A recent release of Wikileaks documents relating to Guantanamo Bay and its prisoners reveals a video-game related Al Qaeda terrorist plot involving a Sega Genesis cartridge. The Detainee Assessment record for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed put together by the Department of Defense details various operations to strike at the U.S. and its allies around the world, like assassination plots against former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II, plans to detonate explosive-laden ships crossing the Panama Canal - similar to what Al Qaeda did in Yemen, and attacks on London's Heathrow Airport.
The Detainee Assessment record mentions an odd strategy involving Sega game cartridges:
"Detainee discussed remote-controlled firing devices (RCFDS) which were found during raids in Karachi in September 2002. These RCFDS were built inside black Sega videogame cassette cartridges to protect the RCFDS and to make them appear innocuous."
Source: NYT by way of Game, Set, Watch
Comments
Re: Wikileaks Docs Reveal Al Qaeda Sega Cartridge Plot
This reminds me of an old 80's movie called "Cloak and Dagger." Terrorists did the same thing; hid a terror plot inside an Atari cartridge. Then this poor kid got a hold of it accidently and helped uncover the whole thing. It was a pretty crappy movie.
Re: Wikileaks Docs Reveal Al Qaeda Sega Cartridge Plot
Same thing happened in that Will Smith movie, Enemy of the State
-Austin from Oregon
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Re: Wikileaks Docs Reveal Al Qaeda Sega Cartridge Plot
Well this puts a new spin on "Blast Processing".
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Re: Wikileaks Docs Reveal Al Qaeda Sega Cartridge Plot
Considering no one plays Genesis anymore, the cartridge's meer presence would have been suspicious.
Re: Wikileaks Docs Reveal Al Qaeda Sega Cartridge Plot
If their simple presence is susupcious, then hundreds of thousands of people are in serious trouble. Nobody buys new Genesis games anymore, but thousands of them are sold on eBay, and Gamestop isn't the only store out there. Second hand game dealers typically have pretty substantial stocks of them, and while they're not the hot sellers that SNES games are, but they're still consistent business. Lot of old fan favorites on the system, and they're pretty easy to play with the number of cheap knockoff systems able to play the carts. Chains will also transport them between locations to keep stock even. A terrorism plot worthy of Wile E. Coyote would still disappear in legitimate traffic.