The Guardian reports today that, according to classified documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the NSA had agents infiltrate online worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life in order to gather intelligence.
The NSA document, written in 2008 and titled Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments, stressed the risk of leaving games communities under-monitored, describing them as a “target-rich communications network” where intelligence targets could “hide in plain sight”.
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If properly exploited, games could produce vast amounts of intelligence, according to the NSA document. They could be used as a window for hacking attacks, to build pictures of people’s social networks through “buddylists and interaction”, to make approaches by undercover agents, and to obtain target identifiers (such as profile photos), geolocation, and collection of communications.
Being paid by the NSA to play World of Warcraft sounded like a pretty sweet gig to quite a few.
Last thing I heard was that the NSA WoW nerds found a cool way to get government funding for their WoW addiction.
— Stefan Esser (@i0n1c) December 9, 2013
NSA is scouring WoW for terrorist clues? Someone at the NSA just negotiated the best job ever!
"I have 12 level 90s and was paid to do it!"— Tycer (@tycertank) December 9, 2013
https://twitter.com/violentfanon/status/410163719998824449
The NSA is playing WoW: pic.twitter.com/5fJqfg16lE
— Dan Stuckey (@danstuckey) December 9, 2013
Seriously though, how stoked are you as an NSA agent when you successfully convince the budget committee playing WoW should be your job?
— Cassandra, Irredeemable Pudgy Nobody (@ChrisWarcraft) December 9, 2013
wrt: http://t.co/NOoM1i0mc8 <– why do i envision some agent just wanting to play games? 'Yeah boss, terrorists totally use WoW'
— isaac (@_wirepair) December 9, 2013
A lot of the NSA’s codenames suddenly make a lot more sense if they were all heavily into WoW.
— Tom Phillips (@flashboy) December 9, 2013
Listen skeptics, the NSA’s WoW program has averted dozens of Arcane Blast, Starsurge, & Soul Fire attacks on U.S. soil. Be thankful!
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) December 9, 2013
The NSA spying on World Of Warcraft…the funniest and saddest thing I've heard all month.
— Vanna Vandal (@SkullnBows77) December 9, 2013
"If the NSA can get any "intelligence" out of trade chat in WoW, they deserve every penny they're being paid… " best response yet.
— Derevka (@Derevka) December 9, 2013
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