The NSA tracks World of Warcraft and other online games

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Re: The NSA tracks World of Warcraft and other online games

Postby Twistappel » Tue Dec 10, 2013 3:25 am

Seriously though, I assume it's less a matter of intelligence agencies believing that your average gamer is secretly plotting to commit acts of terrorism and more that they thought it worth checking that people already involved in extremist organisations weren't using gaming communities as a means of communication. It seems reasonable to assume that people who are up to no good are constantly looking for novel ways to communicate.

Former NSA agent John Pescatore, who is presently director of emerging technologies at the SANS Institute, said the NSA's effort to mine intelligence data from online gaming networks is not all that surprising. "Years ago, law enforcement and the intelligence community were concerned about criminal and terrorist use of online services like AOL or Compuserve," he said. "So, I'm not surprised they would look at the online gaming world -- they are just another form of online service."

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Whether or not they found anything, or even went about the task particularly competently in the first place is open to question, but I can't really blame them for wanting to check.
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Re: The NSA tracks World of Warcraft and other online games

Postby blehblah » Tue Dec 10, 2013 4:00 am

Sister Morphine wrote:Seriously though, I assume it's less a matter of intelligence agencies believing that your average gamer is secretly plotting to commit acts of terrorism and more that they thought it worth checking that people already involved in extremist organisations weren't using gaming communities as a means of communication. It seems reasonable to assume that people who are up to no good are constantly looking for novel ways to communicate.

Former NSA agent John Pescatore, who is presently director of emerging technologies at the SANS Institute, said the NSA's effort to mine intelligence data from online gaming networks is not all that surprising. "Years ago, law enforcement and the intelligence community were concerned about criminal and terrorist use of online services like AOL or Compuserve," he said. "So, I'm not surprised they would look at the online gaming world -- they are just another form of online service."

Article


Whether or not they found anything, or even went about the task particularly competently in the first place is open to question, but I can't really blame them for wanting to check.



Ah, Mr Prescatore, former Gartner dude... there's a whole other subject right there.

Under that definition, any and all communication is worth checking, isn't it? It used to be tapping phone lines, which really meant monitoring inbound and outbound communication to/from a person of interest. That broadened to include monitoring data connections to/from a destination. That, in-turn, broadened because someone can go into an Internet cafe, or wherever, and communicate. The land-line equivalent is tapping every phone in the US because the target could possibly use a payphone, hotel phone, or really, any phone to make a call... so, tap them all.

The idea is to capture everything, and ask for permission later.

Everything means exactly what it sounds like.

Where pesky laws get in the way, offload it to private companies, or find other ways to get it done.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/snowden ... -1.2456886

Because that's what friends are for. Or...

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/12/06 ... tive-says/
http://www.zdnet.com/nsa-spies-on-its-o ... 000023454/
http://rt.com/news/nsa-snowden-spying-us-australia-767/

The big problem is that the NSA is doing things beyond what their 'friends' could have possibly imagined.

http://www.dw.de/us-lawmakers-push-for- ... a-17246049

Germany is pissed, as are most NATO countries, because the NSA was tapping them while they thought they were helping the NSA tap everyone else! It's ludicrous.

So, if you're fine with tapping everything, everywhere, all the time, then it's all good.

To say that you can't really blame them for wanting to check because maybe some perhaps-extremists were potentially doing something based on wild-assed guesses... that's looking at a tiny slice of the issue and saying, "Meh, whatevs".

Me? I think I'll start a new public-cloud-based service called /dev/NSA. For a small fee, I'll pipe your everything right over there. I mean, if you don't have anything to hide, you'll subscribe! Hey, it even rhymes.

You heard it here first!

Blehblah's NSA-as-a-Service*
Because if you don't have anything to hide, you'll subscribe!



*Slightly associated with http://foaas.com/
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Re: The NSA tracks World of Warcraft and other online games

Postby gregfrankenstein » Tue Dec 10, 2013 4:07 am

"But Mom, I don't want to have Special Agent Davidson follow me into the bathroom."

"Aha! You're hiding something! TERRORIST!"
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Re: The NSA tracks World of Warcraft and other online games

Postby NotCIAAgent » Tue Dec 10, 2013 4:28 am

Well... NSA.

What else can you expect from that bunch of nerds?

They only send there the candidates that fainted halfway the obstacle course.

Not that I know. Heard. From someone. Forget it. IAMNOTANAGENT!

*shifty eyes, putting on a fedora hat, dark glasses, button the rain coat and walk to a shadowy corner to attract less attention*
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Re: The NSA tracks World of Warcraft and other online games

Postby Twistappel » Tue Dec 10, 2013 4:46 am

blehblah wrote:Under that definition, any and all communication is worth checking, isn't it?


Yes, actually. That is after all, the NSA's function.

I'm not saying that we should all put up with any and all government monitoring of communications on this basis, or that there doesn't need to be some balance between national security and personal privacy. Nor am I necessarily defending the way that governments go about actually checking up on this stuff.

I was merely making the point that intelligence agencies are probably motivated than a little more than a casual assumption that the run-of-the-mill chucklefucks who inhabit WoW must be plotting to take over the world. The idea of terrorists using MMOs to communicate isn't as absurd as people are making out.

As for the USA (or any other country for that matter) spying on its allies (cf "friends"), I don't believe that the scandals that erupt when that sort of thing comes to light are anything more than political posturing. Of course nation states spy on each other, including their allies. If governments don't think that this kind of thing goes on (while secretly doing the same thing themselves) they are unspeakably naive.
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Re: The NSA tracks World of Warcraft and other online games

Postby Learned Nand » Tue Dec 10, 2013 5:04 am

Sister Morphine wrote:Yes, actually. That is after all, the NSA's function.

I'm not sure about that. The NSA's function is really code-breaking and decryption. It's just that, given the nature of public key encryption, that's kind of what spying is now.
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Re: The NSA tracks World of Warcraft and other online games

Postby Twistappel » Tue Dec 10, 2013 5:35 am

aviel wrote:
Sister Morphine wrote:Yes, actually. That is after all, the NSA's function.

I'm not sure about that. The NSA's function is really code-breaking and decryption. It's just that, given the nature of public key encryption, that's kind of what spying is now.


That may have been their original purpose, but most of the sources I've seen also include the monitoring and collection of intelligence through the interception of signals in their function. For example, the NSA's own mission statement.

Granted, there seems to be some debate about their authority to spy on US Citizens (which I'm not going to get into), but signals intelligence certainly seems to be a significant part of their mandate.
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Re: The NSA tracks World of Warcraft and other online games

Postby gregfrankenstein » Wed Dec 11, 2013 12:24 am

Oh man, I can't top this.

Jon Stewart wrote:Well I guess that does make some sense; you know how Islamic terrorists do like to be surrounded by seventy-two virgins.
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Re: The NSA tracks World of Warcraft and other online games

Postby blehblah » Wed Dec 11, 2013 3:38 am

gregfrankenstein wrote:Oh man, I can't top this.

Jon Stewart wrote:Well I guess that does make some sense; you know how Islamic terrorists do like to be surrounded by seventy-two virgins.


Dude, it's actually an erroneous translation of the original text. It should be, "Like to be surrounded by other level seventy-two virgins". I mean, seventy-two other people? Rare is the hard-core WoW player who is that social.
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