US, UK spies target World of Warcraft and other virtual communities

You might want to double-check who’s in your online game party the next time you log in: that high-level Half-Orc Barbarian might actually be a high-level government spy in real life.

 

Secret documents obtained by The Guardian revealed that the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) and its UK counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) have been sending operatives from the real world into at least two virtual worlds: the popular fantasy role-playing game World of Warcraft and the free-roaming real life simulator Second Life.

 

 

Leveling up the spy game

 

According to the newspaper, the NSA document, entitled “Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments,” has established “mass-collection capabilities against the Xbox Live console network”.

 

The document, which dates back to as early as 2008, identifies gaming communities as a “target-rich communications network.”  According to the report, games are seen as an “opportunity” for intelligence targets to “hide in plain sight,” and could yield a significant amount of useful information if efficiently infiltrated.

 

According to The Guardian, the NSA document presents online games 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.”

 

Quest failed?

 

However, the documents did not reveal any significant terrorist plots foiled by the infiltration attempts. No solid evidence was also provided that the NSA’s concerns about terrorist groups using the gaming communities for underhanded purposes were proven to be correct.

 

Additionally, the documents contained no clear information as to how exactly the data was collected or which gamers the operatives collected data from. 

 

As The Guardian noted, “It is unclear how the agencies accessed their data, or how many communications were collected. Nor is it clear how the NSA ensured that it was not monitoring innocent Americans whose identity and nationality may have been concealed behind their virtual avatar.”

 

'No comment'

 

Blizzard Entertainment, the developer and producer of World of Warcraft, denied that either agency secured permission from them to gather information using the game. A spokesman for the California-based company said that Blizzard was “unaware of any surveillance taking place," and that if such activities were indeed happening, they “would have been done without our knowledge or permission.”

 

On the other hand, the Redmond tech giant Microsoft gave no comment when asked about The Guardian’s findings. Philip Rosedale, former CEO of Linden Lab and founder of the Second Life game, has kept silent on the issue, and the current executives of the company declined to give comments as well.

 

The NSA is also mum about the issue of game infiltration. However, a spokesman for GCHQ said that “All GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that its activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and there is rigorous oversight, including from the secretary of state, the interception and intelligence services commissioners and the intelligence and security committee." The spokesman also made it clear that the GCHQ neither confirms nor denies the paper’s revelations.

 

The Guardian published its report in partnership with The New York Times and ProPublica. — TJD, GMA News