The Pentagon, MMORPGs, and Catching Osama

MarkRH writes "I know, it looked like a troll to me too. But apparently a Pentagon-funded group, the Highlands Forum, is investigating the possibility of fighting terrorism by postulating that terrorist networks are similar to the online communities found in MMORPGs. By studying interaction within a community like Everquest, the military hopes to find hints on how to crack Al Qaeda." See also the "Uncloaking Terrorist Networks" post of several months back.

Comments

MMORPGs

[intermodal]

Personally, with the comments traded between gamers, i'm a little uncomfortable with anti-terrorist types studying gamers. Something that is commonly said in jest could easily be taken out of context by these government personnel and blown way out of proportion...

Re:MMORPGs

[helix400]

Something that is commonly said in jest could easily be taken out of context by these government personnel and blown way out of proportion...

Perhaps by studying jesting remarks in games, anti-terrorism investigators will better understanding real vs. joking threats in real life.

Besides, this is a study of social behavior, not an Everquest anti-terror crackdown. They're not looking for Osama bin Laden's online character.

Personally, I think it would be a blast if the feds EXPANDED their Everquest study, such as practicing their infiltrartion method by putting moles inside Everquest groups for intelligence, or secretly picking off key characters. It would add a whole new dimension to the game. =)

Re:MMORPGs

[pcidevel]

They don't care about what stupid comment Joe Sixpack might say about fearless leader GWB.

Sure they don't, keep telling yourself that. They also don't care if you make a joke about "Burning Bushes".

Freedom of speech? What's that?

Re:MMORPGs

[zaibutsu]

This warning is about 40 years too late.

UK SF fans used to be quite involved in postal Diplomacy. One of them was late orgsanising his moves once and sent a telegram to a potential ally reading "suggest we join forces for an attack on Liverpool".

He spent the following day deep in conversation with gentlemen wearing black raincoats.

Riiiight

[MattW]

Finally, the age-old question is answered:

How can we play Everquest all day and get paid for it?

I wonder..

[Anonymous Coward]

If PKers will now be called terrorists.

Doubtful

[GodHead]

I doubt terrorists have the same immeadiate and direct communication that exists in on-line games. The less communication, the less chance for discovery.

In any case, I know MMORPG players. The only thing they accomplish in the real world is living in the basement and drinking Dew. Hell set up suspected terrorists with an EQ subscription and the only they they'll blow up in orcs.

The real way to beat the Taliban...

[craenor]

Is to subject them to l337 sp34k all day. U.S. pwnz Bin L4d3n.

Here's an *idea*

[swordboy]

Fight terrorism by addressing the reason *why* these people are driven a level of frustration that would cause them to commit such acts.

Ask the average Joe on the street (in the US) about why September 11th happened and you'll hear something like, "evil doer". This befuddles me. These people aren't driven by pure evil but rather extreme frustration. Until the root of their frustration is addressed, I wouldn't be surprised if this continues forever.

Re:Here's an *idea*

[spasm]

it's the 'war on terror' concept that really screws with my head - declaring war on a *technique*? way to make sure you never have to stop..

Re:Here's an *idea*

[ender81b]

These people aren't driven by pure evil but rather extreme frustration

You forgot to add "and a massive dose of ignorance and intolerance." Of course I just described fanatics of all shapes, sizes, and colors whether it be terrorists, right-wing fundamentalists, or richard stallman (sorry couldn't resist).

Re:Here's an *idea*

[ivan256]

Fight terrorism by addressing the reason *why* these people are driven a level of frustration that would cause them to commit such acts.

What do you do when one of the reasons these people are driven to frustration is that people of a certain gender are allowed freedoms that are offensive to said terrorists? Repeat that question to yourself and replace "gender" with "religion".

What do you think the reason is? What's your simple solution?

Re:Here's an *idea*

[Fyz]

Which probably is exactly what Bush wants... A never ending cold war on an enemy not only remote, but formless and without voice.

US citizens have an admirable quality of backing their leader in crisis situations, which he can exploit by basically doing whatever he wants...

Like making a war over oil..

Or calling anybody who disagrees with him a terrorist..

Or screwing the environmental issues(which are bad for business) by giving their much-needed funding to the military..

Re:Here's an *idea*

[jfengel]

The euphemism "war on terror" is necessary because calling it "war on Islamic terrorists" or "war on Islamic fundamentalists" would get the administration in deep, deep doodoo. Politically, it's necessary to avoid looking like they are opposed to Islam. Muslims around the world already half believe that the US really is out to war on them.

There was some talk for a while that the War on Terror would apply to anybody using terror techniques, such as the Irish Republican Army, but that's an idea that went nowhere fast. Their opponents, therefore, are primarily Muslims, but not all Muslims.

So America-bashing and Bush administration-bashing aside (and I'm not a big fan myself, having voted for the other guy), the administration is faced with the fact that a small subset of essentially very good people is committing despicable acts in the name of those good people. These people are afraid of being punished for the sins of a few. Their support is crucial, and the US in general prefers to make friends rather than enemies. This is an incredibly untenable position for the US government. I'm hard pressed to come up with a better name for the effort, even if it is an obvious euphemism.

Re:Here's an *idea*

[daigu]

How about "war on Al Qaeda"? You can only "win" a war if you can identify the enemy and you can identify objectives - like kill or capture 80% of leadership, reduce cash flows of the network by 90%, eliminate all training facilities, etc. "War on terrorism" is a euphemism like "war on drugs" - which is effectively a war on the freedoms of the American people.

There was a fairly interesting interview with a group of foriegn policy experts that describe themselves as "realists" on NPR (with Ira Glass?) that make a pretty convincing argument that the very lack of definition of a "war on terror" is undermining the efforts. In the interview, these experts provided a number of interesting facts to support their position. For example, only 40% of the Al Qaeda leadership is in custody and that the network still has the capabilities to deliver devestating style attacks.

While I do not know if this is true, there seems to be every indication that the current approach is being bungled - part of that is because the objectives (and enemies) are not well-defined.

Re:Here's an *idea*

[jfengel]

I wish I could disagree with you on the point about Iraq. They keep claiming to have solid evidence, but have presented exactly none of it to the world. (Does anybody recall what happened to the secret documents they gave to various world leaders which showed why we chose Afghanistan?)

I understand very well that sources are extremely valuable, and you must protect them. That means that secret documents are usually more secret for the reasons of revealing the source than they are for the actual data they contain.

Still, this is becoming very disturbing. There have been some very anti-American articles in this thread, and it's behavior like this which encourages such. The government is proposing a war in which the proponents stand to gain very much personally.

I don't like the Bush administration, but I don't believe that they are monsters, either. I don't believe they would kill probably hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis just for the privilege of making a few million (or billion) on oil. It's a plan which involves too many people, at least one of whom must have some sort of integrity.

But I do wish that they'd give me some reason for that apparently futile hope.

[As an aside, having the US own Iraqi oil fields would cement US supremacy, so it is possible that this is part of an overarching plan to secure US power, something which would have better hope of keeping adherents than plain money. But Iraq is far away, and tankers from Iraq to the US would be very vulnerable in case of war. They'd be better off taking over Venezuela or perhaps Mexico. So I tend to discount this theory.]

As for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, I suspect that they are inextricably linked to al Quaeda. When you fight one you fight the others. Israel has done little of late to cover itself in glory, but they do seem to have the moral high ground over those who blow up school buses (even if that's not saying very much.)

The adminstration probably feels that it cannot take a stronger side against the enemies of Israel while Israel is only barely better, morally. I believe that very few Muslims actively hate the US strongly enough to be in favor of al Quaeda, but Israel is a different story. It is a major sticking point with most Arabs and Muslims.

Fighting Hamas and Islamic Jihad is hard, because it's nearly impossible to distinguish between civilians and militants. That's partly because the civilians permit themselves to be used this way, and so the line is very blurred.

The US "war on terror" does, I believe, cover these groups as well. In general it's a war on the Islamic terrorists; Basque terrorists and Irish terrorists are left out. The remaining Islamic terrorists cover a very wide body, which is all linked together. Money flows from Saddam Hussein to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. But fighting the Palestinians directly is a public relations nightmare, both because of civilian deaths and because it would tip the balance of those who only barely tolerate the US as it stands.

My opinion is that Israel should force a two-state solution on Palestine, adopting unilaterally plan that most of the non-Arab would would see as fair. When they were attacked from that state, the US would have an easier time helping them fight it, since the non-Arab would would see Israel as having already made its concessions. [Arabs and Muslims are unlikely to see any plan in which Israel still exists as fair.] But for some reason right-wingers in Israel insist on occupying some of the West Bank territory, and will not give it up.

Re:Waste of time and money

[DeltaSigma]

You might read the article.

If you do, you'll find that they merely wish to observe the social interactions of players on a massive network, as they feel that such networks somewhat mirror the dispersal of Al Quida's terrorist group.

They're not "spying," so much as they are "spectating."

I doubt we'll see any "pirates" or "hackers" picked up off of this one... That's really not the Pentagon's job.