US Government hunting extremists in WoW

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ColdIce

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US gov't hunting extremists in WOW A new data-mining report from the US Director of National Intelligence has revealed that top spies are developing software that they hope will detect violent extremists in online worlds, as reported by Wired. Mysteriously titled The Reynard Project, the software will study the way gamers behave online, and for the second stage will "automatically detect suspicious behaviour and actions in the virtual world." So, it hopes to discover what "normal" massively multiplayer online gaming behaviour is like, and set off alarm bells if people are deviating. The ultimate aim is to catch all those violent extremists who have been using their time to infiltrate World of Warcraft.
The report has been approved by Congress, and if it "shows early promise," it may become a full project.



http://uk.gamespot.com/pages/news/s...d=26256583&sid=6186674&tag=latestnews;title;1
 
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So they're going to make people who are deviant gamers suspect? Maybe I can get hired on as an analyst. "Yes, that guy is saying pwn'd too many times today. He must be a terrorist."
 
Can't wait for the Securities and Exchange Commission to get involved to paint the crafters into a corner too. This is a bunch of script-kiddies that managed to get the United States government to pick up their WoW tabs...
 
Well, you see the US has been monitoring various forms of communication around the globe (just about everything), thus it has been difficult for your local extremist to get/send communications between himself and other extremists.

So, the extremists have been trying to find different outlets of communication as each one they use is deemed compromised, and they discovered MMOs. This allows them to talk about anything and everything in a group, fairly easily, think of it as the new teleconferencing. So, the US wants to monitor and find them when they log into and use these games.

So, the "suspicious" activity they are referring to are for example having a toon for a long time at very low level with almost no gold/money on them (as in the character isn't advancing/playing the game), also toons that speak certain languages/use certain keywords (kind of like a profanity filter, except not for profanity) and so on and so forth. It is quite a fascinating problem from an engineering/gamer point of view.
 
There are ways to do communication w/o being detected :P

But how would one get on this watch list? :D

<-- wants guys in black suits w/ sunglasses showing up at his house one day
 
Ackis said:
There are ways to do communication w/o being detected :P

But how would one get on this watch list? :D

<-- wants guys in black suits w/ sunglasses showing up at his house one day
Click to expand...

Just make sure a chick is there for status boost.
 
I have a couple of toons I rarely use who are low level with no gold whatsoever. Does that means I'm a suspect? :o
 
Artica said:
I have a couple of toons I rarely use who are low level with no gold whatsoever. Does that means I'm a suspect? :o
Click to expand...

What's their log in time? Do they have months of logged in time with absolutely nothing to show for it? Are they still level 1? level 2? Did they accept any quests, make any checkpoints?

The kind of gameplay I mentioned before does stand out from a statistical point of view.
 
Ackis said:
There are ways to do communication w/o being detected :P

But how would one get on this watch list? :D

<-- wants guys in black suits w/ sunglasses showing up at his house one day
Click to expand...

Those ways have been compromised for the most part, this form of communication is the one that has had the most success so far in staying hidden, but that will change soon enough.
 
Fluffy said:
What's their log in time? Do they have months of logged in time with absolutely nothing to show for it? Are they still level 1? level 2? Did they accept any quests, make any checkpoints?

The kind of gameplay I mentioned before does stand out from a statistical point of view.
Click to expand...

Bank Alts. Level 1. Logged in for a long time. No quests, no gear, no money.
The arrangement of the items within the bank is secret code to initiate terror attacks.

Perhaps we can convince the US Government that the gold/leveling spammers are using their proceeds to fund terrorism... 2 birds, 1 stone on that one.
 
As long as they use it for serious stuff and not someone saying how they downloaded an MP3 of whatever, then I guess it doesn't bother me too much. What I mean is as long as they don't have a hidden agenda...

I don't really have much of anything to hide, and so far they seem reasonable enough about it (don't often see spam of government-intercepted personal secrets all over the news).


Habanero said:
Perhaps we can convince the US Government that the gold/leveling spammers are using their proceeds to fund terrorism... 2 birds, 1 stone on that one.
Click to expand...

I'm liking that idea!
 
Habanero said:
Bank Alts. Level 1. Logged in for a long time. No quests, no gear, no money.
The arrangement of the items within the bank is secret code to initiate terror attacks.

Perhaps we can convince the US Government that the gold/leveling spammers are using their proceeds to fund terrorism... 2 birds, 1 stone on that one.
Click to expand...

Yes, but do they ever talk? That's the second part of it, keywords and phrases. Not to mention they get credit for completing missions and the like, correct? So they do receive money, they just trade it to the "owner", or is there some other means in WoW to farm?

Though I know you (and just about everyone else) would love to see the farmers obliterated with the same zeal, but I think they have this thought of as well.
 
Darein said:
As long as they use it for serious stuff and not someone saying how they downloaded an MP3 of whatever, then I guess it doesn't bother me too much. What I mean is as long as they don't have a hidden agenda...
Click to expand...


This is difficult enough to try to catch certain keywords in different languages, forget also trying to catch MP3 rippers. This part of the gov't don't care about music or the RIAA.
 
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