remote control devices to attack and bomb with as well. Course, both these games are based outside the USA, in Germany and Norway respectively.

But of course, the terrorists could just download FOR FREE the game America's Army and learn all our battle tactics and training regime's, lol. And play for free with thousands of others. And it's even more realistic. Using real world weapons and tactics.

But I forgot, the US Army is the developer of America's Army game. Nobody would seriously use that as a training aid right? Nah, that's all conspiracy theory like the Flight Simulator 2000 being used for the WTC attacks. Nah, not a chance. ;)

[flyrod]

People get paid to think up crap like this? Great.

[AmandaBC]

Be afraid, be very afraid!!

Now even geeks and nerds are considered "ter_rorists" in fa_scist America...

[BridgeTooFar]

Be careful, they are priming you for another attack....­..........­.....

[formlessness]

stupid.... utterly stupid. it's beyond paranoid and it makes no friggin sense.

[ajm8127]

Wow.

[mabinog]

New game on WOW, who is the terrorist and who is the narc?

Wonder if I can get a 6 figure gig playing WOW all day looking for terrorists?

[ramblingjohnny]

Yeah some analysts are probably making excuses to play WoW and Counter Strike on the NSA tab has we speak!