25 February 2008

A Brave New Virtual World


And in "I Can't Believe It's Not April Fools Day" news, the Federal Government is now officially grasping at straws. According to a report from the Director of National Intelligence (a misnomer of mind-numbing proportions), those slippery terrorists aren't going to be able to hide anywhere - and neither are you.

Via Wired:

"Having eliminated all terrorism in the real world, the U.S. intelligence community is working to develop software that will detect violent extremists infiltrating World of Warcraft and other massive multiplayer games... The Reynard project will begin by profiling online gaming behavior, then potentially move on to its ultimate goal of 'automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world.'"

I couldn't believe this myself, but sure enough, it checks out. Of special hilarity, at least to me, is the part where the report talks about identifying "social, behavioral and cultural norms in virtual worlds and gaming environments." These people really don't have a clue, do they?

So what do you think? Spooks in cyberspace are going to be profiling 13 year olds and their online "norms", all in the name of Homeland Security. Is this even remotely rational?

1 comment:

Robert Hawes said...

Absolutely incredible. Paranoia knows no bounds.