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Second Life & WoW Terrorist Training Camps?
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Aug 01, 2007 08:40 AM
from the you-gotta-be-kidding-me dept.
from the you-gotta-be-kidding-me dept.
Tech.Luver writes "theinquirer reports that 'Aussie Security experts claim that Second Life and online games such as World of Warcraft are being used to train terrorists.
Apparently there are three jihadi terrorists registered and two elite jihadist terrorist groups in Second Life and they use the site for recruiting and training. This is on top of the Second Life Liberation Army.""
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ROFLMAO (Score:5, Funny)
How do you kill...that which has no life?
No seriously, I think I saw a video of them training once [youtube.com](nsfw). They're in yer raids, ninjaing your epic loots.
Some people are so damn stupid. What bearing could this possibly have on real life? The only thing I can think of is that you're increasing the fat, out of shape, cheetoes consuming segment of the terrorist population...Scary stuff. They do enough of this "training", we could neutralize them with a gift of free broadband and some jolt cola.
The only way I'll believe that this is real is if we start getting evidence of terrorist attacks on gold farmers.
Re:ROFLMAO (Score:5, Funny)
I can picture it already
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Is there any oil there?
Re:ROFLMAO (Score:5, Funny)
This means that Second Life and WoW have become terrorist-affiliated/terrorist-supporting orgainizations.
That means that everyone subscribing to Second Life or WoW now have financial links to terrorism.
Therefore :
Everyone on Second Life and WoW is open game for DHS, warrantless wiretaps, asset freezing, etc.
(silly sarcasm, frightening Orwellian reality, or absurd conspiracy theory, you decide.)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:ROFLMAO (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:ROFLMAO (Score:5, Funny)
Linden Labs
Lin denla bs
Bin denla ls
Bin Laden SL
Hurry... someone must advice the CIA!
Parent
Re:Oh noez (Score:2)
Oh no twice... terrorists use cars for bombs and transportation! Quick - destroy all cars, and cease manufacturing any new ones that are not STRICTLY for the use by Police, TSA, DHS, and RIAA...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
What bearing could this possibly have on real life? The only thing I can think of...
Don't lock yourself out of investing what could be a genuine point, just because the premises are completely ridiculous.
Granted, I didn't really buy this when I first read it, especially the bit about using WoW as a training tool. But to be honest, not all terrorist training has to be violent. Terrorism is about guerilla warfare, and guerilla warfare has been around for centuries. It's an art, just like any other form of war, and it does have it's own subtleties.
I assume that if WoW really is being used
Eh. (Score:5, Insightful)
WoW tactics boil down to tactics vs mobs, and tactics vs mobs. In the first you're fighting a bunch of simplistic AI, and in the second you're fighting a bunch of people who know they're not going to lose anything if they die, so they just do the lemming over and over until one side wins...It's a joke.
I can think of a thousand "games" that you could play in the real world that would actually get you useful skills, and useful training. Playing WoW, on the other hand, gives you the wrong kind of reflexes, zero physical conditioning, and no actual experience with moving around in the world.
Parent
Re:Eh. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What about this: http://www.americasarmy.com/ [americasarmy.com]
It has a focus on terrorism, realistic weaponry, combat and team tactics. Shouldn't it be first up against the wall?
Re:ROFLMAO (Score:5, Insightful)
Try
-Counterstrike
-any multiplayer WW2 shooter like Day Of Defeat, Call Of Duty...
-America's Army (get your training sponsored by your enemy
Much better choices for terrorist training (and I'd still consider them inadequate unless you throw in some real life practice with guns)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Try
-Food handling training
-Medical school
-Water treatment facility work
Who needs guns when the enemy has no water?
Re:ROFLMAO (Score:5, Funny)
I remained silent;
I was not a troll.
When they locked up the orcs,
I remained silent;
I was not an orc.
When they came for the dark elves,
I did not speak out;
I was not a dark elf.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to subscribe.
Parent
Re:ROFLMAO (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'll move!
I thought (Score:4, Funny)
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I heard that when they respawn they're surrounded by 72 virgins [slashdot.org].
*rimshot*
*notices parent made roughly the same joke*
*slumps away and sulks*
Irak (Score:2, Funny)
Gotta be -1 redundant (Score:5, Funny)
If you play wow, you're supporting the terrorists!
Or,
So that's where they kept the WMDs.... In Ironforge!
OMG (Score:5, Interesting)
All kidding aside, I bet there are "terrorists" using any form of communication that is there. Unless we live completely isolationist lives, never being allowed to interact with anyone, ever, people are going to *gasp* get together and talk about things, including terrorism. Focusing on video games is just stupid and a colossal waste of time.
Slow news (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Alliance or Horde? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Demihuman Rights Commission workers denounced the actions of low-ranking Paladins who were wintessed assaulting non-combatant kobold workers, but were quick to blame a military and civilian command which they say creates an atmosphere of deniability."
"The word they used was 'exterminate,' reported one novice, who spoke on the condition of anonymit
Spoof (Score:2)
I'd like to be the first person (Score:5, Insightful)
The SLLA isn't a real "terrorist" organization. It's a bunch of unfunny people who think that exploding picture replicators near buildings in SL comprises some sort of Jacobin revolution. I'm serious. Look at their white paper.
As for real terrorists: frankly, I hope they're practicing in Second Life. Because with all the other, harder-to-track ways they could be communicating information--IRC channels, encrypted and hidden forums, custom IM software, etc--they choose to use a public program in which anyone can access anywhere by default and the company religiously logs any and all chats that pass through their network and make it a point to discipline people on the basis of chatlogs.
So we should be so lucky to have terrorists so stupid that they'd communicate using SL--a clunky graphically terrible product that can't even properly form eyebrows, much less a complex trigger mechanism--as opposed to, say, sending a real video over some other quicker undetectable means.
Re:I'd like to be the first person (Score:4, Insightful)
This countries supply of WoW gold and online poontang is in jeopardy! They are attacking our very way of life! We must mobilize for action! It's not going to be easy. I've heard that the terrorists are employing epic mounts, and exploding sheep technology, as well as second generation teledildonics, but we must not let them prevail!
We will fight them in the empty casinos! We will fight them in the level 60 raid instances that no one does anymore! We shall overcome!
Parent
We need an inside man, some human intel... (Score:5, Funny)
The only agent for this job is none other than LEEROY JENKINS [leeroyjenkins.net]!
Suddenly everything is clear (Score:4, Insightful)
They thought their spell of detonation and shield of fire protection worked outside the game too.
So why doesn't (Score:2)
Australia? (Score:2)
(Also, is there a reason the CAPTCHA word is "convicts"?)
You can't make this stuff up (Score:5, Insightful)
It's sad that everytime someone says "But you can't stop X, otherwise we might as well crack down on Y too, which would be silly", it's not long before Y becomes the Internet taboo which people also want to crack down upon...
Please tell me this story is just a parody?
It's true! (Score:5, Funny)
It's true. According to documents recently captured by the CIA, some of the plots they are working on include:
WoW trained terrorists (Score:5, Funny)
Great! (Score:2, Funny)
"Ahmad, we must go fight the Americans now."
"Maybe later, I am in an instance."
somebody call Jack! (Score:5, Funny)
Somewhere, Jack Thompson just got a chubby.
Second Life Terrorists (Score:4, Funny)
This is good news... (Score:3, Funny)
Some Researchers Take This Seriously (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, it seems goofy and far-fetched, but there seems to be no end of surprises about the way folks interact in/with virtual worlds.
HA HA HA... (Score:3, Funny)
*Terrorist #1: "What do you mean I have a squid on my face?"
*Terrorist #2: screw this guys. we don't even have a prophet in our group. i'm going fishing.
What ever happened to critical thinking? (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, the lack of critical thinking didn't stop at the thought of sword-wielding orcs on gryphons attacking government buildings, the bits on Second Life weren't much better.
The arguments basically come down to two things:
1. They can launder money through Second Life.
2. They can create elaborate simulations of locations in Second Life with which to practice operations.
The problems with #2 are mostly obvious, i.e., you can't just whip up an accurate model of a government installation (or even a public location) without detailed information about that facility. That means lots of reconaissance, collation of data, etc. If you have all of the info needed to create a realistic simulation in Second Life, then you have all of the info needed to create a realistic simulation in any other environment/medium as well. The issue isn't Second Life, it's the recon data that the terrorists presumably would have. But the reality is that such data is hard to come by, at least in quantities sufficient to be truly useful. So we can just whip out the magical Internet box to fill in the blanks, and suddenly Second Life has gone from being a stupid waste of time to being a Terrorist Training Simulator (TM).
Argument #1 actually does hold some water. It would certainly be possible to use Second Life to transfer funds from individuals in one location to another, or to even launder funds. But anything of the sort would have to happen in a very limited fashion on a very limited scale. Transferring $20,000 via Second Life is bound to attract a lot of attention. Transferring smaller amounts of money would probably be more successful, but also a lot less useful. And frankly, I'm not seeing Second Life as being any easier or more likely to be used for money laundering/xfers than other services like PayPal. But you know, it's that magical Internet box again so critical thinking has to go out the window.
As to "three jihadi terrorists registered and two elite jihadist terrorist groups in Second Life", one has to wonder a little. What makes them elite jihadist groups as opposed to regular jihadist groups? Do they hog all the dungeon raids or something, or does it just make things sound scarier? And how to they know that there are three jihadi terrorists registered? Are they really jihadi terrorists who are trying to recruit for real-world damage? Or are they pimple-faced 14-year olds who just want to smash up bits of peoples' online virtual worlds and are role-playing terrorists as part of "the game"? After all, I doubt that the people playing as prostitutes in Second Life are actually really prostitutes. For that matter, I am confident that most of the "women" in Second Life are actually men, but I doubt that any significant portion of them are transvestites or transexuals.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They'll come to a sticky end, no doubt.