WoW Gamer Earns Federal Investigation Achievement

barnyjr writes "A teenager could face federal charges after investigators say he made online threats to kill Americans on a plane from Indianapolis to Chicago. According to investigators, a monitor of the online interactive game World of Warcraft saw the alleged threats in an on-line chat and called Johnson County authorities. She told investigators the chatter didn't seem like a game." I'm not sure who's crazier, this guy or the guy who just became the first World of Warcraft player to rack up 10,000 achievement points.

Comments

Watch Your Trash Talk!

[MarkvW]

Loose lips will earn you a stay in FEDERAL PRISON. Informers are everywhere . . . and they're looking at you.
Who's got the samizdat??????

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Loose lips? Some jackass made stupidly specific threats against a major flight in the US.

How the fuck should they have responded? Ignore it on the likely chance its some jackass kid, or you know, actually follow up and do their fucking jobs.

I can just imagine the stink you would have posted in the alternate universe of slashdot where the kid is credible and the authorities do ignore it. "Oh how they've failed us. Look, all show, no substance. We need competent security people!"

You're the kind of jackass that will just play devil's advocate with any fucking thing. You first get indignant that there is no measure of increased security only the illusion of such. But then get start throwing around gestapo allusions when they actually do their fucking job and demonstrate that they're actively promoting security.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[RuBLed]

I say, WoW players should vamp up that kind of talk in the game and flood it to make the monitor's life harder. In the end it would just become a common thing. Take that! (I guess they gave up monitoring 4chan by now)

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Anonymous Coward]

listen, numbnuts, what kind of person blows up an airplane after posting about it on WoW?

fuck you and your censorship. if i ever see you in person ill kick you in the nuts so hard you'll fly up into a jetliner engine

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, you just threatened to crash a plane. Be worried -- very worried.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[jipn4]

How the fuck should they have responded? Ignore it on the likely chance its some jackass kid

Yes.

Oh how they've failed us. Look, all show, no substance. We need competent security people!

Why does everybody think they have a right to be safe everywhere?

And why is it the government's responsibility to make a private trip in a privately owned airplane safe for you, pay for all that security with my tax dollars, and use intrusive government means as part of security?

Make airline security exclusively an airline responsibility: no tax dollars and no governmental intrusions anymore. And I bet if companies had to pay the full consequences of terrorism, they'd find ways to make sure it didn't happen.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Goldberg's Pants]

I find this amusing in a way. Investigation for making threats against the plane, but the people I've seen on there seeing about killing Obama... Not a damn thing.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Trahloc]

I like your idea, problem is corps don't have the right to secure their planes the way they'd like to, only the government can make you a meat puppet. So I'm against the idea of making someone responsible for something that they don't have the rights to secure themselves against. And if we give them the rights to do that ... well ... perhaps cyberpunk isn't too far off and Shadowrun will become reality... that'd rock.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Opportunist]

They had to. After the fifth person was sent to the mental ward, not even money could convince any sane, normal person that monitoring 4chan is worth the price. :)

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[WiiVault]

You must be more intelligent than this post would suggest. A specific threat like this should always be investigated. I'm sure you would feel differently if you had friends or family aboard that flight.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Opportunist]

Ignore it? They can't. Not because something might happen. The chance is insignificant that any banter on any MMO is actually terrorists plotting the end of the world. But the media will chew them apart if they don't react. How could they ignore it! They knew it! That GM told the authorities and they just didn't do anything about it! The horrorz, incompetent gubernant!

Yes, it's insane, but this was actually the sane thing to do. Or, let's say, the most sensible. What are the possible outcomes? That it's some kid making a dumb remark on a game, chance close to 100 percent, fallout negligible. Maybe it's in the news for a day, most likely though it's going to be reported once (if that), or it flips by in the ticker. That it's a real terrorist plot, chance close to zero, but if you ignore it you'll be chewed out for weeks and months.

What would you do?

Yes, the world's absolutely gone nuts. Blame the media, if anyone. You think ouf government is fond of spending money it doesn't have on things that are so bloody unlikely that no sane person would consider it? They are not. But they're even less fond of being called ignorant.

The same applies to schools that suspend you for silly remarks or CPS reacting to overblown allegation of too curious neighbors. They know what they do is nuts and exaggerated. But they all dread the "they knew but didn't act" coverage in the minuscle chance that this might be real.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Xest]

I know in your world they should've probably taken him from his home, maybe tortured him with some waterboarding a bit, coerced a confession and then sent him to Guantanamo.

But in the civilised world that's not how things are done, at best the security services should've sent someone to observe him. If he really and truly was a threat they'd have wanted to catch him with equipment that can make a bomb, or worst case on the way to the airport with a bomb or whatever so that they could secure a conviction without trouble.

Instead they've wasted more resources and time going after the kid, who made some throw away comments, they're going to go through legal process anyway because they have to now or risk being sued for harassment, they now have to pretend they had good reason to investigate, but will eventually have to drop the investigation.

The issues here are:
- Even if he was a terrorist, the response was an idiotic one
- The fact he isn't a terrorist could've been confirmed in a much more tactful manner
- More tax payers cash was wasted than need be
- Further respect was lost for US security services, it's a boy who cried wolf scenario that they keep repeating. When they really need help and really need to be listened to no one will care.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[dunkelfalke]

What's next on the line? Jail time for political jokes?

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Vlado]

While more often than not I would tend to agree with your point of view, it should be considered just how far this attitude can be carried.

Would this idea of government non-interference extend to a scenario where someone heard a scream from a neighboring apartment and called a police on an off-chance that there might be a murder in progress and not a TV show? Would it go so far as to extend to a situation in a bar where someone is screaming in your face that they're gonna kick your ass all the way down to Antarctica and you would say: "well nothing to do here since the bar doesn't have a security guard"?

Don't tell me that if you go to a bar you don't have a right to expect to be safe. With some exceptions, I believe that most of the bar owners would say that they count on you to feel safe in their establishment.

I do agree that there are places and situations where the government doesn't have it's place, but security isn't one of them.
If anything I would prefer to have most of the private security firms replaced by real police with real training, responsibility and accountability. I know that this statement sounds naive but a lot of security companies are simply a collaboration of thugs, looking for an excuse to beat someone up if they're having a bad day/night at work.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[damburger]

Yes, because the best approach to rational government is to make all decisions from the perspective of people who are personally, emotionally compromised in their judgment. Fucking retard.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[fatalwall]

don forget about the settlement cost for harassment, etc, etc

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Kreigaffe]

Your post doesn't make sense. Did you even *browse* TFA? Kid's 18 years old, first of all, that's not a kid. That's an adult, it's reported as a kid because it's more SHOCKING! if the police are wasting time over a kid than a legal adult. SPIN!
Don't forget there's been several cases recently where postings were made on the internet shortly before somebody like this kid DID go on a killing spree. I'm sure you remember that right? There is precedent for people boasting about serious crimes that will result in loss of life in their chosen favorite online hang-out before the fact. The kid also stated that he had heard making a threat like that would get the cops at your door and wanted to test it, so I'm going to guess he said a bit more than "I'M GONNA BLOW UP A PLANE LOLZ".

I completely fail to see how you could think that if he was a terrorist that the response was idiotic. What would YOU have done? Sent somebody to observe him, when the threat was he would be blowing up a plane the NEXT MORNING? I'm sorry? Fact of the matter is, he singled out a specific plane and a specific time, and that crosses the threshold from throw-away threat in to actual threat. This is no different than making a posting somewhere that in the morning you're going to shoot up your school (hai2u 4chan), or walking through a mall and being overheard telling somebody that you're going to blow up the library at XYZ address first thing Monday morning.

Stop acting like this kid's been mistreated. He deserves what he gets for acting a fool. He's not a kid, he's a god damned adult, he should know better than to do something like this.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Skuld-Chan]

The corporations would just do a cost benefit analysis and figure out how much it really costs if a plane is taken over by fanatical terrorists and then provide the minimum amount of security necessary to financially mitigate that risk.

There still is a public concern over this actually - for instance what if a guy wanted to fly a plane into a populated area or building?

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[selven]

a lot of security companies are simply a collaboration of thugs, looking for an excuse to beat someone up if they're having a bad day/night at work.

And that differs from the FBI/NSA/DEA how?

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Jurily]

corps don't have the right to secure their planes the way they'd like to

Whose idea was that passengers must be conscious during the trip, anyway?

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[cthulu_mt]

Obama calls it the Fairness Doctrine.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[RedK]

He's not old enough to drink alcool yet. Also eighTEEN means he's a teenager, not an adult.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[TheLink]

The FBI/NSA/DEA report to the government the US voters apparently elected.

Whereas the other bunch of thugs don't.

They might all be thugs but there's still a slight difference.

That and the former probably get more taxpayer money :).

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Xest]

"Don't forget there's been several cases recently where postings were made on the internet shortly before somebody like this kid DID go on a killing spree. I'm sure you remember that right? There is precedent for people boasting about serious crimes that will result in loss of life in their chosen favorite online hang-out before the fact."

There isn't a precedent for terrorist attacks on aircraft being announced on World of Warcraft, or in fact anywhere, before they happen. Large well funded terrorist groups can't even pull it off nowadays even with extremely small sleeper cells as their actors, so what makes you think a lone kid announcing it beforehand on a computer game could? At best we have a precendent of bomb attacks on buildings being announced to the police beforehand, not on World of Warcraft.

"I completely fail to see how you could think that if he was a terrorist that the response was idiotic."

That's because you appear to only be capable of irrational thought.

"What would YOU have done? Sent somebody to observe him, when the threat was he would be blowing up a plane the NEXT MORNING? I'm sorry? Fact of the matter is, he singled out a specific plane and a specific time, and that crosses the threshold from throw-away threat in to actual threat."

How do you think he was going to get past airport security? Particularly if they were aware there was a threat against the plane?

The kid was no threat regardless, a lone kid just does not have the resources to pull off the kind of terrorist plot being implied here.

But what if it wasn't a lone kid? what if he was part of a network? Sure, go and arrest him - good luck finding the other people in the network after that though.

Real terrorists are now well aware (although they probably were anyway) that communication via WoW isn't safe, real terrorists will now not be caught out this way.

Many more kids will try this stunt as a joke on WoW and various other places on the internet. Security services will be tied up with countless wastes of time that they need to investigate to be sure (although presumably they've learnt their lesson so wont waste quite as many resources on it and will be a bit more tactful now) and in general, all they have achieved in arresting this kid is a massive home goal.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[thesandtiger]

I think the line I have in my mind is:

Threats to people should be protected by "real" police with the authority to use serious force. If you pose a real threat to the physical safety of other people (life, limb, etc) it's justifiable to use deadly force to prevent that threat in the most extreme cases.

Threats to property should be protected by the people who benefit financially from that property, and the force allowed should be limited to non-lethal means, and non-permanent. Catch 'em and turn 'em over to the civil authorities, but the civil authorities should NOT have to provide the protection in the first place.

A plane full of people is a piece of private property, but if it is damaged unduly in flight, people are at risk; the government should therefore take steps to secure it, up to and including deadly force if necessary. Note that I'm absolutely NOT saying that the way flights are protected now is anything but an absolute joke - anyone with an IQ over 80 could likely come up with dozens of ways to inflict mass casualties without even engaging the airline security.

On the case of the idiot this story is about - I think one of the ways to *actually* provide security is pre-emptively investigating potential threats. This kid certainly wasn't a potential threat (though I bet it was funny to watch him pee a little when they came to get him - I often wish Barrens-chat could be punishable by arrest and cavity search). What I *am* glad about is that we're hearing about it, rather than the kid just ... disappeared.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Kreigaffe]

So 18 year olds aren't adults, huh? That's funny. You're funny. Ha ha. See, I'm laughing. Ha.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Kreigaffe]

Sure, it's pretty clear NOW that there was no actual threat. Doesn't change the fact that there WAS a specific threat made. If we were to use your logic, any time there's a bomb threat called in to a school it should just be ignored, right? The likelihood of it being real is pretty low. And heck, let's not even investigate it at all, KIDS WILL BE KIDS amirite?

Bombs can be snuck on to planes, and without investigating the matter at all there's no way of telling if this was just someone running their mouth or some kind of weirdo's legitimate threat. It's not like it took a huge amount of money to investigate. He mouths off in the trade channel, someone reports him, a Blizzard GM sees this and hey, wouldn't you know, they have his credit card info. Call the local cops where he lives and they go check it out. No more money was wasted on this than had there been a NOISE COMPLAINT called in on his place.
In other words, the cost of looking into the matter was very low, but the potential cost of ignoring it could have been high. Without knowing anything other than Person X at Address Y made Threat Z, there's no real way to verify if it's a legit threat or not.
Matter of fact, I'd be willing to bet that the cost of sending cops over to this ADULT's apartment was lower than the total cost for increased security the day of the threat would have been.
So be happy. They arrested some irresponsible asshole AND saved money.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[AndersOSU]

Why libertarianism doesn't work:
The downside cost of an action (or failure to act) can be greater to society than the individual actor is capable of reimbursing, while the upside benefit of so acting (or failing to so act) can be substantial.

Remember the financial crisis after 911? From an airlines cost/benefit perspective it's better to scrimp on security, because they personally are unlikely to recoup the cost of security expenditures. However, if even a single airline has sufficiently lax security to attract a terrorist strike, the cost to society as a whole is astronomical. Meanwhile, that one airline folds as soon as it is sued, and your 401(k) suffers.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[xednieht]

Damn straight!!!! Mod parent up +10.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jaunt

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Xest]

"Bombs can be snuck on to planes"

lol yeah okay then. If there's a specific threat against a specific plane and airport security is aware of it, no one is going to be getting a bomb on that plane. No additional costs are incurred because security will be doing their job anyway, perhaps just being told to be more alert for that day and be alert for a specific person. Have you ever actually been to an airport in recent years?

You've got a poor understanding of costs involved in these things if you think a simple low ranking police stakeout is more expensive than an arrest, interrogation, the paper work that goes with it, referal to the FBI, the FBI investigation that's now going on and the costs at the US attorneys office to investigate whether charges should be brought. If they are, there's the cost of the case itself too.

I see you conveniently ignore the point that in the event this was a real threat that this would be the worst possible way to go about handling it because it could potential send a cell underground or disrupt evidence gathering?

No, the fact is everything about how it handled was amateurish. As a result it was little more than a waste of money. It could've been handled much better, much more professionally, and ultimately with lower costs.

You do not appear to understand the extent of the costs this will have drawn and similarly do not seem to understand the logistics required for the type of attack the kid was claiming. You also do not seem to understand the sorts of profiles attached to people who do bomb planes - hint: they're not people who blurt it out on World of Warcraft on a public channel. This is partly related to the resources required for the attack - again, no one is going to spend all that time, planning and money simply to blurt it out on WoW.

I know the Bush administration have spent the last few years fear mongering telling you there's a terrorist at every corner, but christ, there are people that actually fall for it? Prior to 9/11 this kid would not have been arrested, this would hence not be news, but one attack in the last decade on US soil means everyone's a terrorist? talk about a paranoid nation.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[Anonymous Coward]

problem is corps don't have the right to secure their planes the way they'd like to,

Horseshit.

They are 100% free to install, for example, bulletproof/bombproof doors to the cockpits, but they don't. Why? It would mean more weight and thus less people on a flight, resulting in lower profits. Even with all of the government funding, the assholes STILL can't keep accurate track of your luggage. Why? Because they are too cheap to put a simple RFID tag on each one- most retail stores keep better track of their inventory than the airlines.

The government sets the minimum safety standards, the airlines are more than welcome to exceed them. The only restrictions involve the use of firearms, but most of the flight crews and airlines are against arming their staff in the first place, so that's a moot point as well.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[vertinox]

A specific threat like this should always be investigated. I'm sure you would feel differently if you had friends or family aboard that flight.

If every specific threat was investigated, it would only take a well financed terrorist organization to swamp all the investigators with false positives by paying people over in 3rd world internet cafe $0.01 per threat.

Just saying...

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[moeinvt]

The first argument is a very interesting point. Well said. I'm going to reflect on that at length when I have some free time.

As for your example, it's ridiculous to argue that a political philosophy is somehow fundamentally broken because s specific implementation might not guarantee a utopian outcome. e.g. Are you willing to throw out The U.S. Constitution and the phlosophical ideas of democracy and republic just because the criminals who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks were able to do so within our system of government? That makes so sense. By that rationale, every political philosophy ever invented likewise "doesn't work".

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[GameMaster]

I believe that would be the FDA and the AMA as, to the best of my knowledge, they have yet to authorize a drug or technique that makes knocking someone out 100% safe. Reactions to anesthetics (the way doctors knock people out for surgery) are one of the most well known ways that people die during, even mundane, surgery. Even when the surgery works, there is an anesthesiologist there the whole time monitoring the patient's condition. This is the real world, not fantasy. Just because the rest of the A-Team gave BA a shot every time they needed to take a flight doesn't mean it's a realistic technique that could be done to every airplane passenger.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[DurendalMac]

Haha, that's the first thing that came to mind!

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[AndersOSU]

The example is a specific rebuttal to the GP's assertion that we should let airlines handle their own security. I'm not dismissing libertarianism only on the one example, I'm dismissing it based on the general principle I laid out. I could offer dozens of examples to support this, for instance, particualrly timely are Liehman/AIG, Bernie Madoff, and countrywide financial.

Socialized risk and privitized reward is the worst of all worlds. And since some risk is always going to be socialized, since the individuals will be unable to fully account for their actions even after we level our most sever punishmets (see Bernie Madoff again) some level of regulation is absolutely essential. This is true in enviornmental cases (superfund), economic cases (glass-steagall), and security cases (airlines).

I am in no way requiring that we "throw out the constitution." I'm making the case that some level of security at airports is necessary. If you find the airport search to be "unreasonable," you're free to find alternate travel arrangements. That is not to say that any measure is acceptable. We're seeing some pushback on millimeter wave technology, and one can hope that someday the TSA will get their head out of their asses and stop making me take off my shoes and give up my cologne. But even if those measures are frustrating and useless, they are not unconstitutional.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[jipn4]

Would this idea of government non-interference extend to a scenario

Who said anything about "government non-interference"? The government can interfere... once there has been a crime. It should hold the airline liable for not providing enough security.

With some exceptions, I believe that most of the bar owners would say that they count on you to feel safe in their establishment.

And they hire and pay for the necessary security themselves.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[jipn4]

The downside cost of an action (or failure to act) can be greater to society than the individual actor is capable of reimbursing

The government can require insurance or sufficient funds to cover the costs.

From an airlines cost/benefit perspective it's better to scrimp on security, because they personally are unlikely to recoup the cost of security expenditures.

Not if they are actually held liable.

Meanwhile, that one airline folds as soon as it is sued, and your 401(k) suffers.

Not if they are required to insure each other.

I don't mind airline regulation. I mind the government giving airlines freebies or providing private security services.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[AndersOSU]

AIG was selling insurance. Insurance is no substitute for regulation because it is at least as easy to game as the system you're insuring.

No one is capable of insuring against the next 9/11, the next sub-prime mortgage crisis, or the next dot-com bust.

See also: cost accounting and risk analysis of nuclear power.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[mypalmike]

"And why is it the government's responsibility to make a private trip in a privately owned airplane safe for you, pay for all that security with my tax dollars, and use intrusive government means as part of security?"

Someone called the police because of a perceived threat of murder. Yes murder, that's what it would be if the threat was real and carried out. In general, threats of violence are not covered by the 1st amendment. That is where police come in: a law was broken. This is outside the domain of private security.

Anyhow, the police responded by investigating and finding the man who broke the law by making the threat. They arrested him, which means they got a warrant to do so. He is now in the hands of the criminal justice system, which will probably end up going lightly on him because the threat was apparently idle.

There are certainly times when police officers overstep their boundaries and such, but this is a case where, as far I can see, the police did their jobs properly.

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[morari]

If anything I would prefer to have most of the private security firms replaced by real police with real training, responsibility and accountability. I know that this statement sounds naive but a lot of security companies are simply a collaboration of thugs, looking for an excuse to beat someone up if they're having a bad day/night at work.

I still fail to see the difference between the two...

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[jipn4]

AIG was selling insurance. Insurance is no substitute for regulation because it is at least as easy to game as the system you're insuring.

What's there to "game"? Once an incident occurs, the insurance company pays, period. Insurance companies, like airlines, need to be regulated and supervised. They should not, however, get government subsidies for their day-to-day activities. In particular, they should not get government subsidies for providing security.

No one is capable of insuring against the next 9/11

Why not? The WTC itself was insured. Insuring things that cost a few billion dollars is pretty commonplace. And flying planes into the WTC is pretty much a worst case scenario.

The real problem is that insurance costs aren't high enough: airlines should be liable for millions of dollars per passenger lost in accidents or terrorism.

the next sub-prime mortgage crisis, or the next dot-com bust.

What do they have to do with this discussion?

Re:Watch Your Trash Talk!

[AndersOSU]

The game is selling insurance policies that you can't cover. Sure we could (should) regulate credit default swaps, OR we could just regulate the industry issuing the loans so we can be reasonably certain that they're not taking on unreasonable levels of bad loans. It's a whole lot easier to audit a portfolio of mortgage loans than it is to audit a pile of mortgage backed securities hedged with credit default swaps. It's financial obfuscation, and the CDSs (insurance) makes it harder to untangle the real risks. It's been widely reported that Lehman was leveraged 40:1 before it went bust, doesn't it make more sense to say don't bet 40 times your capital reserves on the shitty tranches of shitty mortgages, then to just say, "do whatever you want" but be sure to buy insurance... Buying insurance just moves the risk up a level. If a company needs insurance because it might make bad business decisions, who covers the insurance company when it makes the bad business decision to cover bad investments? (AIG issuing CDSs on MBSs) The idea that buying insurance decreases financial risk is the business equivalent of declaring that "it's turtles all the way down."

EVEN IF AIG were able to cover it's obligations, that would only protect the financial institutions who owned a stake of the mortgages. It wouldn't do a damn thing to stop or even stem foreclosures or any of the other less immediate bad effects of of the sub-prime melt down. People would still be losing their homes and going bankrupt, which drives down consumer spending which causes the economy to tank. The people issuing, selling, bundling, and reselling MBS don't care about all those less immediate effects, the only care if they can make a profit in 2 weeks on a horribly tangled and complicated pile of 30 mortgages by selling it off to the next sucker before it starts to stink too badly. Insurance makes that more likely, not less, and insurance in this case helped the economic meltdown.

The same story can be told about 9/11 or the savings and loan crisis. Everyone covered their bases with insurance, but no one was looking out for the system as a whole. Insurance covers individual, not systematic risks. Airlines (or more accurately airlines insurers) ARE liable for millions per passenger lost. All told there was somewhere around $40 billion in insurance payouts resulting from 9/11 - but that didn't stop us from entering an 8 month recession which ended up resulting in far greater loses than the $40 billion that was directly covered.

What do they have to do with this discussion?

The sub-prime meltdown wouldn't have been possible without AIG offering insurance hedges, the dot-com bust isn't directly related, but failures of regulation with Enron, MCI, are closely linked.

We don't need to insurance for people who do stupid things with far reaching consequences, we need to stop those people from doing stupid things.

Achmed the Dead Terrorist

[Anonymous Coward]

I kill you!

Re:Achmed the Dead Terrorist

[conspirator57]

it's "keel", not "kill".

With what?

[Tykho]

I heard he was Herbalism/Alchemy, he lacked the profession with the means to blow up anything!

Re:With what?

[jbacon]

orly? Or he could just pop a Flask of Pure Death and chuck some mad fireballs. I'm pretty sure a plane is worth flasking for.

Re:With what?

[Opportunist]

IIRC it's engineering or something like that, you know, where you can make explosives out of rags and some magic powder. It's been a while, though.

Re:With what?

[rarel]

orly?

"Orly" also happens to be an airport in France. THIS IS NO ACCIDENT SIR.

Had to read the whole damn thing!

[icebike]

Took careful reading to figure out the teenager did not make the threat while he was on the plane.

"a monitor of the online interactive game" saw words go buy in the chat log.

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[Hangin10]

Words made a purchase of goods or services?

I did not know they could do that these days. 'round these parts that would not be tolerated.

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[Anonymous Coward]

"a monitor of the online interactive game" saw words go buy in the chat log.

What's "a monitor"? Are there live people paid to monitor the game, or do the in-game communication channels get "monitored" automatically somehow? Or maybe it was a fluke, and he happened to have a GM watching that channel just at the right time. Having played the game I find the idea of such "monitors" pretty scary.

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[Yaur]

Probably some tard in trade and "monitor" means GM.

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[Xest]

There was some talk in the news a year or so back about how security services were afraid of terrorists using online chat in games and such to organise.

Who wants a bet the "monitor" was actually another NSA (or similar) program data mining chat logs rather than just someone seeing it on the off chance?

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but if the actions of security services in various countries across the world have taught us anything this last 5 or so years, it's that the measures they'll go to are suprising - from the Russian FSB murdering Litvinenko in London, to the NSA warantless wiretaps program, to the shooting of Menezes on the tube in London and the subsequent "dissapearance" of the CCTV tapes, to the use of torture by the CIA, and now it appears almost certainly MI5 too.

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[damburger]

Its somebody who gets paid to play WoW all day, on the taxpayers money, and all they have to do is toss some dumb kid to a SWAT team every now and then to justify their existence.

If the UK intelligence agencies require someone in a similar role over here, I am going to apply. Level 80 counterterrorist LFG!

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[Kreigaffe]

Wat. Stop making baseless conjecture and passing it off as fact, your post is in no way correct.

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[blueg3]

Actually, researchers and federal agencies monitor WoW chat -- perhaps partly to catch things like this, but mostly for strange sociological studies.

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's doubtful it was the NSA, there is no way to look at the records of logs unless your a Blizzard employee. It's likely that a GM saw the text, and it's probably in their policies that anything that looks suspicious be reported. It's the same kind of deal if you say "I'm going to kill myself" in WoW. You'll get a visit by your local police because Blizzard doesn't want to have that kind of liablity or PR nightmare that someone committed suicide but Blizzard knew about it ahead of time and had the means to stop it.

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, we're interested, come find us.

We'll know who you are when you get here, Steven.

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[megamerican]

Wat. Stop making baseless conjecture and passing it off as fact, your post is in no way correct.

Get your head out of the sand please. He is probably correct. The most paranoid conspiracy theorist is the government.

U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft

UK Government Needs $20 Billion for Increased Spying Program

FBI Looking For Moles For GOP Convention Protestors

That commenter on your blog may actually be working for the Israeli government

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[conspirator57]

don't worry, it'll soon be a SWAT-worthy experience to advocate voting for someone not of the dominant political part(y/ies).

Soon, even gatherings that are completely peaceful and unlikely to change anything will make people eligible for indefinite detention. e.g. these people(http://www.wow.com/2008/01/03/ron-pauls-world-of-warcraft-rally/)

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[sumdumass]

It wouldn't really matter is there was an NSA type watching the game and chat logs. You have no idea if the person next to you is a cop on duty or off or some government spy or some researcher trolling for information on behavioral patterns. As long as they are not cheating to get access, it doesn't matter any more then it does that you might be part of the game.

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[j_edge]

Actually, yes it does. If they are monitoring it in an official capacity as a member of the NSA they are breaking the law.

Then again, it's likely the law has been changed in some sekret room somewhere and we're just not aware of it yet, the same way they have rewritten the laws regarding torture, rendition, etc and the public has stood by and watched

Re:Had to read the whole damn thing!

[sumdumass]

No, they are not breaking the law. A cop can go anywhere a citizen can go that isn't restricted in some way. They can go into the grocery stores in an official capacity, they can hand out at the public pool or library or public park, there is no difference between that and an online game.

Noob

[Anonymous Coward]

See what participating in Barrens chat will get you?

Re:Noob

[killthepoor187]

you beat me to the barrens chat comment :O I wonder if maybe he was just sick of all the anal [item] jokes.

Re:Noob

[Shinmizu]

I'm a fan of the [item/quest] "in her panties" jokes myself. The most amusing one I've seen yet is "Mr. Floppy's Perilous Adventure" (in her panties). Yes, that's a real quest name.

Re:Noob

[Anonymous Coward]

After months of investigating, the NTSB concluded that it wasn't a bomb that took down the airplane after all... it was a roundhouse kick.

This is why...

[RuBLed]

I only talk to cutegirl8 and littlesarah whenever I'm playing WoW.

Re:This is why...

[Locke2005]

You do know cutegirl8 and littlesarah are both fat, balding, middle-aged men, don't you?

Level 80 Dwarf Paladin (over 10,000 Achievenets)

[moon3]

Food eaten most: Conjured Mana Strudel (5447)

So is this the WoW's secret doping formula?

No second chances...

[TiberSeptm]

..for poorly thought-out sentences hastily said/typed/written.

I really wish law enforcement, school officials, and the courts handled the fine gradiations between "stupid stuff kids say," "stupid stuff people, who should know better but apparently don't, say" and "real threats" better than they do. I remember a friend of mine getting suspended in elementary school for saying "I wish you would die" to someone who had been bullying them. Obviously the teary eyed little girl posed a real and imminent threat to the other kid who had at least 30 lbs on her. Then there was the guy in my freshman (high school) english class who was expelled and arrested for some poorly thought out sarcasm. The teacher had sent him to the in-school-suspension trailer for arguing with her about her grading policies. He was still pissed and was insulting her loudly as he left when she said something to the effect of "I feel like I've got the next unibomber right here. I hate watching little psychos like you go through here just knowing what you'll probably become." In response to this ridiculous thing for a teacher to say to a 14 year old student, he said "Oh right, like I'm going to put bomb in your mailbox or something. Are you f-ing nuts?"

Despite the fact that she had provoked him, that everyone in the class had attested to this and stated it was clear he was being sarcastic, he was still arrested for making threats and expelled from the county school district. I really wish our institutions were better at reacting appropriately to stuff like that. Maybe if they could tell real threats from stupid remarks we would be a lot safer from both the mentally unbalanced seeking to do us harm and our government's hamfisted attempts to look like it's doing something.

Re:No second chances...

[Anonymous Coward]

that teacher sounds like a fucking bitch. I hope that somebody does blow up her mailbox.

Re:No second chances...

[eiMichael]

Zero-Tolerance.

That's the word of the times. Even though with these policies we still had V-Tech, and other school shootings. It's all security theater to make the ignorant, distracted parents feel like their kids are safe. They'd rather hear terms like "zero-tolerance" than "after investigation that sarcastic remark made to your child was just that, sarcastic and hollow with no intention of following through with the threat."

Re:No second chances...

[Opportunist]

How about some "zero tolerance" on politicians? A politician caught taking bribes or (hey, when we crack down, let's crack down for real) lying, he gets suspended from office, infinitly.

That should teach them old punks!

Re:No second chances...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well yes, there's overreaction, but reading TFA this wasn't hastily said or written. Obviously not a terrorist, but:

According to the report, the teen told investigators he'd heard if you make threats online against a plane, the police would show up at your doorstep. The teen told investigators he was only testing that theory.

Yeah right, I was only testing a theory about yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater. And at 18, he should know better.

Re:No second chances...

[MindlessAutomata]

The teachers and school administration are actually bullies themselves, and are run by bullies. That's why they never seriously stop bullying (their own progeny!) and always crack down HARD on the bullied.

Re:No second chances...

[dunkelfalke]

you call that zero tolerance? according to current laws taking bribes should end in jail time, not just suspending from office.

Re:No second chances...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read the whole article? He wasn't just joking around or taken out of context. He WANTED the FBI to come to test some theory of "if you make threats online against a plane, the police would show up at your doorstep.". Before he even admitted to doing it, he lied and said his computer was hacked. This kid isn't right in the head if he thinks making threats against innocent people, regardless if it's legitimate or not, is acceptable.

Re:No second chances...

[damburger]

Sorry, got to pick you up on this. The 'fire in a crowded theatre' thing is bullshit for three reasons:

1. It was from a ruling against people distributing anti-draft literature in the first world war. A blatant violation of free speech

2. It was overturned just a few years later

3. It doesn't make sense anyway. Honestly, try yelling fire in a crowded theatre, I garuntee the worst that will happen is people chuck bits of their refreshments at you. It isn't the responsibility of a person not to yell 'fire', its the responsibility of all citizens not to panic and trample people to death at the first anonymous, unsubstantiated, cry of danger.

Even aside from you citing one of the biggest chucks of popular bullshit since 'theres no smoke without fire', why can't the kid test the bounds of liberty? He is more of a citizen than you are.

Re:No second chances...

[damburger]

What they say it is about is always, always irrelevant. With certain people in minor positions of power, anything that amounts to the word 'no' is a high crime and they will use every means at their disposal to crush you. Fortunately, such people often have less power than they believe they do. The world is, sadly, full of such small people.

Re:No second chances...

[CarpetShark]

I agreed with you (but thought it was all very obvious) up to this point:

I remember a friend of mine getting suspended in elementary school for saying "I wish you would die" to someone who had been bullying them.

Actually, I think it IS a horrible and dangerous attitude when a kid says something like that. It may not be much of a threat then, but it shows that the child is being allowed to mature without the necessary coping skills for teenage and adult relationships, which she'll one day have to deal with. I think the parent who taught the kid this kind of attitude should be focused on more than the kid, but definitely, I think kids with this sort of behaviour should be detected, taken aside, and taught a wiser approach to life.

You (and many slashdotters) might think this sounds like some 1984 style central control thing. However, really, if we don't do this, we're quite simply failing in fundamental aspects education that a child needs to know.

Re:No second chances...

[Opportunist]

Really? Must be one of those dead laws...

Re:No second chances...

[ZosX]

What's really sad is that he'll be facing federal felony charges if he is tried and convicted. Felony charges. For words. This country is out of hand. This is approaching thought crime, and I don't think I'm the only one that finds this disturbing. Just scare the kid and make him do a few hundred hours of community service. This isn't something that anybody needs to go to federal pound me in the ass prison at the sweet age of 18 over. When did all of our laws suddenly become felonies? Felonies really destroy your life. No passport, etc. You are a second class citizen, who has done their time, but gets to pay for their crime the rest of their life in oh so many ways. Sad really.

Re:No second chances...

[thisnamestoolong]

"It's all security theater to make the ignorant, distracted parents feel like their kids are safe."

Amen to that. Unfortunately, I think that this most likely has the opposite effect more often. It seems to me that a lot of these crimes are a result of a certain breed of sociopathy that is fostered by the increasing dehumanization in today's society. Things like "zero tolerance" policies only further remove the human element from the equation, which could potentially increase the likelihood of such events.*

*This is not, however, to exempt anyone from any crime. If you willfully harm another human being without just cause, you are personally responsible for it, regardless of any extenuating circumstances.

Re:No second chances...

[thisnamestoolong]

"Despite the fact that she had provoked him, that everyone in the class had attested to this and stated it was clear he was being sarcastic, he was still arrested for making threats and expelled from the county school district."

If this is true, I am absolutely appalled. I would like to think that there would be some sort of legal recourse for your friend -- did he try contacting the ACLU or any similar organizations? His civil liberties were unquestionably violated and he absolutely deserves restitution for the harm done to him. From the details provided I am not sure if his case would stand up in court, but if the teacher slandered him like that in front of the class, I think he could potentially have a case (if the issue were framed properly).

Re:No second chances...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well yeah, she's the teacher and is part of the union, she wasnt pissed or scared that he "made a threat" She was pissed because he made her look like a tool, and after witnessing a union rally, these teachers see themselves as infallible gods and the children are there to make them feel like god, anyone who isnt, is to be eliminated.

Zero Tolerance is also an excuse to put their heads in the sand rather than deal with problems, ship them away or off to someone else rather than tackle the issue. Someone hits you? Both of you get kicked out of school because it was a "fight" and OBVIOUSLY no one would just hit or hurt someone unprovoked, you evil little bastard!
I almost got kicked out of school, what saved me was a comment to the effect of "Fine, kick me out, I don't care anymore, this school plain out sucks anyway, first I have a racist counselor who favors a certain race and tells anyone not the same race as him that they're hopeless if they come to him, along with a IT technician who is constantly bothering me that you claim to have no authority over and that he's free to harass me. Then I'm also getting straight A's and not doing drugs. Yeah, gladly kick me out, because you just want failures here anyway. I'll just let the news media decide how this school is more of a prison than an educational institution."

Well, something to that effect, albeit in a much more pissed off manner. Brought the news media into play and they dismissed BOTH of us.

Though prior to that I had real thoughts about dropping out, especially how I set up my class schedule for the next semester like they said, just for them to ignore it and assign me a bunch of random classes that would have counted towards nothing.

Anyway, yeah, Zero Tolerance, and other "policies" the school system makes up to serve themselves. It feels like a prison.

Re:No second chances...

[Anonymous Coward]

All money should be taken away from them, forever.

Re:No second chances...

[Beve Jates]

The scary thing about zero-tolerance and the like is how easy it would be for someone to frame someone else. It would be relatively easy for someone to hack into a computer (or router; anything with the same IP), post a bunch of idle threats, and then leave no trace. I mean there are probably bugs in WoW (or insert <software> here) itself that will either let someone into your computer or let them post as you.

Then the owner is screwed for life. I mean it might be impossible to prove that you were framed.

It's just crazy.

Re:No second chances...

[GTarrant]

I agreed with you (but thought it was all very obvious) up to this point:

I remember a friend of mine getting suspended in elementary school for saying "I wish you would die" to someone who had been bullying them.

Actually, I think it IS a horrible and dangerous attitude when a kid says something like that. It may not be much of a threat then, but it shows that the child is being allowed to mature without the necessary coping skills for teenage and adult relationships, which she'll one day have to deal with. I think the parent who taught the kid this kind of attitude should be focused on more than the kid, but definitely, I think kids with this sort of behaviour should be detected, taken aside, and taught a wiser approach to life.

Sheesh. I remember when I was in either kindergarten or first grade, someone was bullying me, and I said to them "The world would be a better place if you were dead." They started crying (at the time, all I was thinking was "Ha! That stopped them."), and went to a teacher, who pulled me aside, and explained to me the actual ramifications of what I had said. Hell, I was in first grade. At that time parents still tell you that the dog "ran away" rather than died, and even if they had, you don't always understand at that age what death really means. But when the teacher told me that what I said was inappropriate, and I asked my parents about it later, I - at least as far as I could at that time - understood what was up and I didn't do it again. That's all that needed to happen. It makes me shiver to think that had that happened today - 20 years later - instead of then, it isn't unlikely that I'd have been hauled away and suspended.

I recall another case in 2nd grade where we were asked to draw a real flag we had seen (either in person or in pictures) that wasn't the American flag. Most people drew the state flag, or the Canadian or British flag. I didn't know any of those. I didn't even know the state flag at the time. But I had seen my parents watching a documentary on World War II (although I didn't really pay attention) so I drew the only other flag I knew - the Nazi one. The teacher took it away, pulled me aside and explained a bit about World War II, and that that particular flag wasn't appropriate, and told me to ask my parents about it when I got home, which I did, and it was clear that it wasn't really appropriate for school. Simple. She gave me a book of flags and I picke a different one and drew it. Kids really can be quite understanding if you give actual explanations beyond "BECAUSE WE SAID SO". Again, today, I'd probably have been expelled before even being told why what I had drawn was inappropriate.

I can think of numerous things that I saw happen to all sorts of students back in school where the "proper response" - the teacher/administrator coming in and being the 'adult' - led to long-standing resolutions where kids understood what was up. Things like suspension were rare and for the most severe cases. But these days you don't see it - the fear of lawsuits, the fear of decision-making, has led to a school culture where a single aspirin pill may as well be 2 kg of heroin, and a plastic knife may as well be a machine gun with cyanide-tipped bullets.

Re:No second chances...

[moeinvt]

"Actually, I think it IS a horrible and dangerous attitude when a kid says something like that. "

Did you notice the part about the kid being a teary-eyed little girl who had been the victim of a bully? What about the bully's attitude? The really screwed up person is the bully, and the parent who, through abuse or neglect allowed their kid to become a sadistic little bastard that would enjoy torturing smaller and weaker people.

". . . kids with this sort of behaviour should be detected, taken aside, and taught a wiser approach to life."

Kids shouldn't be subjected to the sort of abuse that would trigger the described emotional response! You're talking about "fundamental aspects of education" and you tacitly endorse brainwashing the VICTIM to develop "coping skills" for abuse? In a taxpayer funded institutional environment no less?

The HEALTHY response to the ignorance and injustice of bullying is violent, but non-lethal reprisal. The way to "cope" with injustice and threats to your safety is to FIGHT BACK. A child "needs to know" that there are evil people in our society, and you've got to take responsibility for your own well being. Negative feedbackis the only thing a bully understands. If I could re-live my childhood years from age 6 onward, I'd carry a baseball bat and beat the living $#!T out of the (bigger and older) morons that I had to deal with.

Bullying is a vastly under-recognized problem in our society, and our schools in particular. We take normal healthy kids, allow them to be subjected to 10 years of regular physical and emotional abuse, and then blame guns, video games and music when they finally reach their breaking point.

Re:No second chances...

[vertinox]

I really wish law enforcement, school officials, and the courts handled the fine gradiations between "stupid stuff kids say," "stupid stuff people, who should know better but apparently don't, say" and "real threats" better than they do.

The whole idea of the "Crime of Conspiracy" irks me simply because it reminds me of people like Cardinal Richelieu whose mantra was:

"Never write a letter and never destroy one."
"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."

This simply means that it is quite easy to take the words of anyone and construe them into something that will put them on the gallows and that the best solution to avoid this was to never write any letters to begin with (even in private to a friend).

Which leads me back to this whole idea of "conspiracy" which means you are accused of planning to do something which requires little or no evidence.

I could accusing you of plotting to destroy the sun in your mind and you would no evidence against other than saying "No I'm not" which basically means you'll have to waive the 5th amendment and take the stand which might get you to confess under duress (or at least look guilty to a jury.

All it would take is a snide remark that someone takes in the wrong way and you'll be in jail for "conspiracy" to do whatever where in reality you had no intention of EVER committing the crime.

It is very dangerous and gives the wrong people too much power.

Re:No second chances...

[Anonymous Coward]

You (and many slashdotters) might think this sounds like some 1984 style central control thing.

No, I think it's someone who sounds like they forgot what it's like to be a kid or has never had kids themselves.

Re:No second chances...

[Dragoness Eclectic]

I am in complete agreement. All the running from bullies and crying and pleading and reporting them to the teacher didn't stop the bullies from harassing me when I was a kid in school. All the counseling didn't stop them.

Hitting one upside the head with a stack of books and telling the rest to (paraphrased) "bring it on, there's more where that came from" did. When they realized that their lame threats weren't scaring me anymore, and that I was willing to get hit to hit them back, they stopped. I never got bullied again. Wish I'd figured that out years earlier. I'd have had a lot happier childhood.

Re:No second chances...

[Dragoness Eclectic]

Actually, no. Under U.S. Law, "Conspiracy" Does Not Work Like That. (I have no idea how it works where you are, if you're not in the USA).

From Wikipedia, regarding Criminal conspiracy under U.S. Law:

Conspiracy has been defined in the US as an agreement of two or more people to commit a crime, or to accomplish a legal end through illegal actions....

Conspiracy law usually does not require proof of specific intent by the defendants to injure any specific person to establish an illegal agreement. Instead, usually the law only requires the conspirators have agreed to engage in a certain illegal act. This is sometimes described as a "general intent" to violate the law.

Conspiracy requires an agreement between people to commit a crime, so at the very least there must be (a) two people, and (b) evidence that they agreed to commit a crime. Some state laws further require an overt act to be committed in furtherance of the proposed crime.

Re:No second chances...

[CarpetShark]

But when the teacher told me that what I said was inappropriate, and I asked my parents about it later, I - at least as far as I could at that time - understood what was up and I didn't do it again. That's all that needed to happen ...
Kids really can be quite understanding if you give actual explanations beyond "BECAUSE WE SAID SO".

Yep, that's pretty much my view as well. The only difference is that, I've seen parents happily teach kids that it's OK to be hateful or to have destructive coping mechanisms, because they don't see the impact and think "it's all just a bit of fun". I'm just saying, when those situations arise, teachers (and the community as a whole) should be able to step in and educate the parent about how they're raising the child, considering that the child will soon be faced with integrating into the community.

Re:No second chances...

[elrous0]

Ah yes, "zero tolerance," the handy crutch for teachers and administrators who are either too stupid to be trusted with making decisions on their own or who are too lazy to make said decisions. Thank you lazy and stupid people for keeping our police officers and courts busy dealing with stupid shit like this when they could be dealing with actual crimes.

Re:No second chances...

[MindlessAutomata]

What bullshit armchair psychology.

From TFA

[Skippy_kangaroo]

I think the most amazing part of the story is this:
"According to the report, the teen told investigators he'd heard if you make threats online against a plane, the police would show up at your doorstep. The teen told investigators he was only testing that theory."

Test successful! Big Brother is watching.

Re:From TFA

[freedom_india]

He should be thankful to the Feds that they did not send in a SWAT team to smash open the door a.k.a Transformers, and drown the kid in a swimming pool.
When will people realize that online equals real world ?

Re:From TFA

[Aeternitas827]

That wouldn't happen...the authorities somewhere in the world made a big-to-do already this week.

Re:From TFA

[pizzap]

And Big Brothers cares about your every word.

Re:From TFA

[damburger]

Kids talk shit. It isn't something that should be punished with armed police raids and summary execution, outside the senile mind of some old codger who just can't get them off his damn lawn.

Re:From TFA

[freedom_india]

True.
But then adults are not entirely sure when kids talk shit or when they talk sense.
Take for instance Columbine and subsequent school shootings.
All of them perpetrated by kids who had talked about it before and been ignored.
Why take a chance?
Some fool of a Took might take it upon himself to talk superior shit in Warcraft because his raid was resoundly defeated by another bunch of fools playing from another country/town/state/region. Very soon the original fool takes this quarrel into real world parallels and threatens the other country.
Accusations and threats fly. Some hot-headed morons take it upon themselves to "rid" themselves of the opposing filth in a real sense.
And before you know, another columbine...sigh...
However, this first group of nerds are raised at 2 AM by a gun-toting SWAT team whose leader threatens to rain destruction on this nerd if he as much as swears online or professes enemity against fellow human beings/kinsmen...
If i know it well, that is enough to scare the living daylights out of any 13-yr old.

Re:From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

The term "Nanny state" was supposed to refer to state protectionism, but it seems you want to implement it literally.
Yes, by all means, let us really use the FBI, NSA and raiding SWAT teams, to scare the living daylights out of any 13-yr old that talks some shit.

That will teach them to talk nice!

Re:From TFA

[H0p313ss]

Kids talk shit. It isn't something that should be punished with armed police raids and summary execution, outside the senile mind of some old codger who just can't get them off his damn lawn.

B) Adolescents do stupid things as they try to stretch the boundaries.
C) Groups of adolescents do REALLY stupid things...

(I'm currently paying my son and his friends to landscape and build a deck to keep them out of trouble over the summer... I don't know whether to laugh or cry half the time.)

Re:From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. Test successful. Now, I have a theory that putting your head under the blades of a working chainsaw and dropping it should result in instant decapitation. Perhaps this teen would like to confirm this for me when he gets back from the station?

In other news, Big Brother is certainly monitoring online messages in the UK. This news report shows a small (15 person) birthday party which was arranged on Facebook being closed down by police in riot gear with a helicopter, because the arranger had used the words 'overnight' to describe the party time. He meant that his friends could sleep over - the police interpreted this as a 'rave'...... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8160081.stm

Re:From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

A SWAT team raid may be enough to scare the living daylights out of a NORMAL 13 year old, but probably not enough to scare the daylights out of a psychotic kid bent on murdering his fellow human beings.

AC for life.

Re:From TFA

[khallow]

It's not government's job to stop trash-talking 13 year olds. If it ever does become government's job, then that's a solid indication that the government in question has achieved obsolescence and should be promptly scrapped.

Re:From TFA

[freedom_india]

Can't you recognize dry sarcasm when it was so obvious?
Didn't you at all read my signature to understand it was sarcasm?
My God.

Re:From TFA

[skinfaxi]

"If i know it well, that is enough to scare the living daylights out of any 13-yr old."

He was 18 years old. Legally an adult.

Re:From TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

What's funny now, is how long will it be until someone goes trolling about various FPS games under the nick "Southwest Airlines Flight 617" or something similar? Just imagine the game chat after enough tk's or vent spamming or whatever dickery the troll commits... And then the end result of one of those games being monitored? OMG! TERRORISTS!

And people thought the underhanded and rotten trollish hacker activity known as swatting was bad... Just imagine the Feds getting involved instead of city or county police.

Re:Level 80 Dwarf Paladin (over 10,000 Achievenets

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's just the thing you get from Mages the most. It's free. It heals a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of 80s had the same statistic.

IQ = Retard

[Aeternitas827]

FTFA:

"According to the report, the teen told investigators he'd heard if you make threats online against a plane, the police would show up at your doorstep. The teen told investigators he was only testing that theory."

It makes you wonder...did he perhaps expect Ed McMahon and the Publisher's Clearing House folks to come to the door? (That'd be a trick, and be the first sign of the so-called 'Zombie Apocalypse', but that's another issue).

There were two outcomes, either the cops come (which happened), or nothing happens (which had a fairly equal chance of happening, when you think about it). Flip a coin, you either get a new bunkmate named Louie, Bubba, or Bruno; or you continue to waste your life on WoW.

Re:IQ = Retard

[Opportunist]

Actually, I'd guess he expected the same I'd expect: That it's a bunch of baloney and no sane person would believe a 14 year old is plotting the end of the civilized world.

Want to be a terrorist and bring the police forces to the threshold of their ability to uphold order?

1. Sign up a few hundred online accounts under false name.
2. Start chatting about how you'll blow up shit.
3. Watch SWAT teams all over the continent bust doors of your false addresses, 24/7
4. Commit the crime you want to commit once they've been doing this for 4-5 days and are so exhausted that they can't even think coherently anymore.

Re:IQ = Retard

[damburger]

Not at all a ridiculous strategy. Think of it as a Denial-Of-Counterterrorism attack; throw up some much 'chatter' and false leads at the time you want to attack. I don't know if anyone has tried it yet, but it wouldn't surprise me.

We need sober, thoughtful investigators unraveling terror networks. Not trigger happy knuckleheads jumping on any and every chance to pretend they are Jack fucking Bauer.

Re:IQ = Retard

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you perchance read Little Brother by Cory Doctorow? When DHS started bothering everyone guys started throwing chaff ot make them waste time. So DHS sent more forces to this city because obviously its a hotbed of terrorists.

Re:IQ = Retard

[Opportunist]

Well, maybe we'd need more, or at least some, terrorism in the first place. So those hunting terrorists don't have to resort to such things to prove they're worth their money.

Re:IQ = Retard

[Shinobi]

"Actually, I'd guess he expected the same I'd expect: That it's a bunch of baloney and no sane person would believe a 14 year old is plotting the end of the civilized world."

What kind of fantasy world do you live in? Are you one of those pot smokers? Just look around the world at all the kid "soldiers", terrorists, freedom fighters etc, who even at age 13-14 do some strategic level planning. I know, because I've had to deal with some of those kids IN THE REAL WORLD, in Kongo and Liberia for example. Plenty of them have ambition. If someone gave them the means, you can bet your ass that many of them would try something seriously nasty, just to make their mark.

Re:IQ = Retard

[Opportunist]

We are talking about a 14 year old playing WoW. Ok? What's the chance of this being a 14 year old mastermind that cleverly decided WoW is the perfect guise to pose as someone with no life, no friends and too much time? And what's the chance that it IS a 14 year old teenager with no life, no friends and too much time?

If this was Afghanistan, Liberia or Kongo, I might consider your point. This isn't. It's the lazy, overfed, gimmegimmegimme Western World.

Re:IQ = Retard

[murdocj]

First of all, when you see chat in WoW, you have no idea how old the player is. 10? 15? 25? 55? And remember, this wasn't some "I be ubrz I'm going to kill all you elves" chatter, this was a specific threat against a specific airline flight. If this was mailed in to a newspaper as a threat, you can be damned sure the cops would investigate it, so why should online posts be held to a lower standard?

Re:IQ = Retard

[Shinobi]

You mean like the 14-16 year olds that ran cells in Northern Ireland? The 14-16 year olds that run some gangs in the US and manage to shake off gangs run by adults?

Re:IQ = Retard

[RedK]

Because it takes actual effort to write and then post a letter to a major newspaper. Typing stuff in WoW while idling in some zone somewhere takes about 0 effort and relieves some of the boredom of just idling around in a zone in WoW.

Re:IQ = Retard

[murdocj]

Emailing a letter to a newspaper is EXACTLY the same effort as typing in WoW. And who cares how much effort it is? If someone makes a specific threat against a specific airplane and the plane goes down, do YOU want to be the one who explains why you just were too lazy to check it out?

Re:IQ = Retard

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you telling us that you didn't threat anyone when you were a testosterone-powered fat teenager that wanted to be a shuriken-throwing ninja(see his nick)?

Re:IQ = Retard

[RedK]

Strawman. If you put a kid behind bars even if he was no threat at all to anyone, do YOU want to be the one who explains why you ruined his life ?

Re:IQ = Retard

[murdocj]

If you ignore a written threat and a plane goes down, do YOU want to be the one who explains the deaths to the families?

And without investigating, remind me how you knew the age of the person making the threat?

By the way, we're not talking about an 8 year old kid pressing 911 to see the shiny fire truck show up, the guy was 18. Old enough to work, old enough to join the army and kill people, certainly old enough to know better.

zoltan's 10,000+ point armory listing

[Artifex]

As a guy with 4090 achievement points after 9 months of game play, I'm impressed, but I think he's been doing it a long time, too.*(My point total already puts me in the top 400 on my server, which makes me feel good, but there are many thousands in the US and Europe that rate higher, when all the battlegroups are taken together.)

I'm somewhat more impressed with the fact that he has 32 Feats of Strength. I have... 3. But then again, FoS are special achievements that don't count towards the normal point totals, and are rewarded for things like logging in during WoW's anniversary day, doing a class-specific epic mount quest (which most people skip these days), etc. They're difficult if not impossible for most people to get later.

*can't tell, slashdot effect killed the server while I was trying to check him out :)

Re:zoltan's 10,000+ point armory listing

[ocularDeathRay]

I'm somewhat more impressed with the fact that he has 32 Feats of Strength.

Maybe the kids dad insisted on celebrating Festivus every year. That would explain it. The kid probably just wanted it to be over quickly, so he practiced a lot.

Re:zoltan's 10,000+ point armory listing

[Anonymous Coward]

"My point total already puts me in the top 400 on my server"
Yes.... hmmm, lets see, top 400 on a server with 5000 players on average... that doesnt even begin to make the list of people who try in the least to rack up points. Multiply by hundreds of servers.... Right, that's insignificant.

I hope that being a sheep in the herd doesn't really make you _feel_ good, because that tells me you aren't looking for much of a challenge.

Re:zoltan's 10,000+ point armory listing

[tnk1]

You know, its not as hard or as time consuming as you would think. Granted, he has to be a good, and that does take a certain amount of time and dedication, but when you are a good WoW player, you actually have to play *less* to do more. Almost more importantly than that are the people who you play with. Almost all of those achievements are not his achievements alone, but also a testament to the people he played with who achieved the same things: his raid, his arena team, and his friends in general.

When I was playing, I was in both the best and the worst guilds on the server. The best guilds worked at learning the fights, but still ended their raids on-time with their objectives completed, because once they discovered a strat for the boss or BG, the members executed it flawlessly. The worst guilds had all the strategies already laid out for them, and they still couldn't execute. Most of your time, especially in raids, but also in BGs and even Arena is based on how often you have to play catch up for mistakes you or a teammate didn't have to make.

When you finish raids and BGs on time, you have time to get good at other things. You can learn how to PvP in Arenas and get really good at it. Usually, your awesome guild mates are also on your Arena teams. You can sit around Orgrimmar and be King Turd of Shit Mountain with your gear, and in the end, you still didn't play much more than the mediocre people who can't get it down.

If I ever play another MMO, it will only be with the best people I can find who are willing to get shit done and go home. WoW was my first MMO, and I had to learn that lesson the hard way. If you aspire to be anything in that game, you're only going to get it done with the best people around you from the very start. This guy's record shows that very clearly.

Re:zoltan's 10,000+ point armory listing

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not impressed. He doesn't have "The Insane" title yet.

Re:zoltan's 10,000+ point armory listing

[atari2600]

What exactly is your point? You are impressed that someone is more of a gamer than you are?

Re:zoltan's 10,000+ point armory listing

[changedx]

> but when you are a good WoW player, you actually have to play *less* to do more.

In my experience, time in-game is correlated with skill. Sure, there are some low-skill people who are always online, but the best players are in raiding guilds with attendance requirements. In addition, to get good and stay good at arena requires a much higher time investment than the minimum 10 games/week for points. I don't know of any really good players who are online less than, say 20 hours/week.

Re:Level 80 Dwarf Paladin (over 10,000 Achievenets

[Artifex]

Food eaten most: Conjured Mana Strudel (5447)

So is this the WoW's secret doping formula?

He's a pally. Surely it's... bubble tea.

Sweet baby-#$#!ing Jeebus!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe you're dick-duelling over accomplishments in a MMORPG. I've been there and done that, and I've learned exactly one thing:

Be a bum online. Be a bum in real life. Pick one. (You can't be neither.)

This is probably poor taste...

[Aeternitas827]

"Play World of Warcraft? Show off your main character!"

Artist's Rendering!

The question now is

[Kligat]

How large a gathering of terrorist gnomes does it take to make continuous raids on Tinkertown more cost effective in disrupting their plotting than actually raiding their homes?

Not to say the FBI would be doing the raiding; they would only need to put one or two personnel in charge of organizing and Horde subsidization, such that the usual employment costs would be reduced by players that would take the enjoyment of smashing a gnome in the face with an orc battle axe. After all, if the terrorists advanced to level 25 and hid in a cave with the Naga, the FBI simply couldn't create and level characters fast enough.

Actually, I just want to see real life conflicts fought in World of Warcraft by proxy wherever possible. Russia and Georgia, you disappointed me.

Re:The question now is

[Anonymous Coward]

US, you disappoint me.

Re:Level 80 Dwarf Paladin (over 10,000 Achievenets

[Tukz]

Although as a paladin, I'm sure he is eating it for the mana regen.

Whooops!

[WiiVault]

Should have tried this last year, before he was 18.

I hope Americans sleep well in their beds...

[damburger]

Knowing that their government is monitoring motherfucking world of warcraft chat for terrorist activity. I mean, I personally play on Defias Brotherhood (EU) and I'm fairly sure the July 7th bombers didn't plan their attacks in any major alliance cities. Can't speak for the horde of course, its an RPPVP server.

Why do anti-terrorist agencies keep throwing up lonely teenagers with fantasies about blowing things up that they will never carry out? The most obvious explanation is that they are unable to really do anything about terrorism, they know it, and are essentially justifying their budgets.

Re:I hope Americans sleep well in their beds...

[Kreigaffe]

The government is NOT monitoring WoW. This was something that was picked up by a GM. He probably was reported by somebody for saying this in the trade channel, in fact -- GMs don't often actually actively monitor chat, but when someone reports something, they do have the ability to check out a log of recent chatter in the channel.

Re:I hope Americans sleep well in their beds...

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing that their government is monitoring motherfucking world of warcraft chat for terrorist activity. I mean, I personally play on Defias Brotherhood (EU) and I'm fairly sure the July 7th bombers didn't plan their attacks in any major alliance cities. Can't speak for the horde of course, its an RPPVP server.

We sleep just as well as you do with those government mandated cameras planted in your bedroom, computer room, living room, and the three street corners that have a view of your door...

Speaking of which, how's being a pot n calling the kettle black working out for you?

Re:I hope Americans sleep well in their beds...

[Anonymous Coward]

"If a troll says you have green hair, and you get angry at the troll for insisting that you have green hair, even though you know full well that you have black hair, and there is no REASON for you to get angry/upset, then you have been trolled. You are in effect choosing to be angry/upset. Once the troll sees you make that choice, that is their cue to say 'lol, trolled'."

How is damburger's post a troll? Swearing? Sarcasm? The idea that CT agencies are unable to really do anything about terrorism and they know it and are essentially justifying their budgets?

I suspect #3. And, sure, damburger's making a generalist statement, but I don't think he intends you to read it generalist-ly. I think he intends you, the reader, to use your friggin' brain.

-maxwell207crm (posting as AC because I post on /. approximately once every million years...and might I humbly suggest that whoever modded damburger a troll needs to lurk more?)

Several things going on here.

[HetMes]

First, from a European point of view, the "I'll sue your ass for not telling me the sky is blue" way of handling responsibility has caused any identity (government, business, neighbor, colleague, celebrity) that cannot hide in anonymity to be overly cautious. Any acceptable risk of danger is offset by the enormous danger of due compensation if something does go wrong. Secondly, the government is, due to their required independence, by definition an onlooker with regard to the communities they have to watch/control. Could we easily tell from carefully watching a box of thousands of bouncing rubber balls which ones are behaving differently from the others when it all looks like a blur? Surely, each individual ball would notice discrepancies upon encountering such an outlier, but this cannot be expected from an outsider. Thirdly, and this combines the first two, the best the onlooker can do to exclude any false negatives in its selection procedure, is to make sure any voluntary irregular behavior is absent, so that the irregular ones are more easily distinguished. For that same reason any, maybe in itself harmless, strange behavior at airports is dealt with as if it were the real thing to discourage such behavior in the future. The assumption is, of course, that the odd balls are unable to act as normal as the regular ones.

Apples and Oranges

[Dunkirk]

Seriously? You're going to compare the level of crazy of someone (allegedly) making a (credible) threat on someone else's life -- perhaps many people's -- and that of someone who spends "too much" time playing a video game? Seriously?

Re:Apples and Oranges

[H0p313ss]

Seriously? You're going to compare the level of crazy of someone (allegedly) making a (credible) threat on someone else's life -- perhaps many people's -- and that of someone who spends "too much" time playing a video game? Seriously?

Well it is probably fair to compare someone who is stupid enough to make threats in a game where ALL the chat is logged to someone who just plays too much. I guess someone forgot to point out that what happens in Dalaran stays in Dalaran.

It is in game monitoring

[Shivetya]

All transactions, including communication between players, is logged. What happened here is that other players reported this person making the threats. All reports made to WOW game managers have to be reviewed. As such they found the offending text and they are obligated by their own TOS to report it.

Look at it this way, teenager makes threats to kill his parents because they won't let him play. Blizzard has it logged but does not report it. Teenager tries to or does kill parents, who do you think is going to be sued let alone vilified here?

I have no problem with Blizzard reporting threats to local authorities. Frankly we don't need these type of people in society, let alone virtual ones. Anonymity and protection of free speech is one thing, making threats is a whole other issue.

Re:It is in game monitoring

[icebike]

>All transactions, including communication between players, is logged.

There's the problem right there.

Just stop that, and problem solved.

Re:It is in game monitoring

[murdocj]

Yeah, and then when there's a mistake and you accidently grab the staff of uberness drop that you can't use, and you want a GM to swap it to the rightful player who should have gotten it, you are SOL.

You want Blizzard to log. In fact, you want Blizzard GMs to be able to simply replay an event as it happened, so that when someone complains about something, the GM doesn't have to take anyone's word, they can see for themselves. In the real world, you can't do that. In an MMO, you could.

And please do not tell me about your "right to privacy" when you sign online to an MMO.

Re:It is in game monitoring

[icebike]

Fine, I won't tell you about the right to privacy.

But don't you tell me about your right to Do-Over.

For Christ Sake, its a firkkin game! Who do you call for do-over when you accidentally drop your wallet on the way to work?

Oh, wait, you don't work do you... You play a game in your parents basement.

Re:It is in game monitoring

[iCEBaLM]

But don't you tell me about your right to Do-Over.

My right to a "do-over" is directly proportionate to the amount of money I pay to the providers of the service.
It is a game, a game I pay for. I want the game masters to be able to correct mistakes.

Re:It is in game monitoring

[murdocj]

For Christ Sake, its a firkkin game!

EXACTLY my point! How the hell can you be complaining that someone actually read your chat that you broadcast in a game?

Oh, wait, you don't work do you... You play a game in your parents basement.

heh... bet I've been in the workforce longer than you've been alive

Premature

[smchris]

We'll see what the Feds decide to do with the wanker. If he mentioned a particular spell he had in mind for the plane, it could make for an interesting trial. During the Vietnam war I must have had pizza for dinner half a dozen times because the dorm food service was closed for bomb threats. Nobody was ever prosecuted back then.

Hating America

[Deliveranc3]

Becomes easier and easier the more you believe it projects it's power. The CIA, yup that's America, the Rand Corporation yup that's America, Microsoft that's America, Israel pretty much America.

China starts to look really reasonable when you consider how many of their "atrocities" they take responsibility for. America looks really scary when you consider how many of their "atrocities" "aren't really their responsibility".

Re:Level 80 Dwarf Paladin (over 10,000 Achievenets

[Anonymous Coward]

Paladin -> Holy Warrior -> Terrorist

Has to be credible

[TheLink]

But did they make specific and credible threats about killing Obama? Just saying "I'm going to kill Obama, he deserves to die" is nothing. There are thousands of people everywhere who say that, but there are very few who should be taken seriously.

For example if they threatened to kill Obama at a certain time and place, and Obama was indeed going to be at that place, and they were also likely to be in that place too, I'm sure they'd get investigated and possibly arrested too.

To anyone in the USA who doesn't believe me, try it: publicly post a specific threat to kill Obama some place where he WILL be, and then for bonus points, make plans to fly/travel to that spot some days before. But don't complain about me if you get arrested or worse. I'll just laugh at you when the relevant slashdot story appears.

If this nut was in Hawaii, and said he'd blow up the Indiana-Chicago flight, I suspect the FBI wouldn't have bothered about it (and just investigated him later on if the plane actually did blow up). But he was living close enough to the relevant airport (maybe 25-30 minutes away?). So the FBI certainly should investigate him.

Welcome to Gitmo

[gubers33]

Where no amount of spells can save you.

Seriously Now

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets just leave it at the fact that the gov was doing its "job" and by doing that it proved to everyone by making an example out of this kid that they are NOT F*ckin around. So yet again one retarded kid lets all the people who they should be catching know that these mediums of communication ARE NOT SAFE. Why not wait for someone who's not some punk 18 year old, and actually maintain order thats not mainting itself by playing games like WoW in the first place.

Finally

[Anonymous Coward]

Doing dumb shit on the internet under the guise of anonymity should be punishable by death. At least this is a step in the right direction.

Exactly

[SmallFurryCreature]

A couple of years ago, some alerts were ignored by the security services and 9/11 happened. Oh, some might argue that they had orders to do so but in security you RARELY respond with exactly the right response. Either you have 2 cops, 4 street coaches and a motor ambulance driver attending a scraped knee (just yesterday) or you are screaming in your radio for back up while people are dying because you only got one pair of hands.

In security be it police, firemen, ambulance there really is only ONE right response. EVEYTHING. Sadly, that is expensive but still, what if this crazy kid HAD acted on it? It is trivial to cirumvent airport security and even if it works, they got to be right every single time while an attacker only has to get lucky once.

think back to all the big scares, IF only someone had responded earlier with excessive force, then they would be labelled as using excessive force because we would never have seen what would have happened if they didn't.

The security guard who stopped 10/11 is still paid minimum wage. (and if you never heard of 10/11, that is my entire point)

True story

[Locke2005]

I was working for a 2-letter tech company in Corvalis. One of my computers had the company installed and configured Linux distro running on it, which cycled through screen savers. One of the screen savers put up fortune file quotes. One of the fortune files contained the Zippy the pinhead quote, "I want to kill everyone here with a cute, colorful Hydrogen bomb!!". Now imagine the reaction of a company rent-a-cop wandering through the empty cubicle farm at 3am and seeing this come up on a screen... I was called into a 9am meeting with security, immediately suspended for a week because "it was on your computer, so obviously you are responsible for it", and of course given no recourse for defending myself. Fortunately, one of my co-workers analyzed the computer, explained it to them, and a week later I was allowed to come back to work -- with no apology whatsoever for their overreaction or accusations of terrorism. Needless to say, I spent that week applying for jobs elsewhere, and a few month later one of those positions came through, and I was out of that madhouse. The worst part? I was suspended with pay -- which meant my project kept paying me for that week as it fell a week behind schedule since I was on the critical path.

REPORTED!!

[Phil_at_EvilNET]

After this, the next time someone tells you that you've been "REPORTED!!!" maybe you'll take it seriously. LOL!!

reported for real.

[teamsleep]

Lol, he seriously was reported. What a douchebag. I mean, really, he should know making dumbass threats like that online is just asking for trouble, granted nearly all the time nothing happens. He just proved it does and can happen, so watch your mouth when you're in a hugely populated game like World of Warcraft. Plus, what did he gain out of it? A news report on Slashdot and a big headache from his parents, which could possibly go on his record as 'Made threats to American lives.' - which won't happen, but still come on. Just a perfect example of a really stupid kid who needs some time off from World of Warcraft and gaming all together, get to studying and do a summer job; like mowing lawns. Earn money, dipshit.

reported for real pt. 2

[teamsleep]

I didn't read it all until now. He's 18 and was on a plane and threatened to blow it up? -
 
I mean really, what in the hell was he thinking?

- He was on a plane
- He threatened to blow it up
- He was in a massive game with hundreds and thousands of people, of course there would be a moderator.

This just proves that kid(really an adult in age) is really stupid and doesn't know what he is doing, even if he thought it was a 'test' or a 'joke' he really is far from being able to do anything but play a game.
 
  I doubt he's had a job or has a job. Instead of playing that shitty, overpriced, boring, and redundant game, he should get having a job and working to do something with his life. Instead of sitting around, playing games and having his poor parents pay to waste his life away.

Also get a girlfriend at least - It's a given, he plays World of Warcraft. People who play this game are mindless, broke ass anti-social losers. Most are at least.