February 27, 2008 -
While U.S. intelligence operatives are actively developing software to spy on players of online games like World of Warcraft and Second Life, a noted scholar finds the government's cloak-and-dagger approach bizarre.In a thought-provoking article for Salon, Juan Cole, author and professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan, writes:
What's the real game here?
...The notion that wandering around such an imaginary world with a computerized body is dangerous to anyone seems itself cartoonish and calls into question the public hand-wringing by security experts.
It's long been clear that the Bush administration authorized illegal, warrantless wiretaps on the American public, and that major U.S. telecom companies often cooperated... Dick Cheney recently urged making this type of unchecked domestic surveillance permanent.
Cole describes how unimpressed he was by his own recent visit to Second Life:
There were some technical glitches at first in setting up the audio, and the interview was cut short when "Second Life" suddenly announced they were closing down that area.... the week before my appearance, banks in "Second Life" were closed down... The institutional frameworks are to date so unreliable that terrorists likely could not count on a money-launderer...
Cole is also skeptical of using a platform like Second Life as a terrorist training camp:
If the July 7, 2005, bombers of the London Underground could so easily be recruited in a gym in Leeds, why go to all the trouble of creating an avatar?...
One [security] expert... darkly observed that one can find stockpiles of weapons in virtual worlds, without seeming to take note of the fact that those weapons are ... cartoon weapons...
Even the Internet war-game sites... which include "Worlds of Warcraft" -- would probably just make most terrorists overweight and addicted to the Internet...
Finally Cole finds government monitoring of virtual worlds unwarranted and unconstitutional:
The recent alarmism about terrorist activity in virtual worlds seems designed to prey on the fears of the Internet common among the Great Unwired...
Any monitoring by law enforcement of innocuous activity and communication in a virtual world, conducted broadly and without oversight, would be unconstitutional and could invade the privacy of millions of persons.
Comments
"Oh god you guys, my brother was taken out by a suicide bomber!"
"In San Diego?!"
"No! In Call of Duty 4! The bastard ruined his kill streak, and he was about to get a chopper!"
"My buddies and I were also attacked. We tried to take on a terrorist cell in Halo 3, we thought we could make a difference.... So many sticky bombs... so much tea-bagging... the horror...."
"OH GOD, I JUST GOT GANKED ON WoW!!! WHY DIDN'T WE LISTEN TO THE GOVERNMENT WHEN WE HAND THE CHANCE?!?!?!"
(For the record, just in case it wasn't clear by the 2nd section, I'm being VERY sarcastic.)
Heh I'm getting a mental image of orcs yelling things about jihad and flying slowly & relatively leisurely into a wizards tower with all the effect of a mosquito on the window of a fast moving truck...
I can see the FBI and CIA detaining anyone with the Engineering profession because you can make bombs, guns and exploding sheep.
Personally if I wanted to have covert conversations with my friends I don't think I would pay account fees for World of Warcraft for that purpose I think chat rooms or certain e-mail would be better suited.
Furthermore who's to say that they're not violating the privacy of people in other countries who have nothing to do with america? Blizzard should do their best to stop this crap right now because its them that will be sued for violation of privacy.