NSA Spies On MMOs Says Snowden Reveal

Karloff

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NSA Spies On MMOs Says Snowden Reveal



I'm sorry, is this serious business or a remake of Spies Like Us? I've lost track.

"We are unaware of any surveillance taking place," says Blizzard. "If it was, it would have been done without our knowledge or permission." But whether Blizzard knew it or not, according to documents from the NSA - published by the Guardian, New York Times and ProPublica as part of the Snowden exposé - that's exactly what the world's spy agencies have been doing since 2008. World of Warcraft, Xbox Live, Second Life, are all known to have been targeted by the world's intelligence agencies. After all, as an NSA document announced in 2008, virtual games "are an opportunity!"

In fact, so great was the opportunity that CIA, FBI and Pentagon spooks found to their dismay that they were chasing each other around Second Life, and had to set up a networking group so they could tell the spies from the normals. Meanwhile the UK's GCHQ was busy looking at the World of Warcraft accounts of embassy employees, scientists and other important people, including intelligence operatives of other nations. Perhaps, thought GCHQ, these orcs and night elves could be turned, and used as intelligence assets; George Smiley meets Garrosh Hellscream.

The chat features of online gaming really got the intelligence agencies steamed. There was a chance, the spies believed, that enemies could use chat to transmit secret messages, perhaps arranging a terror attack using code words like 'fireball'. Or perhaps the cash economies would be used to transmit funds.

Don't worry, it's not just the national security agencies who are spying on you. Specialist outside contractors are hawking their services to the governments of the world. Science Applications International Corporation, aka SAIC, says it can provide "intelligence collection in the game space," and both SAIC and Lockheed Martin have been awarded million-dollar contracts to work on means of spying on MMO gamers.

Occasionally the surveillance reaped dividends. GCHQ used Second Life to collect information for Operation Galician, which resulted in the elimination of a London crime ring that sold stolen credit card information within virtual worlds. However there seems to be little indication, from the documents revealed so far, that all this effort resulted in anything substantial. Even when persons of interest were detected playing online games, there seems to have been no evidence that their game habits were linked to any more serious activity.

Sources: The New York Times [http://www.propublica.org/article/world-of-spycraft-intelligence-agencies-spied-in-online-games]

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Phrozenflame500

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This sounds like a gigantic waste of time and money.

So in other words, government spying as usual.

EDIT: <quote=The New York Times>?If they ever read these forums,? wrote a goblin priest with the user name ?Diaya,? ?they would realize they were wasting their time."
 

Me55enger

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No wonder it took awhile for this story to come out, Blizzards avatar naming policy would restrict DeepThroat.
 

RJ 17

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Phrozenflame500 said:
This sounds like a gigantic waste of time and money.

So in other words, government spying as usual.
Don'tcha just love all the mooks that are in charge of spending our tax money? It's almost like they don't even care about the cost since it's not really their money to begin with!

Oh wait...
 

Muspelheim

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I was involved in planting an IED and blowing up a bridge, once. It was a lovely RP event, but I hope those chatlogs won't come back to haunt me later.
 

Erttheking

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*Head desk* Why are so many people in my government so stupid? Hey, here's a damn question, how many terrorists have they caught?
 

Gregory Wollf

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NSA: Oh man, we found Vladimir Putin's avatar on WOW, quick, join his guild so we can spy on him!

Vladimir Putin: Haha! Those foolish NSA spies have joined my guild! Time to troll the political crap out of them... KGB style!
 

CriticalMiss

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Are they actually spying or did someone just tell their boss that so that they can level up their paladin at work? It's the kind of thing I'd do.

'Al Qaeda are sending messages via Team Fortress 2, it's a tough job but I volunteer for the assignment. We should probably hack the Valve computers for information about a secret terrorist plot called 'half life 3' whilst we're at it.'
 

synobal

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I can just see some NSA spy getting outted as a spy due to some alliance in eve online and their anti-spy counter measures.
 

Storm Dragon

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Oh no! Now they'll know who's a N00B and who's 1337! Seriously, I think this was just someone's excuse to play WoW at work.
 

Excludos

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erttheking said:
*Head desk* Why are so many people in my government so stupid? Hey, here's a damn question, how many terrorists have they caught?
In general or through spying in MMOs? I don't know the latter, probably none. But they do catch real terrorists now and then. Since no attack takes place in these events, the media isn't that interested in it, and thus the general population doesn't know or care to know about it either.
 

Jandau

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CriticalMiss said:
Are they actually spying or did someone just tell their boss that so that they can level up their paladin at work? It's the kind of thing I'd do.

'Al Qaeda are sending messages via Team Fortress 2, it's a tough job but I volunteer for the assignment. We should probably hack the Valve computers for information about a secret terrorist plot called 'half life 3' whilst we're at it.'
No no no, you aren't taking it far enough: "Boss, Al Qaeda are using WoW to send secret messages. You must buy me Mists of Pandaria and a full year of subscription. Also, I heard they might be using Hearthstone for the same thing, so you must acquire a Beta key... no, wait, make that 2 keys - Bob in Accounting says he can help. Finally, in order to stay one step ahead of those terrorist bastards, you should secure access to closed betas of games such as Elder Scrolls Online and Wildstar, just so we can lay the groundwork for our intelligence gathering in advance."
 
Jan 12, 2012
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Doesn't seem that crazy to me. In the book Daemon by Daniel Suarez, the national security agencies point out that there are millions of communications sent through MMOs every day, between people with multiple accounts, and that what little security exists is focused on stopping gold farming and exploits. It would be easy to have entire conversations with people with very little risk of others finding out what was said or who those people were.

Then again, this book also has an evil computer program that takes over the world, so it might not be the best source for information.
 

gigastar

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Well, this made my day. Knowing that the worlds superpowers have nothing better to do than spy on mine and my compatriots increasingly insane arguments on PvP MMO balance.
 

Erttheking

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Excludos said:
erttheking said:
*Head desk* Why are so many people in my government so stupid? Hey, here's a damn question, how many terrorists have they caught?
In general or through spying in MMOs? I don't know the latter, probably none. But they do catch real terrorists now and then. Since no attack takes place in these events, the media isn't that interested in it, and thus the general population doesn't know or care to know about it either.
I feel like the amount of terrorists that they catch isn't enough of a result to justify the extreme measures that they take. I mean, when was the last time there actually was an attack on American soil by a terrorist organization? I'm more scared of other Americans trying to kill me than some religious nutjobs.