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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe NSA is recruiting elves and gnomes now:
Spies Dragnet Reaches a Playing Field of Elves and Trolls
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.
Online games might seem innocuous, a top-secret 2008 N.S.A. document warned, but they had the potential to be a target-rich communication network allowing intelligence suspects a way to hide in plain sight. Virtual games are an opportunity! another 2008 N.S.A. document declared.
But for all their enthusiasm so many C.I.A., F.B.I. 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.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/world/spies-dragnet-reaches-a-playing-field-of-elves-and-trolls.html?_r=0
What? No Angry Birds?
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)Creepy thing's been snooping around my house lately.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)since there aren't enough real threats to occupy their time, or justify their budget.