CIA hunting terrorists in World of Warcraft

[CptStern]

Seriously, Saddam couldn't have maintained this death rate himself.

actually no, it took him 30 years to kill 250k iraqis ....

 

[Pesmerga]

Now that I think about it, the use of "Praise Allah" and "Death to the infidel" on WoW has probably grown ten fold since the article was released.

I mean, It'd be damn awesome if I could get a GM to ask me if I was a terrorist or not.

 

[Eejit]

As for the companies logging everything, they definitely don't.

Back when I played WoW I contacted a GM about something, and 3 months later they'd automatically deleted all records of that conversation - and that's talking to a GM not just random chat that's spammed all the time.
If you think about it, the sheer amount of chat would very quickly add up to an immense amount of HD space.

 

[Absinthe]

Well, of course they're not going to hold onto logs indefinitely. But I imagine they would be useful for tracking recent abuses and the like. I'd be surprised if there was no logging process at all.

 

[CR0M]

uh-oh. I better stop repeated kamikazi jeep runs into my own team in BF2 or my secret but as yet unsuccessful life as a suicide bomber will be revealed.

 

[-Psy-]

I saw some high level undead warriors kill everybody at Sentinel Hill. Does that make them terrorists?

 

[Vigilante]

*Launches wow

*/2 HEY GUYZ IM A TERRORIST LOLZ

 

[Kyorisu]

If you think about it, the sheer amount of chat would very quickly add up to an immense amount of HD space.

Uh no. Text compresses very well it'd take bloody ages to use anywhere near a decent amount of space and that's including spam.

I hear they buy them from Kmart. Seriously, biological superweapons are easier to research and use. Why haven't they been misused yet? Terrorist networks are always underground. We face a greater nuclear threat from illegitimate governments than terrorists.

No one in their right mind including wack jobs would ever consider actually using such a weapon. There are far easier and cheaper ways to instill fear into your opposition.

Just look at Andrew LB he seems scared shit less.

 

[V-Man339]

Overall the money could be used in better ways, even in regards to monitoring terorists (i.e. monitoring AIM etc.). As far as monitoring terrotists goes as general, that's a matter of what takes aay you right to privacy, and that my friends is for the political forum.

 

[Andrew LB]

this is nothing more than phishing to see what comes up, they admit as much. You've been watching too much 24

Phishing is all part of the concept of foreign intelligence. Listen... hear... track.... intercept.

Listening to communication between foreign nationals abroad is more than acceptable according to constitutional law.

and wouldnt IM provide the same means of communication? why go through the elaborate ruse of setting up a WoW account?

Even though WoW communication is far from being considered clandestine, it still is a method of communication far less observed than traditional chat or e-mail. Especially since it's being done over privately owned servers rather than a few huge communications companies like Verizon, AT&T, etc.
the bottom line is:

see how stupid that sounds?

Are you really that concerned? Personally, I have absolutely nothing to worry about.

slipery slope; the abscence of an attack doesnt mean you are safe in fact the war on terror has escalated terror. Besides how does that justifies giving up your privacy and allowing them to trample on your rights?

..what if you mention to your gildmates that you're attending a peaceful rally against anti-globalisation, what if they then pass it along to the fbi who are in attendence at the rally taking names and making lists of potential "dissidents" ...would that be ok?

Hah... i knew you would resort to this type of crap.

Fact of the matter is, the comparison of these policies to being a 'slippery slope' is nothing more than you daily liberal crap. I have not given up a single civil right during the Bush administration and if I were, i would be incredibly vocal about it. Heck, even the messiah of the liberal left, Michael Moore would raise living hell if American rights were erased.

what if in the course of investigating your behaviour as a player you make an off-colour remark about killing dwarves ..would it be permissible for them to pass along to authorities a note saying you might be planning to commit wholesale genocide against midgets?

What if??? How about if you get back to me when it's actually occured? Thx....

or maybe you're smoking a joint, or drinking under age or hey what if you're beating it to some elf doing the travolta emote? should the morality police be informed?

How many more rediculous analogies are you going to present here?? does this have anything to do with the topic at hand? No. I thought not.

see how absolutely ridiculous this is? and how you're opening a door to whole whack of issues around privacy?

Not anymore than opening a bunch of previously untested methods of routing out terrorists who want to kill you, me, and any other "non beliver" on this planet.

and monitoring behaviour in World of Warcraft is the answer? give me a break, where the hell do you draw the line?

I don't have any problem with the CIA monitoring methods of communication whether it be WoW, AIM, MSN, E-Mail, etc as long as the CIA does it in a legal matter.

You're just hyper-sensitive about the CIA listening to your "extremely important and no doubt brilliant" commentary regarding the current events on earth. You might as well go further underground so 'big brother' doesn't find out about you. :upstare:

slippery slope nonsense ...again, monitoring WoW is the answer?

Haha... it's always a slippery slope with you libs. It reminds me of the 2000 election when democrats claimed that the US would revert to pre-1964 civil rights laws, pre-womans liberation, and the world would see us as Nazi's, etc.

I'm not sure if you're old enough to even pay attention, but none of that has come even remotely close to becoming true.

omg the sky is falling

Sounds like the liberal mantra to me.

 

[Andrew LB]

No one in their right mind including wack jobs would ever consider actually using such a weapon. There are far easier and cheaper ways to instill fear into your opposition.

Are you on meth or something? Take a moment to talk to any defense/terrorism expert and they're lecture you on how incredibly bad terrorists would like to get their hands on nuclear,dirty,bio,chemical weapons and use them on "the great satan", the United States.

Are you that incredibly stupid? Or are you just ignorant?

If you talk to ANY expert on either the right or left side of politics in the united states in regards to WMD terrorism, EVERYONE agrees that it's not a matter of time.... but WHEN.

Just look at Andrew LB he seems scared shit less.

Sorry bro, but I'm actually looking at things from a realistic point of view. Mainly because I have a friend who is a CIA/NSA consultant, another who is a Foreign Service Officer, and I myself just was accepted to the U.S. State Department.

I simply want to prevent you, Stern, and everyone else on this forum from being killed when the next (and larger) terrorist attack happens. Because it's not a matter of if but when.

 

[Sulkdodds]

They are not just recording chat logs and listening for terrorists disccussing their latest project in barrens chat. They are looking for abnormal behaviour. I'm still not clear on exactly how "monitoring abnormal behaviour" in online MMOs will remotely help anyone. Because intelligence services don't have a real good history of being in touch with popular culture and properly understanding new passtimes. What this is is the kind of uninformed paranoia that seems endemic amongst a certain class of American adulthood, at whose apex you will find Jack Thompson and the like; the people who don't and apparently never will understand what, say, 'the internet' is all about, but will nevertheless try to take action against it.

Naturally the CIA employs plenty of competent people who know how to deal with a newer world, but apparently thpse guys have nothing to do with this, because this entire project is, as far as anyone can see, a vague and idiotic drain upon the treasury. And if you know so much about the intelligence community perhaps you can tell us what the purpose of this investigation is and how it'll help stop the terrorist attack you are so sure is coming. Do not say "they must have a reason"; by that rationale they can do everything and anything. They are announcing the plan publically so they are beholden to announce exactly of what use it will be.

Of course, I do not expect a sensible answer. The revealing question of "are you on drugs?" The when-not-if rhetoric. The "you liberals". The "I have nothing to hide." Blimey, it's as if we're back in the politics forum three years ago, when 80% of the population appeared to be stupid.

FYI, Stern was not suggesting that any of those things could actually happen, but commenting on the complete murkiness of "abnormal behaviour", showing how that phrase really doesn't mean anything and is impossible to pin down. It is one of those modern political buzzwords whose definitions are so wide one has to wonder about their execution (cf. "unlawful combatant"). I hope you won't claim that indefinition and sinister lexical instability are essential for national security.

"We are currently scouring Second Life for evidence of abnormal behaviour."
Do you see how ridiculous that is?

 

[Jintor]

Agreed. Seriously, AndrewLi. The effectiveness of the exercise is "realistically" going to be almost nil - do you know how many false positives you're going to get from people who have no idea that what they're doing is wrong alone? Not to mention trolls and people who will automatically just go out to jerk the system? And that ****ing "not if, but when" mantra - it's not a magic phrase you can say that magically makes all our rights disappear.

 

[Adrik_Senturu]

So would griefers be considered Terrorists? >_>

 

[Andrew LB]

And that ****ing "not if, but when" mantra - it's not a magic phrase you can say that magically makes all our rights disappear.

Please, tell me what rights you had in 2000 that you do not currently have now in 2008?

If you actually want to talk about presidents who stripped away the American people's rights, direct your attention to two presidents who ACTUALLY DID strip away peoples rights, namely FDR and Lincoln. If you claim that the slippery slope is even remotely relevant to the current administration... why were the rights that were temporarily reduced during a time of war during the Civil War and WW2 immediately restored... WITH INTEREST after the wars ended.

I've been incredibly active in politics, constitutional law, and our nations history due to my interest in political science and constitutional law (i have a degree in the former and a minor in the latter) and I have yet to meet a single individual US citizen who has had their constitutional rights violated which were proven in a court of law.

"We are currently scouring Second Life for evidence of abnormal behaviour."
Do you see how ridiculous that is?

Like I said earlier, the CIA is not going to give the general public the intricate details of a clandestine operation. They will in fact give a very vague and generalized comment such as the one you quoted above regarding what they are currently doing.

They definitely have a definitive mission here... and they're not going to blow it by telling you people what they're actually doing. The CIA is not in the business of leaking their plans until the end product of their operations is achieved. They are not a transparent (to the public) organization like many other government organizations are. If they were... they'd never get anything done.

 

[Pesmerga]

I wish I could argue like Sulkdodds

Like I said earlier, the CIA is not going to give the general public the intricate details of a clandestine operation. They will in fact give a very vague and generalized comment such as the one you quoted above regarding what they are currently doing.

Why say anything at all? It's not very clandestine if they're publicly announcing it, is it?

Dammit CptStern, there's not even a source for your quote. I'm starting to think I've been trolled.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Like I said earlier, the CIA is not going to give the general public the intricate details of a clandestine operation. They will in fact give a very vague and generalized comment such as the one you quoted above regarding what they are currently doing.

They definitely have a definitive mission here... and they're not going to blow it by telling you people what they're actually doing. The CIA is not in the business of leaking their plans until the end product of their operations is achieved. They are not a transparent (to the public) organization like many other government organizations are. If they were... they'd never get anything done.

As Pesh notes, they're certainly being very secretive abotu the project's existene!

If I were you, I would not trust the CIA with your tax money for commencing a project based on something so apparently ridiculous. I would not take it on faith that they know what they are doing; they are an organisation with a history of being generally incompetent - but rich! Not to mention that the initiative seems so vague they can do any wasteful or harmful thing they wish with it. Christ, we know what Al Quaeda is and what they do and how one might infiltrate them; that isn't subject to such a level of security that nobody is even allowed to know what is being investigated.

"We're investigating things in a place. This place may or may not be the centre line of a superbowl game, but don't worry. We may or may not have cunning reasons of our own."

If your attitude is that they can do anything they want because it's SUPER SECRET, then I guess good luck with that.
Do you still put your faith in a disenchanted God as well, to safeguard you with an inscrutable Providence?

 

[Pesmerga]

There's not even mention of the CIA in the first post. Infact, this whole thread seems completely bogus. I demand sources.

 

[Sulkdodds]

http://uk.gamespot.com/pages/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=26256583

Now I come to think about it, it isn't that vague at all - just stupid.

First, we'll sink dollars into finding out what is abnormal in online games.
Then, we'll develop a system for tracking abnormal behaviour!
I'm sure that will be profitable in the intelligence arena, because there sure is a 'normal' standard for players of Second Life.

EDIT: Also, Director of National Intelligence is the guy responsible for the CIA to the president.

Oh, maybe it will work! Maybe it will save your beautiful nation and its congested cyberwebways! Nah, I call bullshit.

Where the money should really be going is hunting down all these secretive cyberterrorists in Anonymous. Only universal wiretapping can protect us from hackers on steroids.

 

[Jintor]

Please, tell me what rights you had in 2000 that you do not currently have now in 2008?

If you actually want to talk about presidents who stripped away the American people's rights, direct your attention to two presidents who ACTUALLY DID strip away peoples rights, namely FDR and Lincoln. If you claim that the slippery slope is even remotely relevant to the current administration... why were the rights that were temporarily reduced during a time of war during the Civil War and WW2 immediately restored... WITH INTEREST after the wars ended.

I've been incredibly active in politics, constitutional law, and our nations history due to my interest in political science and constitutional law (i have a degree in the former and a minor in the latter) and I have yet to meet a single individual US citizen who has had their constitutional rights violated which were proven in a court of law.

I like how you attacked me attacking a magic phrase you used instead of convincingly refuting my point about how the effectiveness was somewhere close to zero. Major awesome points.

 

[Andrew LB]

Why say anything at all? It's not very clandestine if they're publicly announcing it, is it?

Chances are the extremely vague statement by the CIA was done after they were asked about the program by someone in the media who was the recipient of a leak. And if anyone has been paying attention to the CIA during the past two decades or so, they seem to be having an extremely hard time keeping their programs secret.

If I were you, I would not trust the CIA with your tax money for commencing a project based on something so apparently ridiculous. I would not take it on faith that they know what they are doing; they are an organisation with a history of being generally incompetent - but rich!

I never said I trust the CIA. I actually agree with much of what you just said.

Not to mention that the initiative seems so vague they can do any wasteful or harmful thing they wish with it. Christ, we know what Al Quaeda is and what they do and how one might infiltrate them; that isn't subject to such a level of security that nobody is even allowed to know what is being investigated.

The problem is that people at the CIA have an incredibly hard time keeping their mouths shut. I recall a few months ago a huge leak regarding a private sector partner of the CIA called the SITE Institute where the main stream media decided to run a story about the organization and how they had infiltrated the main line of internet communication for Al-Qaeda, and in effect outed SITE and our intelligence agencies ability to keep close tabs on Al-Qaeda. The SITE Institute ended up losing it's funding since it wasn't able to produce the excellent intelligence they gave the CIA during the past 5 years and ended up shutting down operations. The new SITE Institute is now a for-profit organization unlike the very successful SITE which was a non-profit group.

First, we'll sink dollars into finding out what is abnormal in online games.
Then, we'll develop a system for tracking abnormal behaviour!

I have a good feeling that your definition of "abnormal behavior" is far different than the type of "abnormal behavior" that the CIA is interested in. The CIA does not concern itself with bizarre behavior associated with your typical WoW player. Heck, they don't even concern themselves with domestic problems unless they're related to terrorism and international concerns. Domestic non-terrorism crime is the domain of the FBI, not the CIA.

I like how you attacked me attacking a magic phrase you used instead of convincingly refuting my point about how the effectiveness was somewhere close to zero. Major awesome points.

You presented a hypothetical to me, with absolutely no evidence that any law was broken or constitutional right violated to back up your theory that "if" peoples rights are taken away a little, it would result in a slippery slope. Since there is no point giving you a hypothetical to refute your hypothetical, I simply gave you two instances where Americans actually did have civil rights taken from them and showed you that in both of those instances, a slippery slope did not occur.

You on the other hand have not given me a single instance of your hypothetical actually occurring in the US.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I admit the scenario of "CIA can't keep things secret, forced into shitty damage control" scenario is rather plausible.

I have a good feeling that your definition of "abnormal behavior" is far different than the type of "abnormal behavior" that the CIA is interested in.

Not at all. The point is, from the looks of things, they do not know what 'abnormal behaviour' is at all. The first stage of their program aims to establish a framework for deciding what is and what isn't abnormal, right? My point is that there isn't really any normal or abnormal behaviour on the internet; surely it's impossible to quantify. The amount of people doing such an amount of things, even within a single game, and especially within something popular and most-likely-to-be-infiltrated-by-bored-terrorists like Second Life, would appear to make any automatic filter absolutely useless beyond scanning for words like "bomb" and "jihad."

In fact, this whole notion of not examining the games per se but setting up an automatic system to do so smacks to me of a weird fusion of two all-too-common intelligence trends: 1. not understanding current trends (cf FBI v Elvis) and 2. investing in new technology for the hell of it. It's like your grandad asking you to buy him three broadband playstations. In fact, from here, it looks like a white elephant project initiated for masturbatory purposes.

"Hmm, what can we waste our time on next? I know, let's develop Echelon for Barrens chat!"

 

[Andrew LB]

btw... I just wanted to point out that this project was reviewed and approved by the US Congress. If this program was as stupid as many of you guys claim, please voice your objections to your House and Senate representatives, in particular Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

EDIT: Also, Director of National Intelligence is the guy responsible for the CIA to the president.

They're even more responsible to the House and Senate Committees on Intelligence who have 100% complete access to the dealings of the CIA and have the job of overseeing and approving their programs.

 

[Sulkdodds]

I'll be writing a letter to congress.

Dear Congress, I am a British citizen and
"File this one under B. For bin! ha ha!"
"For what?"
"It's a - well what they call - oh, put it in the trash."

EDIT: Also, it being approved by a Congress committee may go some way towards explaining the whole "stop the corruption of lol by hackers-on-steroids" attitude to information technology.

 

[Andrew LB]

Well since you're British, you can raise hell over how the Aussies outed Prince Harry's deployment to Afghanistan. Whatever happened to the days when the media followed the rule of never releasing information that had a very real possibility of endangering the lives of soldiers. (Harry and those with him)

 

[Absinthe]

Way to be totally irrelevant.

 

[CptStern]

Well since you're British, you can raise hell over how the Aussies outed Prince Harry's deployment to Afghanistan. Whatever happened to the days when the media followed the rule of never releasing information that had a very real possibility of endangering the lives of soldiers. (Harry and those with him)

he's in air traffic control, not the front line in the trenches .because everyone knows you put an heir to the throne in the most dangerous position possible

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7269743.stm


..I'll be back to answer your posts in reply to my post when I get a chance

 

[Jintor]

You presented a hypothetical to me, with absolutely no evidence that any law was broken or constitutional right violated to back up your theory that "if" peoples rights are taken away a little, it would result in a slippery slope. Since there is no point giving you a hypothetical to refute your hypothetical, I simply gave you two instances where Americans actually did have civil rights taken from them and showed you that in both of those instances, a slippery slope did not occur.

You on the other hand have not given me a single instance of your hypothetical actually occurring in the US.

I just repeated your phrase back at you, and noted that you couldn't use it to make people's right dissappear. I didn't say that it already had.

In any case, this program is still stupid.

 

[Beerdude26]

My day was going splendidly when I just had to stumble on this beacon of retardedness (Andrew LB). I don't feel like writing a gigantic post, so I'll leave the debating to the rest of the guys in here.

Also nice computer