Schneier on Security

Andrew • August 2, 2007 1:13 AM

I hate to burst your bubble, Bruce, but this article is actually dead on.

Terrorists can train and do rehearsals in virtual space. Some of them are doing it. Doing it on Second Life would be kind of stupid, though. The military gains significant training benefit from certain video games, starting with the early mod of DOOM called “Marine Doom” and moving up through “America’s Army.” The Navy has used Harpoon and variants for years. Note that the September 11th terrorists used high-end flight simulators.

As long as there are a lot more good guys benefiting from training on line, than bad guys, so much the better. Plus the chance to catch bad guys using the Internet.

Intelligence analyst Roderick Jones, who is investigating the potential use of the games by terrorists, says SL could easily become a terror classroom.

I know some people on SL called “griefers” who are using these kind of tactics. They can’t do any “real” damage, of course, but they can test out attack modalities and gauge psychological impact. B-tards aren’t terrorists, not hardly, but they are doing the virtual-world equivalent of throwing stink bombs in a crowded theater. This kind of rehearsal is actually more interesting than physical attacks — because ultimately, a terrorist attack takes place in the brain of the people who hear about it. One reason I’m so frustrated with the “current regime” is the extent that they play up the terrorists and thereby amplify terrorist effectiveness at damaging the American people.

However, I’m much more worried about the use of virtual worlds as a recruitment tool, using time-honored real world techniques to separate the sheep from the goats. I’m reminded of one video game called “Concentration Camp Manager” reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KZ_Manager The kind of thing only an extremist would waste any time on.

A positive trend is the use of games to show the effects of and reconstruct real life events. The following controversial game is one such effort: http://www.columbinegame.com/

I will change my opinion the first time someone kills someone else in real life using mouse clicks.

If you have the mount, optics and stabilization, hooking it up to a Web browser is easy:

http://www.roi.bourns.com/weapon/crows.asp

Andrew • December 6, 2007 5:38 PM

Isn’t it just a matter of Second Life Linden Lab staff finding them and hitting the delete button.
They got rid of gambling and underage role play pretty quick because the government ‘asked them to’. I’m sure they could easiyl start listing griefers and blocking their ip’s or something. Or better yet just hand what they find to the cyber cops, let them handle it.

And don’t forget, it may be laughable that someone would ‘train’ in sl to become a real terrorist. But it is a pretty safe place for a group to meet up and discuss plans or whatever, pass pictures etc to eachother. Email is easily traced and trackable. Second Life could become a sneaky way of passing info around. You dont even have to be in the same sim. I’m sure the cyber police are all over IM, usenet, the web etc..
but Second Life is something new.