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Videogame Character Threatens National Security?
Watchful Babbler writes "Apparently, 'the lead item on the government's daily threat matrix one day last April' was clear and definite: a reclusive millionaire had formed a terrorist group with the intent of launching chemical weapons attacks on Western cities. The White House was notified and the Director of the FBI briefed as the government raced to find information. But then, according to USNews.com, a White House staffer decided to Google for information on suspected threat Don Emilio Fulci and found him -- in a video game - Sega's action title Headhunter. No word on exactly which sources and methods came up with this gem, but word in the E Ring is that Fulci had issued the cryptic warning, 'You have no chance to survive make your time'."
Sounds like the government was trolled.
Could the world's most elaborate April fools be amiss?
Government sues Mario. Nintendo execs in jail...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Wow. At least we know their intel gathering stuff works.... It just can't tell reality from fantasy.
Only the purest of souls seek enlightenment. Everyone else just wants power.
Just recruit Mario Mario and his brother Luigi Mario. They're able to stop any trouble that comes their way.
Oh, you may need to pardon them for their mushroom usage, but it's for a good cause.
... or is terrorism winning?
It certainly feels like evey time we get a false positive we panic.
Of a very knee-jerk reaction to security here in the US... What I dont get is how Grade B (uncorroborated, domestic, single-informant) information winds up at the top of the threat matrix, unless someone was trying to play a joke?
...that the Princess has been captured again. Good thing Google is up to date on terrorist kidnappings too.
crazy dynamite monkey
I wonder if he was added to the CAPPS II system as a "no fly" person.
John.
I don't think the Dreamcast game Headhunter was ever released in the US. You can find PAL versions on eBay, and some game websites have old stories on the game, (for example, gamespot.com), but the stories don't indicate a release date, or if the game ever actually came out. Only in Europe and Japan apparently, although the sequel, Headhunter: Redemption is slated for US release on PS2 and XBox
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
When asked for a name, he responded "I. P. Freely".
This links comes from what amounts to a trashy "dc insider" gossip column. Though, this sort of stuff happens all the time. People phone in bogus tips all the time. If they sound legit, they get investigated.
I also object to the articles description of Headhunter as "popular".
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"Against what?"
"Every single military installation worldwide!"
"Really? What did it say?"
"'All Your Base Are Belong To Us."
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
The story is so silly it's almost unbelievable.
But then Powell used a Graduate Student's Thesis to justify a war against Iraq in front of the entire world.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Funny, I googled and got nothing but the news story. Even googling without the quotes doesn't give anything about the game.
Does the US Gov't have hooks into google to prevent "Terrorist" information from being found?
NYC sewer system may be target of a disgruntled mafia splinter group, ringleaders believed to be two brothers named Mario and Luigi.
paintball
That would explain the missing WMD's quite nicely :)
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
A relocation expert from sunny Guantanamo Bay will be coming by in a few minutes to assist you in understanding the heretical error in your ways. I hope you're photogenic.
Once this story gets out someone's going to realize that they can disguise an underground movement by naming it after a video game's bad guys. Then the FBI will think it's just a video game clan.
When I just googled, I saw nothing of the like... only 3 results, the usnews article was the top then some french article I didn't bother to read. Anyone know of this character or even the game? I'm not really a Sega person... speaking of which... Sega? When was the last time you saw a Sega? And htis happened last April.... hmm... something fishy.
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
We'll, then all the FBI has to do is plug in their Gameshark and enter the following codes...
Hero Is Immortal 24509328 36F055F8
Enemies Are Blind 24109228 36705568
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
*points to GNAA link in parents signature*
Sorry Mario, but our princess is in another castle ...
*DrugCheese rants*
They've already kept steps to keep this dangerous terrorist from getting his hands on a handbook for computer crime.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Which reminds me, never mind this Fulci guy, it's been over 20 years and they still haven't found Carmen Sandiego! Where in the world is she?
I don't see how so many of you conclude that the government doesn't know a real threat from a video game character. A threat can crop up in any one of a gazillion ways. Once made, they have to verify threats before they take them seriously. They did. They determined it was a video game character.
How else does it work? Magic? When a threat comes in, they use telepathic powers to determine that any given name is a real one and not a video game character? A quick google isn't to everyone's liking?
Dumbasses.
Rumors among the jihadi-message boards say that Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have started communicating to each other and their followers "in the open", under code names "Darth Sidious" and "Darth Maul".
The National Security Agency said that comment it will not, but you mustn't underestimate the power of the Emperor.
I'd be more afraid if the government weren't incompetent.
Consider the Pentagon folks who looked at this "threat" and suspected sagely (and rightly) that it was too fanciful to be credible.
How closely do they resemble the Pentagon folks who, in early 2000, looked at jet-hijacking scenarios and suspected sagely (and wrongly) that they were too fanciful to be credible?
(See answer in back of book.)
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
Law enforcement agencies all across the United States are searching for Tommy Vercetti. He is wanted for a string of felonies including (but not limited to) murder, assualt, battery, weapons sales, grand larceny, and above all else Grand Theft Auto.
Informatus Technologicus
People without moral or practical imagination--the types who have gutted our liberties with the Patriot Act, and led us to invade and torture Iraqis--exemplify the kind of simpleminded sorts who shouldn't be allowed to play M-rated video games.
Or run governments.
While I won't say whether I agree with the war or not, a spontaneous parody is definitely in order.
In A.D. 2003
War was beginning.
Saddam: What happen?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal
Saddam: What!
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's you! We met in the '80s!
RUMSFELD: How are you gentlemen!!
RUMSFELD: All your Iraq are belong to U.S.
RUMSFELD: We are on the way to your weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam: What you say!!
RUMSFELD: You have no chance to survive make your time.
RUMSFELD: Ha Ha Ha Ha...
We're talking about the government with supposedly the most intelligence in possession of the most WMDs, the biggest army
I believe that Russia is actually the country documented with the most WMD, their biological reserves are quite vast.
I do not think the US Army is the largest, it was China the last time I checked.
they start a level three alert over a goddamned video game character
Level three alert? I must have missed this important distinction. Further, how do we even know this is true? Looking at the other stories on this web site carrying the story makes you wonder how much of it is just sensational BS.
...WMD.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Come on folks, don't be naive. Just because this guy is a video game character does not make him any less a threat to national security. Do we really need another 9/11-style attack before we wake up? Remember after 9/11 when it turned out that the Sesame Street character Bert (of Ernie and Bert) was working closely with Osama bin Laden? Now I don't know a lot about this Don Emilio guy but I will feel much safer when he is locked away in Guantanamo, or at least huddling in a cave in Pakistan somewhere taunting us with audio tapes while American bombs explode nearby....
On March 1 1990, the offices of Steve Jackson Games, in Austin, Texas, were raided by the U.S. Secret Service as part of a nationwide investigation of data piracy... More than three years later, a federal court awarded damages and attorneys' fees to the game company...
The EFF also has a Top Ten most mis-reported elements of the case:
This instance with Sega's fictional character, though embarassing for the FBI, is certainly preferable to the above.
_________________________
I long for the day when Google stops asking me, "Did you mean: inigo rage"
We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
From the (extremely brief) article it sounds like the system put in place to evaluate threats worked. A potential threat was identified somehow, then dismissed once it was turned out to be a nonthreat. Its not like any action beyond evaluation was taken. Even if the "potential threat" in this case was a videogame character, I would prefer to have a human being make that call then let some automated search engine do the screening based on some rules. Whatever automated system they are using is probably only designed to identify potential threats, not evaluate them.
Meanwhile, the real Don Emilio Fulci is laughing his ass off in his secret lair. "All it took was a few million dollars in bribes at Sega to have myself added to a video game, then a careful leak to the FBI. Now no US government agent will dare to say that he suspects Emilio Fulci. BWAHAHAHA!" :^)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
History shows that war on any common noun does not go well. Where are we with the war on drugs? How's that war on poverty going?
For a war to really get traction and be effect it needs to be against a Person or Place, not just a Thing.
He had weapons.
In the early nineties, sure. And then nearly all of it was destroyed, correct? By the U.N.? Did he a) have weapons in 2003 and b) directly threatened the United States, and did he c) have the technological capability to achieve that threat?
The world told him to show proof that he had disarmed. He didn't. The only safe assumption a Commander in Chief could make based on that evidence is that he still has the weapons. Anthrax just does not dissappear, after all.
So, if I ask Cuba to show me proof that it has no military capability to attack the US, and they don't comply, my only option is to invade the country?
Sometimes I wonder if people are listening to the same President Bush.
I heard he can talk even when Cheney drinks water.
Both Bush and Blair were very clear that we must act BEFORE Iraq can plan to use the weapons- BEFORE they became an immenent threat. Its too late to act if he already has a gun pointed at our head.
Owning a gun is not a crime. Pointing it at someone is. Or, does this only apply to oil-bearing nations?
Iraq has known terrorist connections- they have been on the State Dept list of Terror Sponsering States for 15 years. We should have acted against that threat a lot sooner than we did.
Here are the others on that list: Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. How many of those countries were involved in the 9-11 attacks? Oh, that's right - none. Something tells me we need a new list.
Iraq was in violation of 17 Chapter VII UN resolutions as well as the cease-fire from the first Gulf War that required them to disarm. Iraq had shown that they are willing to use their WMDs.
Sounds like a UN problem to me. We acted unilaterally because? And they had used WMDs on foreigners when? I mean, besides the Iran war where the Reagan Administration trained them and sold them their first WMDs.
If I remember correctly, a nation is allowed to do whatever it wants inside it's own borders. Little thing those "big-time reporters" call sovereignty.
Iraq had just tried to illegally expand their borders...
Which threatened the US in what way?
Iraq is sitting on some of the richest natural resources in the world to finance almost anything that they would like.
Again, if you find the pieces needed to make a bomb inside my house - like alcohol, fertilizer, and household cleaners - it doesn't mean that I'm going to make a bomb. If you find plans to make one, and a hit list, and a preperation area, then you can arrest me for conspiring. You can't kill people if they have "the ability to conspire." It's too vague, and basically is a license to kill anyone the government doesn't like.
McVeigh was from New York- should we invade New York also? At least Saudi Arabia revoked bin Laden's citizenship. Unless maybe you have some special insider knowledge about the Saudi Royal family?
Well, if fifteen people from New York City area were involved, I'd want some action from the NYPD. The Saudis did not see a single bad word out of Bush's mouth. They revoked bin Laden's citizenship in 1994, not after 9-11. After 9-11, not a single person in Saudi Arabia was arrested and delivered to the US. Is it your belief that the only people from Saudi Arabia involved in the attacks were the original 15?
I am glad that the man in charge of protecting our national security DOES have the balls to act when necessary.
Iraq, besides the two Gulf wars, has killed zero US Citizens. Al Queda killed 3,000, and so far, in a year of occupation, no document has linked Al Queda and the old Iraqi government. Saudi Arabia didn't receive so much as a slap on the wrists.
Bush has the balls to look like he has balls, but that's about it.
Actually, the US does get intelligence from CNN. CNN is actualy very good at ferreting out information other civilian organizations can't get, and often manages to get information before most of the US gets it... the Marines who went ashore in Somalia damn near killed a CNN camera crew that was there to greet them.