Schneier on Security

Well that sucks...when all my BF2 buddys heard there was an Al Qeada Mod for BF2 they all asked the same thing, "Is it any good?"

Finding out it is all fake... dang.

They missed the best part:

"I was just a boy when the infidels came to my village in their Blackhawk helicopters. The infidels fired at the oilfields and they lit up like the eyes of Allah. Burning oil rained down from the sky and cooked everything it touched. I could only hide myself and cry as my goats were consumed by the fire of black liquid death."

I guess ESRB will have to re-rate BF2 to "A" for "al Quaeda".

Hah! I called it!

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/04/announcing_movi.html#c60964

Yes, it was just a mistake. Oops. Too bad the game developers and script writers have already been moved to Guantanamo and tortured without representation or trial. I'm sure the government will release them eventually, as soon as we are sure they aren't terrorists...

@Joseph

If they ever get released, they'd better know Albanian! ;-)

We laugh because if we don't, we cry. My kids won't believe me when I tell them how great freedom was.

@ac

At the rate things are going, you'll be lucky if your kids don't *have you arrested* for "telling them how great freedom was".

Don't tell them that sniper rifles are very popular in BF2 and other FPS games, it'll just make them even more worried.

This is the DaVinci Code problem - good people will somehow turn into anti-Christian fanatics because they read a mystery novel, or that a two-and-a-half hour film is sufficient to convert someone into an adherent of a specific Gnostic text.

By these lights, I should be volunteering for futuristic bloodsports sponsored by the Liandri Corporation. Where's my flak cannon?

Well, more politicians, as usual mostly Republicans, using "terrorists" to push their own unrelated agenda. Are we surprised?

Heh. I wonder if the government will allow, in a couple of years, Halliburton to spinoff a corporation named Liandri, to solve the unlawful enemy combatant problem and the pourous border problem in one fell swoop. Soccer stadia worldwide will shake in the awe and wonder that is:

"Unreasonable search and Tournament: Gitmo of the Year Edition"

You just could not make this sort of thing up...

Which reminds me Bruce how are the Movi-Plots comming along, and are you going to read one out next time you have to appear before a Gov enquiry?

That just one more proof that the US government is totally insanne!

I still think an Al Qaeda Mod would be interesting... always good to get into the head of the enemy

I don't think a mod for this game (an online multi-player shooter, if I'm not mistaken) will give us a great deal of insight into how terrorists operate.

Nope. A mod for BF2 wouldn't make you an expert on terrorism any more than playing SOCOM 2 makes you a Navy SEAL. These guys have been watching too many late-night repeats of 'Red Dawn' and 'Invasion USA'.

Reminds me of that old debate about the video game called Custer's Revenge (later called Westward Ho).

I heard reports of this actually making it to an arcade version and being installed in bars around the midwest. Could be urban legend, but Nintendo apparently tried to prevent this kind of game from spreading by introducing an authentication chip requirement (alas, which was circumvented by several simple methods).

Wikipedia has a good summary of the game and why it was so controversial:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custer's_Revenge

Gee, look how far we've come in terms of gaming the gaming systems.

That reminds me of this 2004 story in U.S. News and World Reports:

"It was the lead item on the government's daily threat matrix one day last April. Don Emilio Fulci described by an FBI tipster as a reclusive but evil millionaire, had formed a terrorist group that was planning chemical attacks against London and Washington, D.C. That day even FBI director Robert Mueller was briefed on the Fulci matter. But as the day went on without incident, a White House staffer had a brainstorm: He Googled Fulci. His findings: Fulci is the crime boss in the popular video game Headhunter. 'Stand down,' came the order from embarrassed national security types."

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/whispers/articles/040517/17whisplead_2.htm

I found the coverage of this issue from Gonzalo Frasca of watercoolergames very insightful.
"May 09, 2006: Confirmed: US Representatives shown parody videogame as evidence of terrorist activities"
http://www.watercoolergames.org/archives/000555.shtml

"May 12, 2006: Transcripts from the "fake terrorist videogame" Hearings now available"
http://www.watercoolergames.org/archives/000556.shtml

and most recently how Reuters kinda sorta backpedaled on their misreporting 3 weeks ago:
http://www.watercoolergames.org/archives/000559.shtml

Reds Under the Bed!?

This is an example of what happens when a country's well-oiled propoganda machine is running out of control. Even those who should know better than making ad-hoc attempts at spotting terrorists fall prey to the machine.

What we're experiencing here is the fallout from being in a 'War on Terror.'

Think about this;
- What does it mean to have a war on a noun?
- How does that then become an avenue for loose justification of war-related activities, (eg, Person 'A' comes from country 'B' who attacked us, country 'C' is known to harbor terrorists, maybe 'B' and 'C' are somehow linked by terror, lets go to war with 'C'.)?
- How does this become an argurment to infringe on rights, when the lawmakers and leaders tell us that our rights and the war on terror are purchased from the same bank account, or are at two ends of the same scale?
- What impact does the war on terror have when we are told (indirectly) that every citizen is enlisted?

There's a psychological vacuum when fighting an unknown, unseen enemy, who may be your neighbor, who could strike at any time, who 'hates our way of life.' Anybody and everybody clings to any skerrick of tangible evidence of the enemy. In a war against the wind, a swaying tree is not the enemy, nor is a ceiling fan.

If you want to go to war on the wind, you have to know about what produces and sustains it, where it comes from, where it's likely to blow. We haven't seen any government come out with a study into why 'they' hate us, why 'they' hate our way of life, or even what 'they' really want to achieve by terrorising us.

Never mind the spin, Devlin has fallen prey to the same fears we all have, and clutched tightly to an empty hope, thinking that he'd found a tangible proof to justify an intangeble war.

Until western governments start out on a search for the reasons behind terrorism, we'll all be sucked into the psychological vacuum Devlin finds himself in, and it won't stop, and it will never go away.

DIS IS SO STUPID DA ONLY SOLUTION IS 2 KILL ALL TERORISTS