Videogame Character Threatens National Security?

Watchful Babbler writes "Apparently, 'the lead item on the government's daily threat matrix one day last April' was clear and definite: a reclusive millionaire had formed a terrorist group with the intent of launching chemical weapons attacks on Western cities. The White House was notified and the Director of the FBI briefed as the government raced to find information. But then, according to USNews.com, a White House staffer decided to Google for information on suspected threat Don Emilio Fulci and found him -- in a video game - Sega's action title Headhunter. No word on exactly which sources and methods came up with this gem, but word in the E Ring is that Fulci had issued the cryptic warning, 'You have no chance to survive make your time'."

Hmmm

[Neil Blender]

Sounds like the government was trolled.

Notice how the date is in April?

[foidulus]

Could the world's most elaborate April fools be amiss?

In other news

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Government sues Mario. Nintendo execs in jail...

Amazing

[DiscordOfFive]

Wow. At least we know their intel gathering stuff works.... It just can't tell reality from fantasy.

Easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Just recruit Mario Mario and his brother Luigi Mario. They're able to stop any trouble that comes their way.

Oh, you may need to pardon them for their mushroom usage, but it's for a good cause.

Re:Hmmm

[Bobdoer]

So, do you think they'd fall for the Goaste link? Or would they be more susceptible to Tubgirl?

I also hear...

[decipher_saint]

...that the Princess has been captured again. Good thing Google is up to date on terrorist kidnappings too.

CAPPS II

[JohnGrahamCumming]

I wonder if he was added to the CAPPS II system as a "no fly" person.

John.

Re:Hmmm

[Frymaster]

-1 national security threat

Threat matrix?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone care to explain this? According to Google it's some kind of TV show...

"Sir, we've received a terrorist threat!"

[Nova Express]

"Against what?"

"Every single military installation worldwide!"

"Really? What did it say?"

"'All Your Base Are Belong To Us."

They Got Told

[RabidChicken]

*NSA Laughs and nervously rubs neck*
Yeah, that Splinter Cell is just a silly ol' game too.

Re:Jesus Fucking Christ.

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't funny, for fuck's sake, this is downright worrying as hell.

Where's the option to filter out posts from late-model Slashdroids again?

*sigh*

Today's Threat Matrix

[raehl]

NYC sewer system may be target of a disgruntled mafia splinter group, ringleaders believed to be two brothers named Mario and Luigi.

Re:In other news

[KeeperS]

I'm not surprised. Mario is a communist [the-i.org], after all.

Aha!

[sterno]

That would explain the missing WMD's quite nicely :)

easy as that

[6pak]

wonder if anyone in the white house did consider calling spiderman for help. keep watching the night sky if you happen to live in D.C...

If you ask that sort of question ...

[burgburgburg]

or in fact ask any questions or even allow yourself in the solitary darkness to in any way doubt the true path that our holy warriors have been set by our commander in chief and recipient of the true word, then the terrorists have won.

A relocation expert from sunny Guantanamo Bay will be coming by in a few minutes to assist you in understanding the heretical error in your ways. I hope you're photogenic.

Cover for real terrorists

[HermesHuang]

Once this story gets out someone's going to realize that they can disguise an underground movement by naming it after a video game's bad guys. Then the FBI will think it's just a video game clan.

Another News Flash

[rinkjustice]

Somebody better tell the US government there's flaming skull guys [doomworld.com] floating around too (and they look like they're up to no good).

Gameshark

[The_Rippa]

We'll, then all the FBI has to do is plug in their Gameshark and enter the following codes...

Hero Is Immortal 24509328 36F055F8
Enemies Are Blind 24109228 36705568

Re:Hmmm

[mfh]

> Sounds like the government was trolled.
By Sega, no less!

Update...

[hoggoth]

> 'the lead item on the government's daily threat matrix one day last April'

Slight typo, that was supposed to read:
'the lead item on the government's daily threat matrix day one last April'

In other news

[DrugCheese]

Sorry Mario, but our princess is in another castle ...

The Feds Are On The Case!

[Steve B]

They've already kept steps to keep this dangerous terrorist from getting his hands on a handbook for computer crime [sjgames.com].

BULLSHIT

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Try googleing on "Don Emilio Fulci" and you will get two links. One is the story that we saw, and the other is in Italian.

Are we expected to believe that our security agents were able to decode a web page written in Italian? That's just asking us to believe too much.

Re:I also hear...

[geekschmoe]

sorry mario, but your terrorist leader is in another castle!

Re:I also hear...

[MisterFancypants]

Sorry, Dubya, but the WMDs are in another bunker !!!!!

Re:relax, it's just an abhorrence

[Tackhead]

> They probably got this from some data mining software that processes internet traffic. I'm not surprised that a program would pick this up and not realize that it's a fictional character.

Which reminds me, never mind this Fulci guy, it's been over 20 years and they still haven't found Carmen Sandiego! Where in the world is she?

In other news

[mbkennel]

Rumors among the jihadi-message boards say that Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have started communicating to each other and their followers "in the open", under code names "Darth Sidious" and "Darth Maul".

The National Security Agency said that comment it will not, but you mustn't underestimate the power of the Emperor.

Re:Funny, Not...

[jnicholson]

First of all, it might have been a real group using obviously fake names to make the threat seem less real, and thus needed investigation.

Second, anything that distracts shrub from coming up with more fun-and-games that turn into PR disasters in Iraq, is good.

Latest addition to axis of evil

[Zareste]

Fortunately, the FBI is spending millions of taxpayer dollars to buy entertainment systems for all their agents. Police are working round the clock to beat the game and defeat this criminal, the Bush administration is reinstating the draft to illuminate the threat, the government is commissioning programmers to build a ten-story Gameshark, and military units are already being convicted of abusing NPCs

In other news...

[HaloZero]

Law enforcement agencies all across the United States are searching for Tommy Vercetti [imdb.com]. He is wanted for a string of felonies including (but not limited to) murder, assualt, battery, weapons sales, grand larceny, and above all else Grand Theft Auto.

All your Iraq are belong to U.S.

[macshune]

While I won't say whether I agree with the war or not, a spontaneous parody is definitely in order.

In A.D. 2003
War was beginning.

Saddam: What happen?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal
Saddam: What!
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's you! We met in the '80s!
RUMSFELD: How are you gentlemen!!
RUMSFELD: All your Iraq are belong to U.S.
RUMSFELD: We are on the way to your weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam: What you say!!
RUMSFELD: You have no chance to survive make your time.
RUMSFELD: Ha Ha Ha Ha...

Re:Brain fart

[kirun]

They'd use all their money to invent a time machine, then go back in time and play the stock market to get the money.

TIA refund please.

[twitter]

So, billions of dollars later, this is what we can expect from Total Information Awareness? I'll bet a nickle that this floated up their system from being automatically gathered off people's computers and web pages. Enough hits made it right! I want a refund, my privacy back and for those morons to quit thinking that they can prevent crimes by reading my email, browsing and text on my computer.

Re:I also hear...

[LostCluster]

After what The Pentagon thought was successful military invasion to rescue that princess, they discovered what they thought was the woman and brought her out only to be told "Thank you GWB, but our princess is in another castle!"

Well I've found the...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...WMD [sourceforge.net].

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, the Goatse Guy *is* in fact a threat to National Security. He is clearly demonstrating a viable way to smuggle WMD's across the border.

Re:Hmmm

[jacumba]

He was going to attack using his diabolical new weapon which could make DiHydrogen Monoxide fall from the sky!

National Security Threats

[commodoresloat]

Come on folks, don't be naive. Just because this guy is a video game character does not make him any less a threat to national security. Do we really need another 9/11-style attack before we wake up? Remember after 9/11 when it turned out that the Sesame Street character Bert (of Ernie and Bert) was working closely with Osama bin Laden [slashdot.org]? Now I don't know a lot about this Don Emilio guy but I will feel much safer when he is locked away in Guantanamo, or at least huddling in a cave in Pakistan somewhere taunting us with audio tapes while American bombs explode nearby....

Re:Notice how the date is in April?

[DJStealth]

I once had a security officer in an Airport stop to ask me "Where is South Park" (I was wearing a South Park T-shirt with writing in Hebrew & English), trying not to laugh, I responded that its a TV show. He then proceeded to ask me to take off my shoes and checked me for explosives.

Re:Hmmm

[DavidBrown]

So, do you think they'd fall for the Goaste link? Or would they be more susceptible to Tubgirl?

I think that Goatse was implicated in the recent Iraqi prisoner mistreatment scandal.

Re:"says no such thing" ?!?

[AndroidCat]

Meanwhile, the real Don Emilio Fulci is laughing his ass off in his secret lair. "All it took was a few million dollars in bribes at Sega to have myself added to a video game, then a careful leak to the FBI. Now no US government agent will dare to say that he suspects Emilio Fulci. BWAHAHAHA!" :^)

Re:In other news

[Chalybeous]

He wouldn't be the first fictional character to do so. If I were in the US, I'd be voting Cthulhu for President [cthulhu.org] - after all, why settle for the lesser evil? ;-)

Re:"Sir, we've received a terrorist threat!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Its been said once and I'll say it again...

Its all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

Re:competence

[Doc Ruby]

Anonymous Ashcroft Coward, your non-sequitur implies that some kind of FBI/CIA "wall" of noncooperation prevents the Dep't of Homeland Security from ruling out cartoons as top terror threats. And you moreover repeat the ridiculous lie from the Justice Department that there's even a "wall" at all, or that Gorelick created one. Where do you get this crap from? Why do you hate America? You hide behind your Anonymous Cowardice like some chickenshit terrorist programmer brainwashing a kid to detonate in a pizza parlor. Why do you hate America?

Re:All your Iraq are belong to U.S.

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

It's been done before. (Like any parody except "All your baked potato taste like peanut butter" hasn't been done....)

In A.D. 2001 [nulldevice.net]
war was beginning.
ARAB: What happen ?
ARAB 2: Somebody set up us the bomb.
ARAB 3: We get signal.
SADDAM: What !
ARAB 3: Main screen turn on.
SADDAM: It's you !!
GWB: How are you gentlemen !!
GWB: All your no fly zone are belong to us.
GWB: You are on the way to destruction.
SADDAM: What you say !!
GWB: You have no chance to survive make your time.
GWB: Ha ha ha ha ....
SADDAM: Take off every 'MiG'!!
SADDAM: You know what you doing.
SADDAM: Move 'MiG'.
SADDAM: For great Allah.

Secret Code in Zero Wing

[Fryth]

It's really Japanese video game programmers whom the US military should be afraid of. "Somebody set up us the bomb" read backwards is "Bomb the US, upset somebody!" Looks like they are using a false pretense of a bad translation to hide secret code messages to their allies.

That's Nothing....

[stygar]

...I hear Ashcroft was this close to putting out a worldwide APB on a bald guy in a grey suit who puts his pinky to his mouth when he talks.

He was a little embarassed at first, but Lockheed Martin now has a $10 Million contract to study the feasability of sharks with frickin' laser beams.

Re:Imminent Threat

[cheezedawg]

The chemical weapons used in iran came in 2 forms.

From the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute [sipri.se]

The absence in the sample analysed in Sweden and Switzerland of polysulphides and of more than a trace of sulphur indicates that it is not of past US-government manufacture, for all US mustard was made by the Levinstein process from ethylene and mixed sulphur chlorides. That process is also said to have been the one used by the USSR. From similar reasoning, British-made mustard, too, can probably be ruled out, even though substantial stocks were once held at British depots in the Middle East.

Re:Imminent Threat

[cheezedawg]

I'm so glad you mentioned Cuba, WMDs and so forth. We made invasion noises at Cuba immediately after Castro showed up, very similar to how we've been making invasion noises at Iraq for some time. Of course Saddam was looking for some way to deter us from invading his country.

The UNSEC unanimously voted 17 times under chapter VII of the UN resolution that Iraq needed to be disarmed. The same can not (and could not) be said about Cuba.

Now, I'm not trying to take Saddam's side in this, I just don't think Bush should've gone in there so soon.

So soon? It took 12 freakin years! We also waited 14 months after President Bush included them in the "Axis of Evil". At any point during that time Iraq could have started to cooperate, but they never did. How long to you think we should wait???

we have already lost the war against terror

What? In 2003, terrorism was at its lowest level since 1969 [state.gov]. I'd call that some progress in the war against terror.

Re:Hmmm

[wackysootroom]

Don't you mean weapons of *ass* destruction?