Nobody does it half as good as you, baby you’re the best.
Second Life has long had strange issues, for example there is an issue known as “Prim drift” whereby a prim does not seem to be in the location where you last left it, or prims mysteriously seem to disappear and then reappear, it seems there may be an explanation for this!
The Guardian breaks the news: Spy agencies in covert push to infiltrate virtual world of online gaming. Allegedly, The NSA and GCHQ decided that they need to infiltrate The Horde in World Of Warcraft and human avatars in Second Life. Furries everywhere celebrate smugly at this news. This does possibly explain why The Horde seem to win more often than not in the Warsong Gulch battleground in World Of Warcraft.
Not surprisingly Linden Lab haven’t responded to The Guardians requests, The Guardian claims :
“Microsoft declined to comment on the latest revelations, as did Philip Rosedale, the founder of Second Life and former CEO of Linden Lab, the game’s operator. The company’s executives did not respond to requests for comment.”
However in the land of Azeroth, there has been a response :
“The California-based producer of World of Warcraft said neither the NSA nor GCHQ had sought its permission to gather intelligence inside the game. “We are unaware of any surveillance taking place,” said a spokesman for Blizzard Entertainment. “If it was, it would have been done without our knowledge or permission.” “
I’m sure that the NSA and GCHQ are delighted that their covert efforts went undetected by the GM’s in World Of Warcraft, I mean it would be far more embarrassing for them if Blizzard declared “Yeah, our GM’s knew all about it.”
However the article does suggest that Linden Lab were talking to the security services, indeed it seems Linden Lab tried to sell a use case of virtual worlds as being a place where you could observe the behaviours of non US citizens without leaving the USA. I’m sure those agents who quite enjoyed the idea of leaving US soil to observe the behaviours of non US citizens were a tad miffed about this, although wild speculation that they joined the PN or griefed sims with giant penises to wreak revenge over this suggestion have been strenuously denied. The article claims:
“In May 2007, the then-chief operating officer of Second Life gave a “brown-bag lunch” address at the NSA explaining how his game gave the government “the opportunity to understand the motivation, context and consequent behaviours of non-Americans through observation, without leaving US soil“.
The comments below the article are comedy gold:
“‘I’ve emailed them my Football Manager CV in case they want to expand the program. The email title was “World Domination” so it should be flagged at several points… then again, they might already know that I’ve got back to back Champions League titles with Huddersfield.”
“I’d heard that the govt. agent who played Leeroy Jenkins was promoted to Foreign Policy Dept, so there may be a vacancy there.”
“Tinker, Tailor, Healer, Spy.”
“Where were they when Deathwing attacked?”
Some of the comments suggest the security services are merely having a laugh by getting paid to play online games. There’s also a discussion regarding whether im’s in Second Life are encrypted or not, Redzone even gets a mention, although so far I haven’t seen any comments trying to link the JLU to the NSA or GCHQ, however stay posted.
There is a serious side to all of this and some people will feel great discomfort over these revelations but really, it would be more surprising if the security forces weren’t monitoring the online world, this really shouldn’t come as a big surprise to any of us. Yes there is an Orwellian aspect to all of this and the issues about being monitored are creepy at times but currently I’m finding this way too funny for me to get bent out of shape over it.
In the meantime, pay close attention to that bush or tree on your parcel that seems to display oddities, you never know what you may find inside it!
Snowden has now revealed rthat NSA subjected WoW to Man-in-the-Middle of two Orcs attacks.
And NSA was stunned that Eve Online has a Low Orbit Ion Cannon in actual orbit.
I still like:
Tinker, Tailor, Healer, Spy.
Eve-Online must have been involved too, that place is ripe for it.
Grendel’s Children would be the place to get perfect avatars. Trees, bushes, or even a rock.
How in the world are they gonna sift through all of the pixel humping to get to anything relevant?
I so didn’t want to go there about the pixel humping!