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September 16th, 2008 by SteveI swear, you can’t make this shit up:
The American military and intelligence communities are increasingly worried that would-be bin Ladens might gather in a virtual world, to plan a real-life attack. But the spies haven’t given many details, about how it might be done. Now, a Pentagon researcher has laid out how such a terror plot might unfold. The planning ground is World of Warcraft. The main target of this possibly nuclear strike: the White House.
There’s been no public proof to date of terrorists hatching plots in virtual worlds. But online spaces like World of Warcraft are making some spooks, generals and Congressmen extremely nervous. They imagine terrorists rehearsing attacks in these worlds, just like the U.S. military trains with commercial shoot-em-up games. They worry that the massively multiplayer games make it incredibly easy to gather plotters from around the world. But, mostly, virtual worlds are nerve-wracking to spies because they’re so hard to monitor. The accounts are pseudonymous. The access is global. The jargon is thick. And most of the spy agencies’ employees aren’t exactly level-70 shamans.
In a presentation late last week at the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Conference in Washington, Dr. Dwight Toavs, a professor at the Pentagon-funded National Defense University, gave a bit of a primer on virtual worlds to an audience largely ignorant about what happens in these online spaces. Then he launched into a scenario, to demonstrate how a meatspace plot might be hidden by in-game chatter.
In it, two World of Warcraft players discuss a raid on the “White Keep” inside the “Stonetalon Mountains.” The major objective is to set off a “Dragon Fire spell” inside, and make off with “110 Gold and 234 Silver” in treasure. “No one will dance there for a hundred years after this spell is cast,” one player, “war_monger,” crows.
Except, in this case, the White Keep is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “Dragon Fire” is an unconventional weapon. And “110 Gold and 234 Silver” tells the plotters how to align the game’s map with one of Washington, D.C.
First, nitpicks: raids in warcraft DO NOT FUCKING WORK THAT WAY. Seriously, God fucking dammit…
Ok, more importantly: as someone from Wowinsider points at:
This is a perfect example of security theater. It’s impossible to monitor every single medium that could allow terrorists to communicate, and communication is one of those things that they will find a way to do securely no matter what channels are monitored. Virtual worlds do not give terrorists any “value add” as a medium- the only difference between a virtual world and a chat room is the avatar and the game (if any).
Wired quotes:
“There’s been no public proof to date of terrorists hatching plots in virtual worlds. “- that’s because a virtual world is the same as a chat room, but you have an avatar that you can use to interact. Where’s the value add? /bless and /hug your suicide bombers?
“They worry that the massively multiplayer games make it incredibly easy to gather plotters from around the world”- Oh no! All over the world? You mean like email, TOR, or instant messaging do? Where’s the added risk because this is a virtual world?
“The accounts are pseudonymous. The access is global.”- the accounts are no more anonymous than any other internet communication medium… less so if you consider how fast Blizzard would divulge your personal financial information if the CIA started asking them questions about your account.
“The jargon is thick. And most of the spy agencies’ employees aren’t exactly level-70 shamans.”- if they’re worried that the “jargon” would allow them to communicate messages to eachother in a code, they’ve never bothered to read anything by Bruce Schneier. The “cryptotext” that is made to look like wow jargon would be more vulnerable to decryption by interested parties than the current industry standard encryption algorithms. Having codewords instead of a real encryption algorithm means you leave traces of your intent written all over the “codetext” for anyone who knows how to break them.
The only reason this presentation was given is that security theater needs constant new “threats” to keep people scared so that security professionals can continue making a living by “securing” them. Virtual worlds are the most recent technology to be used as the bogeyman, but they’re not the first and they won’t be the last.
I’m going to go cry in a corner now. I’ve got a raid at 8 tonight, and I have to break it to my guild that the government thinks we might be terrorists.