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Does Anonymity In Virtual Worlds Breed Terrorism?

Posted by samzenpus on from the threat-of-the-week dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes "The Washington Post has an article about the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity's take on the numerous virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life) that have cropped up in recent years. IARPA's thesis is that because the Government can't currently monitor all the communication and interaction, terrorists will plot and scheme in such environments."

9 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. Somebody's getting paid for writing this crap @WP by rant64 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Any more rediculous sensationalist statements? Sjeesj. I don't know about you people, but I'm not living out my life fearing the next, so-called terrorist, action.
     
    Bye! Gotta get to work.

    --
    MMO Vampire Role Playing
  2. Re:Monitor this! by arivanov · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Are you sure that they cannot? I recall a brilliant joke on the subject from the days of KDS, KGB and Stazi: What is one bulgarian? A bandit. Two bulgarians? A gang Three bulgarians? A gang with an informer. As far as using virtual worlds and so on for terrorism plotting a plot nurtured in Sadville will remain a wankoff. I would be much more worried about a plot nurtured in a cafana with the morning coffee and a Hooka pipe.

    --
    Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
    http://www.sigsegv.cx/
  3. Re:Virtual Security by Crypto+Gnome · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anonymity breeds terrorism. end of sentence. Oddly enough, last time I looked, your vote was anonymous.

    Expect that to be severly curtailed real soon, too.
    --
    Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
  4. Fewer legal protections for MMO players by jjohnson · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Unlike telephone communications or bank records, there are few, if any, regulations covering privacy in MMOs. If terrorists are clever enough to figure out using the drafts folder of a hotmail account for communicating, they're clever enough to figure out that Blizzard probably won't even ask for a subpoena, they'll just record the keystrokes of anyone the NSA asks them to.

    --
    Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
  5. Re:Being a Government breeds Terrorism by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Interesting

    War is the terror of the strong.
    Terror is the war of the weak.

    It's just that simple. It's amazing how people can cry for capital punishment with the argument "What if it was your child that was murdered?" and not understand the mindset of a terrorist, who is basically in the same camp.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  6. Re:no more than anonymity in the real world... by Sique · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Which means, that Vietnam as defending champion (they got the title against the French in 1956) still carries the title.

    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  7. Re:Back in the day... by pacinpm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Back in the day, folks figured out a response: give the snoopers what they want. Many people (me included) put words like 'bomb' etc. into our .sig files, so that even mundane e-mails about boring crap would trigger the sensors and get recorded. I am certain that Uncle Sam really enjoyed my discussions with my room mate about laundry and coffee ("Take out your laundry you freak, and buy some coffee!"). Yes it would work, unless:
    1. Government bans such activities because it is disrupting work of government agencies.
    2. Government bans encryption (unless using NSA approved algorithms or keys).
    From what I read USA is not far from it.
  8. Privacy != terrorism by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "IARPA's thesis is that because the Government can't currently monitor all the communication and interaction, terrorists will plot and scheme in such environments."


    Are they seriously trying to imply that we won't be safe unless the government can monitor all communication, all the time? I.e. that any kind of privacy breeds terrorism?
    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  9. Re:no more than anonymity in the real world... by msuarezalvarez · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It is not very difficult to imagine USian strategists telling each other precisely that before their involvement in Vietnam... See how well it went.