<div id="article"><div id="article_body"><h1 id="articlehed">Pentagon Researcher Unveils <cite>Warcraft</cite> Terror Plot</h1> <div class="date_time"> <span style="margin-right: 20px;"><span id="contributor" class="c cs">By Noah Shachtman</span> noah.shachtman@gmail.com</span><span style="margin-right: 20px;">September 15, 2008 | 7:22:00 PM</span>Categories: Cloak and Dagger, T is for Terror, Terror Tech, Training and Sims [/quote] <div id="article_text"><p align="center">
</p><p>The American military and intelligence communities are increasinglyworried that would-be bin Ladens might gather in a virtual world, toplan a real-life attack. But the spies haven't given many details,about how it might be done. Now, a Pentagon researcher has laid out howsuch a terror plot might unfold. The planning ground is World of Warcraft. The main target of this possibly nuclear strike: the White House. </p><p>There's been no public proof to date of terrorists hatching plots in virtual worlds. But online spaces like World of Warcraft are making some spooks, generals and Congressmen extremely nervous.They imagine terrorists rehearsing attacks in these worlds, just likethe U.S. military trains with commercial shoot-em-up games. They worrythat the massively multiplayer games make it incredibly easy to gatherplotters from around the world. But, mostly, virtual worlds arenerve-wracking to spies because they're so hard to monitor.The accounts are pseudonymous. The access is global. The jargon isthick. And most of the spy agencies' employees aren't exactly level-70shamans. </p><p>In a presentation late last week at the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Conference in Washington, Dr. Dwight Toavs,a professor at the Pentagon-funded National Defense University, gave abit of a primer on virtual worlds to an audience largely ignorant aboutwhat happens in these online spaces. Then he launched into a scenario,to demonstrate how a meatspace plot might be hidden by in-gamechatter. </p><p>In it, two World of Warcraft players discuss a raid on the"White Keep" inside the "Stonetalon Mountains." The major objective isto set off a "Dragon Fire spell" inside, and make off with "110 Goldand 234 Silver" in treasure. "No one will dance there for a hundredyears after this spell is cast," one player, "war_monger," crows.</p><p>Except, in this case, the White Keep is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."Dragon Fire" is an unconventional weapon. And "110 Gold and 234Silver" tells the plotters how to align the game's map with one ofWashington, D.C.</p><p align="center">
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</p></div> <p>The fictional plot was originally developed by Dan Arey,for the Director of National Intelligence's Summer Hard Problemsworkshop, or SHARP. And its details are a little fuzzy. The terminology doesn't match World of Warcraft lingo, all that precisely. There is no "White Keep" in World of Warcraft; "Dragon Fire" is a spell in EverQuest, the old-school role-playing game, not WoW. But the banter is reminiscent enough of World of Warcraft talk, to give outsiders an idea of how such a conversation might go down -- and how hard it would be to identify.</p><p>Steven Aftergood, the Federation of the American Scientistsanalystwho's been following the intelligence community for years, wonders howrealistic these sorts of scenarios are, really. "This concern is outthere. But it has to be viewed in context. It's the job of intelligenceagencies to anticipate threats and counter them. With that orientation,they're always going to give more weight to a particular scenario thanan objective analysis would allow," he tells Danger Room. "Couldterrorists use Second Life?Sure, they can use anything. But is it a significant augmentation?That's not obvious. It's a scenario that an intelligence officer isduty-bound to consider. That's all."</p><p>Toavs, for one, believes that spies will have to spend more time in virtual worlds like WoW,if they want to have a hope of keeping tabs on what goes on inside 'em.Which means, some day soon, we might find secret agents in World of Warcraft, along with the druids and orcs and night elves.</p>
</p><p>The American military and intelligence communities are increasinglyworried that would-be bin Ladens might gather in a virtual world, toplan a real-life attack. But the spies haven't given many details,about how it might be done. Now, a Pentagon researcher has laid out howsuch a terror plot might unfold. The planning ground is World of Warcraft. The main target of this possibly nuclear strike: the White House. </p><p>There's been no public proof to date of terrorists hatching plots in virtual worlds. But online spaces like World of Warcraft are making some spooks, generals and Congressmen extremely nervous.They imagine terrorists rehearsing attacks in these worlds, just likethe U.S. military trains with commercial shoot-em-up games. They worrythat the massively multiplayer games make it incredibly easy to gatherplotters from around the world. But, mostly, virtual worlds arenerve-wracking to spies because they're so hard to monitor.The accounts are pseudonymous. The access is global. The jargon isthick. And most of the spy agencies' employees aren't exactly level-70shamans. </p><p>In a presentation late last week at the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Conference in Washington, Dr. Dwight Toavs,a professor at the Pentagon-funded National Defense University, gave abit of a primer on virtual worlds to an audience largely ignorant aboutwhat happens in these online spaces. Then he launched into a scenario,to demonstrate how a meatspace plot might be hidden by in-gamechatter. </p><p>In it, two World of Warcraft players discuss a raid on the"White Keep" inside the "Stonetalon Mountains." The major objective isto set off a "Dragon Fire spell" inside, and make off with "110 Goldand 234 Silver" in treasure. "No one will dance there for a hundredyears after this spell is cast," one player, "war_monger," crows.</p><p>Except, in this case, the White Keep is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."Dragon Fire" is an unconventional weapon. And "110 Gold and 234Silver" tells the plotters how to align the game's map with one ofWashington, D.C.</p><p align="center">
</p><p align="center">
</p></div> <p>The fictional plot was originally developed by Dan Arey,for the Director of National Intelligence's Summer Hard Problemsworkshop, or SHARP. And its details are a little fuzzy. The terminology doesn't match World of Warcraft lingo, all that precisely. There is no "White Keep" in World of Warcraft; "Dragon Fire" is a spell in EverQuest, the old-school role-playing game, not WoW. But the banter is reminiscent enough of World of Warcraft talk, to give outsiders an idea of how such a conversation might go down -- and how hard it would be to identify.</p><p>Steven Aftergood, the Federation of the American Scientistsanalystwho's been following the intelligence community for years, wonders howrealistic these sorts of scenarios are, really. "This concern is outthere. But it has to be viewed in context. It's the job of intelligenceagencies to anticipate threats and counter them. With that orientation,they're always going to give more weight to a particular scenario thanan objective analysis would allow," he tells Danger Room. "Couldterrorists use Second Life?Sure, they can use anything. But is it a significant augmentation?That's not obvious. It's a scenario that an intelligence officer isduty-bound to consider. That's all."</p><p>Toavs, for one, believes that spies will have to spend more time in virtual worlds like WoW,if they want to have a hope of keeping tabs on what goes on inside 'em.Which means, some day soon, we might find secret agents in World of Warcraft, along with the druids and orcs and night elves.</p>
