That Friendly Gnome Could Be A Government Spy

[Formaldehyde]

It has been mentioned in the past that the NSA and other organizations likely monitor the global chat in games like World of Warcraft. Now more details have emerged from the Snowden leaks regarding how extensive those operations were.

World of Spycraft: NSA and CIA Spied in Online Games

Not limiting their activities to the earthly realm, American and British spies have infiltrated the fantasy worlds of World of Warcraft and Second Life, conducting surveillance and scooping up data in the online games played by millions of people across the globe, according to newly disclosed classified documents.

Fearing that terrorist or criminal networks could use the games to communicate secretly, move money or plot attacks, the documents show, intelligence operatives have entered terrain populated by digital avatars that include elves, gnomes and supermodels.

The spies have created make-believe characters to snoop and to try to recruit informers, while also collecting data and contents of communications between players, according to the documents, disclosed by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. Because militants often rely on features common to video games — fake identities, voice and text chats, a way to conduct financial transactions — American and British intelligence agencies worried that they might be operating there, according to the papers.

But for all their enthusiasm — so many CIA, FBI and Pentagon spies were hunting around in Second Life, the document noted, that a “deconfliction” group was needed to avoid collisions — the intelligence agencies may have inflated the threat.

The documents do not cite any counterterrorism successes from the effort, and former American intelligence officials, current and former gaming company employees and outside experts said in interviews that they knew of little evidence that terrorist groups viewed the games as havens to communicate and plot operations.

Games “are built and operated by companies looking to make money, so the players’ identity and activity is tracked,” said Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution, an author of “Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know.” “For terror groups looking to keep their communications secret, there are far more effective and easier ways to do so than putting on a troll avatar.”

The surveillance, which also included Microsoft’s Xbox Live, could raise privacy concerns. It is not clear exactly how the agencies got access to gamers’ data or communications, how many players may have been monitored or whether Americans’ communications or activities were captured.

Still, the intelligence agencies found other benefits in infiltrating these online worlds. According to the minutes of a January 2009 meeting, GCHQ’s “network gaming exploitation team” had identified engineers, embassy drivers, scientists and other foreign intelligence operatives to be World of Warcraft players — potential targets for recruitment as agents.

At Menwith Hill, a Royal Air Force base in the Yorkshire countryside that the NSA has long used as an outpost to intercept global communications, American and British intelligence operatives started an effort in 2008 to begin collecting data from World of Warcraft.

One NSA document said that the World of Warcraft monitoring “continues to uncover potential Sigint value by identifying accounts, characters and guilds related to Islamic extremist groups, nuclear proliferation and arms dealing.” In other words, targets of interest appeared to be playing the fantasy game, though the document does not indicate that they were doing so for any nefarious purposes. A British document from later that year said that GCHQ had “successfully been able to get the discussions between different game players on Xbox Live.”

In one World of Warcraft discussion thread, begun just days after the first Snowden revelations appeared in the news media in June, a human death knight with the user name “Crrassus” asked whether the NSA might be reading game chat logs.

“If they ever read these forums,” wrote a goblin priest with the user name “Diaya,” “they would realize they were wasting” their time.

Even before the American government began spying in virtual worlds, the Pentagon had identified the potential intelligence value of video games. The Pentagon’s Special Operations Command in 2006 and 2007 worked with several foreign companies — including an obscure digital media business based in Prague — to build games that could be downloaded to mobile phones, according to people involved in the effort. They said the games, which were not identified as creations of the Pentagon, were then used as vehicles for intelligence agencies to collect information about the users.

Eager to cash in on the government’s growing interest in virtual worlds, several large private contractors have spent years pitching their services to American intelligence agencies. In one 66-page document from 2007, part of the cache released by Mr. Snowden, the contracting giant SAIC promoted its ability to support “intelligence collection in the game space,” and warned that online games could be used by militant groups to recruit followers and could provide “terrorist organizations with a powerful platform to reach core target audiences.”

In spring 2009, academics and defense contractors gathered at the Marriott at Washington Dulles International Airport to present proposals for a government study about how players’ behavior in a game like World of Warcraft might be linked to their real-world identities. “We were told it was highly likely that persons of interest were using virtual spaces to communicate or coordinate,” said Dmitri Williams, a professor at the University of Southern California who received grant money as part of the program.

After the conference, both SAIC and Lockheed Martin won contracts worth several million dollars, administered by an office within the intelligence community that finances research projects.

It is not clear how useful such research might be. A group at the Palo Alto Research Center, for example, produced a government-funded study of World of Warcraft that found “younger players and male players preferring competitive, hack-and-slash activities, and older and female players preferring noncombat activities,” such as exploring the virtual world. A group from the nonprofit SRI International, meanwhile, found that players under age 18 often used all capital letters both in chat messages and in their avatar names.

Those involved in the project were told little by their government patrons. According to Nick Yee, a Palo Alto researcher who worked on the effort, “We were specifically asked not to speculate on the government’s motivations and goals.”

What do you make of this?

Do you have any problem with the CIA, FBI, etc. monitoring gaming activities while trying to engage people in political discussion, as well attempting to recruit them as spies or informants?

Do you have any issues with the SAIC apparently using government funds to build a replica of their headquarters on an island in Second Life?

Any indignation that the government is paying researchers to tell them what anybody who plays these games already knows?

Does OT itself have any sockpuppet government spies?

What is particularly puzzling to me is if this is such a natural means for enemy agents and terrorists to try to communicate, why did they wait until 2007 before apparently starting these operations?

 

[illram]

Money wasted on Intelligence and military projects of questionable utility is always concerning. Although I do find video game/behavioral research interesting.

Privacy in an online game is not a big concern for me though. The things that would concern me is snooping in areas you would normally have a reasonable expectation of privacy, just delivered through a console front end (e.g. chatting on xbox live outside of a game or something).

 

[Gori the Grey]

Does OT itself have any sockpuppet government spies?

If there is one, he'll jump in early on threads like this, to draw attention away from himself.

I speculated in a Chamber thread, the agents just told their superiors they might find terrorists, to justify playing WoW at work all day.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Well, they are trying.

 

[Goodfella]

If there is one, he'll jump in early on threads like this, to draw attention away from himself.

Man I hate that pesky meddling government! They have no business, right guys?

 

[Antilogic]

What do you make of this?

It's kinda sad.

Do you have any issues with the SAIC apparently using government funds to build a replica of their headquarters on an island in Second Life?

Could they be more obvious? I mean, if you are going to be spies online, you might as well have a replica of Dr. Evil's island lair.

Does OT itself have any sockpuppet government spies?

I have my suspicions.

What is particularly puzzling to me is if this is such a natural means for enemy agents and terrorists to try to communicate, why did they wait until 2007 before apparently starting these operations?

It took that long for some intern to come up with the idea of getting paid to play Warcraft?

 

[Symphony D.]

The NSA was just following up on every lead, including one from a modern classic. If terrorists are loosely replicating Tom Clancy plots, who is to say they aren't watching British comedies?

 

[Tahuti]

If terrorists are loosely replicating Tom Clancy plots, who is to say they aren't watching British comedies?

Then I really, really hope that Al-Qaida members do not like Every Sperm is Sacred...

 

[uppi]

Whoever first proposed this probably thought: Hey, I could get paid for playing World of Warcraft at work all day.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I think somebody conned his old, our of touch superior into letting him play WoW during work hours and others jumped on the band wagon.

 

[Bugfatty300]

If there is one, he'll jump in early on threads like this, to draw attention away from himself.

Or he'll make the thread himself...

 

[Gucumatz]

Or announce in the quitters and hipsters thread that he is changing his name to avoid detection by our simple avatars.

 

[bhsup]

I think somebody conned his old, our of touch superior into letting him play WoW during work hours and others jumped on the band wagon.

"Hey boss, I need to surf to catch bank robbers!" Course, he actually caught his bad guy in the end.

Or announce in the quitters and hipsters thread that he is changing his name to avoid detection by our simple avatars.

 

[Gucumatz]

Don't worry my silence is bribed easily

 

[Kennigit]

real terrorists use puffin party

Link to video.

from Four Lions

 

[Borachio]

I operate on the principle that everyone else is either working for some government or other, or some insurgency group, or they're in advertizing.

It's served me well so far.

I'm telling nobody nothing about anything.

Unless I'm telling a lot of porky pies.

Or am I, eh?

 

[Dachs]

I operate on the principle that everyone else is either working for some government or other, or some insurgency group, or they're in advertizing.

It's served me well so far.

I'm telling nobody nothing about anything.

Unless I'm telling a lot of porky pies.

Or am I, eh?

Yeah, okay. Thanks, Švejk.

 

[Borachio]

You flatter me, sir.

Shall I wrap myself in a wet blanket and paint my gums with iodine?

 

[Dachs]

You flatter me, sir.

Shall I wrap myself in a wet blanket and paint my gums with iodine?

That or gentian violet solution, either one works.

 

[Borachio]

Ah right, was it gentian violet?

I forget.

Still, one of my very favourite books of all time.